Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
5-1-2002
Abstract
This account by Oglala holy man Black Elk of the 1890 US cavalry massacre of three hundred Sioux Indians, mainly women and children, helps us understand the rhetorical importance of the American Indian Movement's return to Wounded Knee eighty-three years later. The occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973 by the leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) represented a culmination of frustration felt by Native Americans. Magazines as diverse as Time and National Review reported the incident as a staged "pseudo-event" designed to amplify the oppressor/oppressed relationship. News coverage of Wounded Knee included headlines of mockery: "Of Fallen Trees and Wounded Knees," "Pain in the Knee," "Ambush at Credibility Gap," "Not With a Bang," and "Bamboozle Me Not at Wounded Knee."
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (Spring 2002). Published by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Copyright © 2000 Center for Great Plains Studies. Used by permission.