1. The Wounded Knee Massacre and the Ghost Dance
Morgan Stanley, Candace Burke, and Zach Parrish

2. Who was Involved? Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer Wovoka Sioux
Crazy Horse
Tatanka Yotanka or Sitting Bull
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was the leader of the Army who violated the Sioux treaty to prospect for gold in the Black Hills.
Crazy Horse was one of leaders who rebelled against the Whites.
Wovoka had the vision that created the Ghost Dance.
The Wounded Knee Massacre killed 290 Sioux (an Indian tribe)
Sitting Bull is a Sioux tribe leader who wanted to fight against the whites.

3. Summary
When gold and precious metals were found in Native American land, many new people cam and took over the valuable land.
Many Native Americans were forced to move out of there land and to go reservations.
The Sioux tribe did not like this so Sitting Bull started persuading them to fight back.
Sitting Bull was then captured and taken to prison.

4. Summary
In 1868, Sitting Bull, a member of Hunkpapa Sioux, was determined to resist the U.S. government who was starting to view the Great Plains as more then just a dumping ground for Indians, but as a pathway to California. Sitting Bull led a group of Sioux who refused to sign a treaty confining the tribe to a reservation. The Army violated the Sioux treaty prospect for gold in the Black Hills, the government launched attacks against Sitting Bull’s branch and declared all of the reservation-dwellers prisoners of war. On June 17 of that year, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and other fugitive Sioux surprised an Army unit at Rosebud Creek in southeastern Montana and forced in to retreat. The following week, Custer’s 7th cavalry approached the sprawling riverside camp. No one knows why the commander ordered his men to charge the Indians before the unexpected reinforcements arrived. Of more than 200 U.S. troops and their mounts, only one horse, named Comanche, survived the resulting slaughter. The incident lent a bitter flavor to the nation’s centennial celebrations on July 4. Sitting Bull knew that they would have to pay for the blow they had dealt with the Army. The tribes that gathered went their separate ways and some went to reservations. But Sitting Bull kept his faith that the Indians could holdout against the white man’s greed. Meanwhile, the government forcibly “purchased” nine million acres from the reservation Sioux. For five more years, Sitting Bull and his people wandered in the wilderness, resisting U.S. demands for their surrender. In 1881, the government agents broke their word and arrested Sitting Bull and he was held in military prison for two years before being released into the custody of Interior Department agents at Standing Rock Reservation. Through many newspaper accounts, Sitting Bull had brought him international fame. He returned back to the reservation in The government was trying to force the Sioux to sell more land, so the chief took up his old cause of resistance. Within a couple of years, the government had won again and divided the reduced reservation into six parts. Life for the Sioux became more and more miserable.

5. Summary
Sitting Bull became famous for his attempt to save the land that was his.
Wovoka started a new religion when he had a vision of the land like how it used to be.
The Ghost Dance started as a part of this new religion and many Native Americans followed this belief.
The Ghost Dance shirts were thought to be a protection from a white man’s gun.

6. Summary
Around this same time, a new religious movement was spreading among Indian tribes all across the west. Far away in Nevada, a Paiute Indian Farmer named Wovoka was telling his people about a vision he had which all of his ancestors and buffalo killed by the whites had rose from the dead, restoring to old Indian life forever. Since, there was an increasing number of whites, many Indians listened. They began performing a dance that Wovoka said would make the vision come true. Whites called this dance the Ghost Dance. It combined earlier Indian prophecies with elements of Christianity the Wovoka picked up from missionaries and white neighbors. When Sitting Bull heard about the energy and excitement that the Ghost Dance was stirring among other tribes, he thought about his own people and how they were practically starving on government rations, and the government had told them that they could no longer hunt for food. This wasn’t practical, especially with the winter ahead. In October 1890, Sitting Bull thought that the dance might give his people some hope so he invited the Sioux for another area to come and teach his people the Ghost Dance. With the promise of Indian victory and glory, this tribe quickly attracted many followers. People were doing the dance so much, that no work was getting done. All of the stores, schools, and house stood still. The dancers claimed that the special shirts they wore would repel the white men’s bullets. Even though the Ghost Dance frightened the whites, they could not do anything about it because they had a law that protected their own freedom of religion. The whites saw this new religion more as a rebellion, not a attempt to make sense of the world they are in. All of the dancers had been assembling in the Badlands on Pine Ridge Reservation. Sitting Bull asked for permission to go there, now the government it could have justified having him arrested.

7. Summary
When Sitting Bull got out of prison he heard about the new religion.
He made the guards keeping him away from his tribe to go and meet with the Ghost Dance religion members who went with a more experienced leader when Sitting Bull was put in prison.
The members crowded around his cabin in a way to escape.
Sitting Bull was shot in the head because the barrier of people didn’t work.

8. Summary
Forty-three armed reservation police surrounded his cabin before dawn. A crowd of Ghost Dancers gathered in the cold. When Sitting Bull came out, they tried to prevent his capture, but in the scuffle a policeman shot Sitting Bull through the brain. The news of Sitting Bull’s death spread very quickly. Part of his tribe, turned to Chief Big Foot for guidance. Big Foot was another Sioux resistance leader who had been hiding out with some supporters in the Badlands. He believed that Chief Red Cloud at Pine Ridge, who was experienced in dealing with whites, offered the best protection from the government. So they all went out to meet him. The refugees had little food and many of them walked barefoot on the frozen ground. Many used torn strips of blanket to bind their feet. When cavalry troops intercepted the party, Big Foot surrendered. The troops herded their captives – 120 men and 23 women and children – toward the Army camp at Wounded Knee Creek. During a search for weapons, a medicine man named Yellow Bird, lifted his arms and started a Ghost Dance. As he danced, he sang about strong Sioux hearts and about soldiers’ bullets falling harmless on the prairie. An accidental fire of a rifle set the soldiers in motion. They raised their rifles and began firing. Some Indians grabbed hatchets and knifes from the surrendered pile. Many fell dead. Others, including Big Foot, died where they had been sitting under blankets to keep warm. When the gun went silent, the soldiers remove their own 25 dead. A blizzard that night laid a clean blanket over the corpses of 290 Sioux.

9. Cause and Effect
The precious metals found in this Indian land pushed Native Americans off of there own land.
The Ghost Dance brought the Native Americans spirits up enough to fight for there land back.
The Native Americans lost the battle between them and the Whites. 290 Sioux members died.

10. Bibliography US and Them – Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee