Wounded Knee

The occupation of the community of Wounded Knee—which later became known as the second battle of Wounded Knee by American Indian Movement (AIM) activists and many American Indians—officially began in February 1973 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, although events leading up to the occupation started several years before the actual occupation. Indeed, the same site of the 1973 occupation was the site of the U.S. Army massacre of Chief Big Foot and many unarmed Oglala Sioux men, women, and children in 1890.

Events leading to the second Wounded Knee began when AIM activists Russell Means and Dennis Banks came to southwestern South Dakota to investigate alleged abuses by the Pine Ridge Reservation tribal government headed by President Richard Wilson. A substantial number of the Oglala Sioux on the reservation believed Wilson was misusing tribal funds and opposed his seeming overuse of a goon squad to intimidate the local people. According to Wilson, the name of this squad stood for Guardians of the Oglala Nation. Means and Russell threatened, on behalf of AIM, to take over the Bureau of Indian Affairs office on the Pine Ridge Reservation, a move that, if successful, would essentially mean that they would also be taking over the tribal government.

Political cartoon showing Uncle Sam as charitable toward the suffering of foreigners while massacring American Indians (Wounded Knee).

Source: Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Tribal Council responded by passing an ordinance banning Means and Russell from the reservation. Since these events were taking place on tribal land, the seizure of the BIA office was not seen by the U.S. government as illegal, but as an exercise of self-determination occurring on Indian land. Means and Russell came to the reservation in November 1972 and were arrested by tribal police. The Tribal Council, through the reservation superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, requested federal assistance, since they did not believe that they had the capacity or support that AIM did. Because the BIA—as part of the Department of the Interior—did not have sufficient law enforcement personnel to handle the situation, the request was transferred to the Department of Justice, which agreed to assist.

Shortly before Thanksgiving in 1972, U.S. marshals responded to the call for law enforcement by the Tribal Council. Throughout the following days and weeks AIM supporters organized and demonstrated, and tensions remained high on the Pine Ridge Reservation and surrounding communities. A local American Indian man, Wesley Bad Heart Bull, was stabbed to death in a town just outside the reservation. The white man accused of his death was charged only with second-degree manslaughter. AIM members protested, claiming that the charge was evidence of how little Indian life was valued by the white power structure. In February, as part of the protest against the charges filed for the death of Bad Heart Bull, AIM and other American Indian demonstrators took over the courthouse in Custer, South Dakota, and later burned the courthouse and an unoccupied chamber of commerce. The situation came under control after the use of tear gas, and numerous arrests were made.

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