[7] The Army was catering to the anxiety of settlers who called the conflict the Messiah War and were worried the ceremonial Ghost Dance signified a potentially dangerous Sioux resurgence.

One version of events maintains that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it.

The entire livelihood of the plains tribes revolved around the bison, and without the resources the animal offered, their cultures rapidly lost stability and security.

[19] U.S. settlers were alarmed by the sight of the many Great Basin and Plains tribes performing the Ghost Dance, worried that it might be a prelude to armed attack.

The troopers escorted the Native Americans about five miles (eight kilometers) westward to Wounded Knee Creek where they told them to make camp.

[29] At daybreak on December 29, 1890, Forsyth ordered the surrender of weapons and the immediate removal of the Lakota from the "zone of military operations" to awaiting trains.

A medicine man named Yellow Bird allegedly harangued the young men who were becoming agitated by the search, and the tension spread to the soldiers.

[32] Survivor Wasumaza, one of Big Foot's warriors who later changed his name to Dewey Beard, recalled Black Coyote was unable to hear.

The rifle was discharged and a battle occurred, not only the warriors but the sick Chief Spotted Elk, and a large number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering over the prairie were hunted down and killed.

"[36] Modern historians, including Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, have supported that Black Coyote was deaf, and that he owned a new Winchester rifle.

The burial party found the deceased frozen; they were gathered up and placed in a mass grave on a hill overlooking the encampment from which some of the fire from the Hotchkiss guns originated.

Miles promoted the conclusion that Wounded Knee was a deliberate massacre rather than a tragedy caused by poor decisions, in an effort to destroy the career of Forsyth.

[43] Many non-Lakota living near the reservations interpreted the battle as the defeat of a murderous cult; others confused Ghost Dancers with Native Americans in general.

[44] Soon after the event, Dewey Beard, his brother Joseph Horn Cloud, and others formed the Wounded Knee Survivors Association, which came to include descendants.

(The Oglala Sioux tribal already owned one acre of Land from Wounded Knee which was donated by the Red Cloud Indian school on the site of the Sacred Heart church had stood.

[49] The Drexel Mission Fight was an armed confrontation between Lakota warriors and the United States Army that took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on December 30, 1890, the day following Wounded Knee.

The fight occurred on White Clay Creek approximately 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Pine Ridge, where Lakota fleeing from the continued hostile situation surrounding the massacre at Wounded Knee had set up camp.

Company K was pinned down in a valley by the combined Lakota forces and had to be rescued by the 9th Cavalry, an African American regiment nicknamed the "Buffalo Soldiers".

[50] Among the Lakota warriors was a young Brulé from Rosebud named Plenty Horses, who had recently returned from five years at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

A week after this fight, Plenty Horses shot and killed army lieutenant Edward W. Casey,[51] commandant of the Cheyenne Scouts (Troop L, 8th Cavalry).

The testimony introduced at the trial of Plenty Horses and his subsequent acquittal also helped abrogate the legal culpability of the U.S. Army for the deaths at Wounded Knee.

[54] Historian Will G. Robinson notes that, in contrast, only three Medals of Honor were awarded among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of World War II.

[59] In February 2021, the South Dakota Senate unanimously called upon the United States Congress to investigate the 20 medals of honor awarded to members of the 7th Cavalry for their participation in the massacre.

[61] The provision was incorporated into the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act, but was removed in conference with the explanation that "these Medals of Honor were awarded at the prerogative of the President of the United States, not the Congress.

"[69] Oliver “O.J.” Semans, a lead advocate for revoking the medals, also criticized the review process, noting that “military historians weren’t used, and it was done over such a short period of time that evidence really couldn’t be put together.”[70]

In 1891 The Ghost Shirt, thought to have been worn by one who died in the massacre, was brought to Glasgow, Scotland, by George C Crager, a Lakota Sioux interpreter with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

The ceremony has attracted more participants each year and riders and their horses live with the cold weather, as well as the lack of food and water, as they retrace the path that their family members took to Wounded Knee.

Artillery Captain Allyn Capron Troop A, Indian Scouts Lakota[1] 120 men, 230 women and children[10] The incident was initially referred to as the "Battle of Wounded Knee".

[84] When the line was used as the title of historian Dee Brown's 1970 best-selling book, awareness was raised and Benet's phrase became popularly associated with the incident.

[92] The Wounded Knee Massacre, and the events leading to it, constitute the final chapter of Złoto Gór Czarnych (Gold of the Black Hills), a trilogy of novels told from the perspective of the Santee Dakota tribe by Polish author Alfred Szklarski and his wife Krystyna Szklarska.