Wounded Knee, South Dakota

The Wounded Knee Massacre was not one of the great moments in U.S. history. On December 29, 1890 500 U.S. Army cavalry troops had surrounded an encampment of Lakota (Sioux) Indians. They were the last Indians still at war with the U.S., but had finally agreed to stop fighting. During their disarmament, confusion with a deaf tribesman lead to chaos and mayhem.

When it was all over, about 300 men, women, and children of the Lakota had been killed. 25 US troops were dead, some probably killed by “friendly fire.” 150 Indians were thought to have fled, but many of them later died of hypothermia.

Inexplicably, the United States Army awarded the massacre’s participants the most “Medals of Honor” that have ever been awarded in a single engagement.

The bodies were unceremoniously dumped in a mass grave. Not until 1903 was a monument placed on the site by surviving relatives. The site, located in the “Pine Ridge Indian Reservation” (not a name used much by its residents) in southern South Dakota, has been declared a National Historic Landmark.

Though it is the eighth-largest reservation in the United States, larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, most of the land comprising the reservation lies within Shannon County and Jackson County, two of the poorest counties in the United States.