Native Americans – Yesterday and Today

The picture was painted in about 1890. The Indians had already learned a lot about the white settlers who had killed their buffaloes. The Indians needed buffaloes for food and clothes. The settlers had brought diseases that had killed the Indians. They had taken the land that the Indians had lived on and put them on reservations. And they had fought wars against the Indians and killed many of them. But the Indians Wars weren’t over yet...

South Dakota, December 1890: The white settlers were very worried. The Sioux Indians were on their reservation at Pine Ridge. They wanted to go back to their land. The army arrested the Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, and killed him. His tribe decided to live together with another Sioux chief, Big Foot, and his people. But the army found them and took Big Foot and 350 Indians to an army camp at Wounded Knee.

Moving through the snow wasn’t easy. It was dark and very cold when they got to the camp. The Indians were given tents and foot. They tried to sleep but they were very frightend. Outside the tents there were soldiers with rifles and four big guns.

On the next morning the Sioux had to stand in a group with the soldiers around them. The Indians had to put down their rifles. One young man didn’t want to lose his rifle because he had paid a lot of money for it. He was deaf, so perhaps he didn’t hear what the soldiers had said. Suddenly there was a shot. The next moment there were many more shots from the soldiers. Then the big guns began firing. They fried very quickly. Men, woman and children were killed them. Other Indians fought back with knives, but they were killed too.

When the soldiers stopped shooting, more than 300 Sioux were dead. The dead Indians were left in the snow. That was the end of the Indian Wars.