1973 Siege at Wounded Knee: The Battle America Forgot
The Battle at Wounded Knee taught many important lessons. America must re-learn these lessons before history repeats itself! by Hickory Hendrickson
(libertarian)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The year is 1973. Nixon is inaugurated into his second term and promises to bring back the "rule of law" to his administration. Offensive action is halted in Northern Vietnam. The Watergate Hearings are in full swing. Egypt and Syria trade punches with Israel in the Yom Kipur War and Henry Kissinger starts his term as Secretary of State.
Lost in the confusion of this troubled time, another tragedy and triumph is unfolding on Indian reservations in Nebraska and South Dakota.
It starts in February of 1972 when a 51 year old Oglala man named Raymond Yellow Thunder is abducted and beaten by two white men in Gordon Nebraska. He is then paraded, half-naked, around an American Legion dance, stuffed into the trunk of a car and later abandoned at a Laundromat.
When Yellow Thunders body is found his attackers are arrested but are released without bail soon after being booked.
In response to the brutal murder, the American Indian Movement leads a 200 car caravan to the Gordon Nebraska courthouse and demands justice on behalf of the victims family.
Throughout 1972 Tension mounts on the reservations and a riot breaks out on the steps of the Custer County Court House. The tension culminates with the election of Dick Wilson as President of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Wilson hates AIM and hires a private army of GOONs or, Guardians of the Oglala Nation, to beat, terrorize and murder any AIM supporters they can find.
In the Spring of 1973, AIM turns the caravan of 200 towards the Pine Ridge Government headquarters, determined to remove the corrupt BIA officials from office.
"Our original thought was to go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pine Ridge and physically throw out the government." said one AIM leader "We soon realized that this was impossible, because they had the place completely fortified and had Federal Marshals and BIA pigs all around it, and sand-bags on top, machine guns, and fortifications all over the town. So in order to avoid that kind of pitched battle, we decided to come to Wounded Knee, because of its historic significance to our people, naturally, and the fact that it lies right in the heart of the Pine Ridge Reservation. We felt that by coming here, occupying this town, we would be telling the Sioux Nation that they had someone there to fight for them, to help them fight and protect them."
Cloaked by darkness, the 200 cars wind there way into Wounded Knee South Dakota. Wounded Knee is the site of the 7th Calvary massacre of 300 unarmed Sioux women and children which some people still disgracefully call the "Battle of Wounded Knee".
Morning dawns with AIM in control of the town. They demand hearings on the Fort Laramie Treaties and the removal of corrupt BIA officials.
The U.S. Government surrounds the town with an army of 300 FBI, BIA, Federal Marshals and local Police. They set up roadblocks and demand AIM surrender the town.
AIM sets up their own roadblocks and dig-in for the siege on Wounded Knee they are armed with .22's, Shotguns, hunting riffles and one AK-47 which a Veteran brought back from Vietnam.
"In the first instance since the Civil War that the U.S. Army is dispatched in a domestic operation, the Pentagon invades Wounded Knee with 17 armored personnel carriers, 130,000 rounds of M-16 ammunition, 41,000 rounds of M-1 ammunition, 24,000 flares, 12 M-79 grenade launchers, 600 cases of C-S gas, 100 rounds of M-40 explosives, helicopters, phantom jets, and personnel, all under the direction of General Alexander Haig."
Supporters from the surrounding area bypass government barricades and carry food and ammunition in to Wounded Knee on foot or by horse.
For 70 days constant gun-battles, fire-fights and tear gas barrages turn Wounded Knee into a chaotic battlefield. 100's of supporters from all over America sneak their way into Wounded Knee and join AIM in the battle. Doctors and nurses get past barricades to work in the Wounded Knee clinic.
Supporters protest in the streets of many U.S cities and public attention keeps the Pentagon from launching a full-scale military offensive.
On March 10, the Government takes down their roadblocks. They hope the Indians will leave. Instead, the Indians see this as a victory and take the opportunity to strengthen their position. Hundreds of supporters pour into Wounded Knee, bringing food and medical supplies.
The next day, AIM and the Oglala Sioux elders declared the rebirth of the Independent Oglala Nation.
On March 26 the phone lines are cut and the main-stream media leaves. The FBI starts rounding up and arresting supporters nation-wide. Several activists are murdered including Frank Clearwater, an Apache and Buddy Lamont, an Oglala.
On May 4 the White House sends the Indians a letter promising that White House representatives will meet with the Sioux chiefs to discuss the Fort Laramie Treaty. The Indians agree to end their occupation. Over 150 people leave Wounded Knee, slipping past roadblocks with their weapons.
The Nixon White House quickly breaks it's word, saying, "The days of treaty making with the American Indians ended in 1871, 102 years ago".
69 AIM members are murdered during the violence which follows the siege. Other activists are also murdered. These crimes go unsolved and a media blackout covers Pine Ridge reservation in the years to follow.
"I will stand with my brothers and sisters." says Pedro Bissonette, during the Wounded Knee trials on June 27, 1973. "I will tell the truth about them and about why we went to Wounded Knee. I will fight for my people. I will live for them and, if it is necessary to stop the terrible things that happen to Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I am ready to die for them."
Bissonette is killed three months later by police at a roadblock on the Pine Ridge reservation.
Sources:
Voices From Wounded Knee, by Akwesasne Notes
Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall
Wikipedia
Encarta
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, by Peter Mathiessen
Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Alexander Brown
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You need to get off the Reservation and join the rest of America, I am sorry but your people lost. America belongs to everyone now. Sorry to see that Yellow Thunder was murdered a long time ago, but so were many settlers in the Dakotas. Humans can be evil. Give up the past and join the rest of us.
Thanks for the history lesson Hickory. I knew a little about the AIM movement before, but this is the first good story I've heard of it. It is worth remembering.
Question Authority
(before it questions you)
I don't normaly comment my own articles but I am honored by your attention. I haven't read your book yet. I just purchased it and plan to read it asap. I have visited your website and read most of the content
I read another book though. One about Joseph Trimbach FBI Special Agent in charge of the Minneapolis division in 1973. Here is a link to the PDF. The Unquiet Grave, by Steve Hendricks
Read "American Indian Mafia" first. The father of one of my classmates is a retired FBI agent, and worked with the author.
There are 2 sides to every story. You only have 1 published here. Give the other side equal time.
Although there may be two sides to every story, and each person has the right to tell theirs and also form their own opinions. It would be sheer ignorance to claim the federal government has the right to stomp a people based only on the color of their skin. Anyone who thinks our government is not guilty of breaking treaties, and attemptijg to exterminate a whole race of people is either mentally ill and not capable of seeing the reality of the situation or is so predjudiced that a intelligent opinion is not something thier mind could entertain. I personally was raised as a white person. Catholic school until 14, never had a clue i was from an aboriginal north american culture. My family wanted it this way. They were afraid of what would happen to us if we did not live as whites. So there are not two sides to every story as some here suggest. Sometimes there are three. I can tell you all this, When i read about the stuff our government has done to other people just because of the color of their skin or the desire to steal thier land and justify it. I am truely sickened to be an American. Anyone who claims what has been done to the Aboriginal tribes of america can be justified is someone who should be ashamed for not seeing the truth. The only truth is this. Native american tribes were hunted an killed for the profit of a small group of families who wanted the land a resources so that they could continue to increase their fortunes. It is still going on today those same families are still in power and are still walking on the backs of the weak and poor to keep thier fortunes and posstions of power so they can pass them on to the spawn the prepare in the privielidged schools that only they are allowed to attend. Anyone want to dispute my words feel free to try.
Posted By: Christina Little Spotted Horse
Date: 2008-02-06 14:55:26
My uncle was a aim supporter and he was shot at his own house. He was one of the people i wanted to meet and now i can't because he was shot. I think the whole thing was just...wrong. I feel sorry for all those peole that lost their family those years. BUT i stand by my family and their beliefs. I am proud of having an uncle who died fighting to protect our people. People don't understand sometimes... I am just 15 yrs. old but I know what is going on. I wish everything would stop all the violence and just leave us alone.
Thank you for taking the time to evaluate our book, American Indian Mafia, on its merits. Two points:
1. Leonard Peltier was never at WK II. He spent most of that period in a Wisconsin jail, awaiting charges in the attempted murder of an off-duty police officer.
2. As you referenced, many people who lived through that era are still hurting. Our book is meant to begin a healing process based on the truth. Some of our detractors have yet to come to grips with their pain, and in some cases, their guilt. The rest of them have little interest in the truth, mostly for political reasons. As you’ll see, Steve Hendricks certainly qualifies.
Mr. Hendrikson cites Ward Churchill in his bibliographical references. Mr. Joseph Trimbach and other FBI Agents had already testified several times in trials that Agent Sullivan's COINTELPRO program used to infliltrate the communist party, the KKK and the Black Panther party had been terminated by Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI, in 1971. The period of Wounded Knee II and its aftermath starts in 1973.
1. I know Ward Churchill. I met him at Yellow Thunder Camp in 1982 and trucked around with him for a few days. At the time, he was treated as "a white guy" by AIM members, and with me, did not pretend to be other than white. It is later that he began to assume a constructed American Indian identity which has been proven to be forged since.
2. His writings have been examined by a number of historians and experts in Indian studies in the last three years or so and judged to be replete with errors and more akin to fantasy than history. As a matter of fact, the very poor quality of his scholarship, and the fact that he lied about his ethnicity in order to obtain a position of professorship in the department of American Indian studies at Boulder, caused Ward Churchill to be fired. He never had the required academic qualifications to hold that position any way.
Therefore, no one, let alone anyone with a desire to find the truth and/or any respect for truth in history and literature, should rely on the writings of Ward Churchill. Most of what he wrote has been already demonstrated to be tainted by ideology.
With Respect: The dialogue between Hindrickson and Trimbach is good stuff. I have not read Trimbach's book yet but hope to soon. However I have lived and worked on Rosebud & PineRidge. Hendrick's words may be factual however so much is left out that the story can only be considered a work of fiction. The story failed to mention the brutilization and displacement of Indian Families by Aim at Wounded Knee. It never mentions the torture of captives by AIM. Wounded knee II is important because it highlited the plight on Pine Ridge but it's partipants are not deserving of hero status.
I've sat with the old men & women and heard the stories and I choose to believe them. War is an ugly thing. Attrocities happen on both sides. The truth is best served when all the facts are revealed. So far as Peltier. A new trial is warranted.
The problem is government. I can't trust the judgement of anyone that would give government (any gov't) the benefit of the doubt. Commenters are correct that there are two sides to every story but, as history shows time and time again, when the facts come out, government is usually (if not always) the aggressor and therefore, the criminal. This story does not seem to be making the argument that the AIM was/is good (or bad). Just that, in this conflict, the government was (as usual) the criminal. It's no different than Waco. I've never met anyone that thinks that David Koresh was a good guy but that doesn't legitimize the murder of innocent people at Waco. Without researching this conflict myself, that would be my assumption here. While J. Trimbach may be correct (I don't know if he is) that AIM is a shady organization, I know for a fact that the Government IS a shady organization with a history of committing crimes and then climing they were justified in committing said crimes.
With Respect: Re: Steve Comment 2-11. I agree 100%. The Government is the culprit of Wounded Knee, Waco and countless attrocities. My concern is, when we stoop to the behaviour of the predator, as I believe was the case in WKII, whom do we become? As a side note to this issue, when the truce was agreed upon Aim leadership slipped out the back door(literally)to avoid arrest and the dog soldiers took the brunt of it. That is fact not commentary. Aim has virtually abandoned Peltier. There were many heroes at WKII. Aim leadership is not in that group. Good Discussion.
With Respect: The dialogue between Hindrickson and Trimbach is good stuff. I have not read Trimbach's book yet but hope to soon. However I have lived and worked on Rosebud & PineRidge. Hendrick's words may be factual however so much is left out that the story can only be considered a work of fiction. The story failed to mention the brutilization and displacement of Indian Families by Aim at Wounded Knee. It never mentions the torture of captives by AIM. Wounded knee II is important because it highlited the plight on Pine Ridge but it's partipants are not deserving of hero status.
I've sat with the old men & women and heard the stories and I choose to believe them. War is an ugly thing. Attrocities happen on both sides. The truth is best served when all the facts are revealed. So far as Peltier. A new trial is warranted.
Posted By: Harold One Feather
Date: 2008-02-14 13:27:55
The issue I have with the Wounded Knee II issue is that both sides forgot what they were supposedly protecting: 1) AIM took the side of the dispossessed and the powerless, then moved on to greener pastures while the FBI supported militarily a drunken regime bent on trying to their means of financial support alive, corrupted federal programs.
Frankly being from Standing Rock, the only outcome I see is that most of the ones supporting this issue don't realize that there are other reservations in South Dakota while those of us on the other reservations don't really see why the aggressive, combative stance both sides have taken is going to help us.
Instead of recruiting militants and other zealots, ask doctors, teachers and lawyers to our reservations, these people will help more than an endless argument based on principles and fact, we need realistic solutions or these problems will continue and the people will continue to become more depressed and more ill!
Mr. Trimbach writes on page 28 of "American Indian Mafia" that he never was involved in COINTELPRO and never used it against AIM.
This was AIM propaganda.
The lawyer for AIM, Mark Lane, had a relationship with the KGB. This was discovered when a KGB archivist defected to England with notes on the KGB's foreign influence operations. It is written up in a book called Sword and Shield. The authors were the KGB defector Mitrokhin and the head of the Cambridge University History Department, Christopher Andrew.
Mark Lane was also the lawyer for the poor people murdered at Jonestown. He was one of only 9 people who escaped into the jungle when 900 were murdered. Then this man who got money from the KGB and advice from them on writing conspiracy theories claimed that the CIA killed the people at Jonestown!
Mark Lane and others were trying to make trouble between the Indians and FBI. This is one of the main things the KGB does--try to discredit the FBI, CIA, military in the eyes of Americans and the rest of the world.
They do this by trying to foment violence. It is a kind of terrorism. Their agents instigate some violence and then blame the FBI, CIA, etc.
Trimbach is a very honest man who has told the truth.
Ward Churchill wrote a lot of his lies about the FBI backing death squads that killed Indians in a publication called the Covert Action Information Bulletin that was sponsored by the KGB.
He also made up a false story about the Army deliberately giving the Mandan smallpox. This is disinformation that is intended to discredit the FBI and Army.
Hoka Hey, mafia fans! You mafia fans are goofier than a bunch of rodeo clowns screwing around at Cheyenne Days. Under normal circumstances I would find this funny, because rodeo clowns always make me laugh. But this is a more serious matter. The dark chapter of the U.S. Government/Indian relationship in 1973 - 1975 could never be more misunderstood or misconstrued than it is now. Thanks to the sprawling screed, American Indian Mafia, brought to you with extreme partisan fanfare and hype by the Trimbach duo and Outskirts Press, they now throw kerosene on this bonfire of vanity.
I say vanity because this book is a grade A piece of work. The Trimbach’s worked hard on this and it shows. They worked hard to conceal everything you should know about the reign of terror at Pine Ridge and worked overtime to cover their tracks. But when it’s time to write daddy’s memoirs, who wants to remember all the ugly details After all it’s been so long, thirty-six years, a congressional medal of honor might be in order. Who’s going to know the difference?
Well, I’ll tell you who. The Native American residents of Pine Ridge. The men, women, children, elders, chiefs, and medicine men who protested and tried to hold accountable the absolutely corrupt regime of Dick Wilson. These people represented all eight districts of the reservation and tried to impeach him four times in his first ten months as Tribal Chairman.
But it wouldn’t be easy getting rid of Wilson. Because Wilson had the backing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Marshals, the F.B.I., and Nixon. Now I don’t want to come down too hard on Nixon, because he had a plateful miring the country down in the war on Vietnam and those upcoming Watergate impeachment hearings, but he did have a thoughtful Indian policy. However, a more damaging wrecking crew could not have been imagined than letting loose the yahoos who made up the ranks of the U.S. Marshals Service and the nation’s darlings, the F.B.I..
The question of how to deal with Wilson was really an internal matter, a sovereign tribal affair to be resolved by the tribe. But since the Marshals and F.B.I. had fortified the B.I.A. building with military grade security, all tribal business came to a screeching halt. Wilson was on the verge of being impeached and now you have U.S. law enforcement on the scene preventing that from happening.
Well, the elders prayed, the masses huddled, the chiefs spoke and said: “Go to Wounded Knee and make a stand”. The American Indian Movement took them up on the offer and made their move. Yes they invaded the little hamlet and raided the Gildersleeve’s Trading Post. They ransacked the museum and looted the store that had been exploiting them and their history for decades. Homes and cars were confiscated for their own use. I can’t talk about it without weeping.
Now into the fray comes Special Agent In Charge, Joseph Trimbach, of the Federal Bureau of Intimidation. Joe was a real genuine Indian fighter. Maybe he patterned himself after the other great Indian fighters, such as Generals’ Sheridan, Crook, Oliver Otis Howard, Nelson Miles, and Custer. Well, maybe not Custer. But Joe knew how to handle this tinderbox of dynamite . Joe was a professional. He wouldn’t open up a fusillade of fire from the Hotchkiss guns on innocent women and children. That had already been done. No, Joe would fight this 20th Century war the way it was meant to be fought. On the high ground from miles away under the cloak of darkness where thousands of pot shots could taken anonymously amidst the smell of gunpowder and bourbon in the morning. If somebody got killed, that was just the cost of playing politics.
Joe Trimbach would bring the game of brinksmanship to a whole new level. He would cordon off the entire perimeter, establish roadblocks, control all road access, starve them out, he thought. But Joe had bigger plans. He would turn the entire reservation into an illegal police state. Of course, this was in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, but Joe had the support of the Justice Department. During his short tenure at Wounded Knee (about two weeks), Joe took what could have been the role of peacemaker and created an illegal Federal Army by turning the normal law enforcement agencies of the F.B.I. , U.S. Marshals, B.I.A. and State Police into a paramilitary force equipped by the Pentagon. Get it, an illegal federal army engaged in an illegal war waged on a sovereign nation outside of its jurisdiction. That has a familiar ring, doesn’t it. Our long national nightmare just concluded under the Bush/Cheney administration had perfected this technique, possibly because it seemed to work at Wounded Knee.
You know, come to think of it. Joe and son never explained why he was fired. Was his job complete? I don’t think so. The siege lasted 71 days. Joe went all out just shy of a fortnight. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious about this little detail.
And don’t get me started on Leonard Peltier. Oh alright, if you really want me to. Very few people alive today know with absolute certainty who killed the federal agents at Oglala on June 26th, 1975. The F.B.I. will have you believe they matched cartridges and firing pins. That is a total crock of bat dung. They couldn’t prove it, didn’t prove it in a court of law, but none-the-less, a jury convicted Leonard Peltier and he has taken the rap.
A more important question is why the F.B.I. pursued a red and white Scout, or was it a red pick-up truck, no wait a minute, a red van onto the Jumping Bull property. That question has never been satisfactorily answered. People like Norman Zigrossi – Assistant F.B.I. Regional Head in Rapid City says things like they were serving federal warrants and thought they saw Jimmy Eagle in the Scout. It was Jimmy Eagle they wanted. Really!? How does the 302 read? Was he guilty of stealing a pair of four dollar boots or was it the horseplay involving guns that brought the immediate and repeated attention of the F.B.I.? Special Agent Gary Adams said a red pick-up truck was seen leaving the Jumping Bull compound after the shootout. Leonard Peltier drove a red and white van. Again, these are unanswered questions without any plausible explanations by the F.B.I..
But what is really puzzling is the F.B.I’s unmitigated failure to investigate and solve a series of 60 murders that occurred during Wilson’s reign of terror on the reservation. There was the killing of Joe Stuntz who was fatally shot the same day Coler and Williams died. There was violence committed by roving goon squads who seemed to be untouchable by the law. There was the killing of Byron DeSersa, a great grandson of Black Elk. If you read the Trimbach’s book, they have closed the files on just about all of these murders. But when two of their own were killed, the feds swarmed the rez like an invasion of locusts. I guess it is true about that saying. You learn to pick and choose your battles.
The Trimbach’s have disgraced themselves by whitewashing Joe’s part in history. You might have gotten away with this by writing it fifty years after the fact, instead of thirty-five. George W. Bush was quoted by Bob Woodward as saying it won’t matter what the historians say in fifty years, we’ll all be dead. Maybe that’s been the game plan all along. But history can be a cruel judge as George W. Bush is beginning to learn.
In conclusion, I apologize to all the real life rodeo clowns out there for comparing you guys to these guys.
I have to agreed with most everything Thunder Cloud has to say. Yes, there were "naughty" things the Indians did to those that were controlling the roadblocks at Wounded Knee, but what I find interesting is that Trimbach states that AIM planned the attack on Wounded Knee. No, they didn't. They planned the attack on the BIA headquarters in Pine Ridge. But since that was heavily fortified, they turned to occupying Wounded Knee INSTEAD. In addition, it had a major fueling point over the murder of Raymond Yellow Thunder. The Indians demanded justice, and there were several AIM members that were murdered during that time. The AIM formed the 200-car caravan to stand up for their treaty rights and decided to head to Pine Ridge to oust the corrupt BIA officials. Yes the AIM members drank and did not always act in the most professional of ways, but their ultimate goal was to expose the improper treatment of Indians and the broken treaties that they continued to face. If they were a true "mafia," I really don't think they would've tried to continually request that the treaties be investigated. Keep in mind that had the media not become involved in covering that occupation, Wounded Knee would most certainly have been wiped off the map by the government for its inconvenience. Even Trimbach mentions the "level of restraint" shown.
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