USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The massacre at Wounded Knee, during which soldiers of the US Army 7th Cavalry Regiment indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of Sioux men, women, and children, marked the definitive end of Indian resistance to the encroachments of white settlers.

Detailed explanation-2: -The massacre was the climax of the U.S. Army’s late 19th-century efforts to repress the Plains Indians. It broke any organized resistance to reservation life and assimilation to white American culture, although American Indian activists renewed public attention to the massacre during a 1973 occupation of the site.

Detailed explanation-3: -A gun was discharged and soldiers opened fire. When the shooting stopped, hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children were dead. The massacre site became a place of remembrance for Native Americans, and decades later Wounded Knee would be a rallying cry in struggles for Native American rights.

Detailed explanation-4: -The town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota was seized on February 27, 1973, by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who staged a 71-day occupation of the area. In response to the incident, Marshals Service volunteers stepped forward from all ranks of service to assist in a resolution.

Detailed explanation-5: -Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians.