Wounded Knee Project
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/08/wounded-knee-bury-my-heart-under-a-pile-of-medals/
Text Book Passage and Project Reflection
The Battle of Little bighorn (Custer’s Last Stand)
In 1868 the treaty of Laramie granted the Sioux Indians reservation territory which included the black hills. Years later in 1874 general George Armstrong Custer of the United States Military was sent to investigate the Indian Territory after receiving word that gold had been discovered in the black hills with addition 1000 men. Not long after Custer’s arrival, the black hills had been flooded by miners and white settlers in seek of starting their own lives. According to U.S laws, settlers did not have the right to invade on Indian Territory. There were many reports of Indian attacks and killing of settlers as well as the abuse of settler’s resources such as food and weapons. Custer was then assigned the task to force the Indians back to their reservations and off the land they had previously occupied for the white settlers. As the Indians refused to leave their sacred land, the U.S military had no other choice but to prepare for battle. As Custer planned his surprise attack, Chief Sitting Bull had received word of his plan. As Custer charged the Indian camp with roughly 300 troops, they were quickly circled by the Indians leaving them no escape. It was not even an hour before every soldier in Custer’s troop had been killed. The Indians then retreated before the reinforcements Custer refused to wait for arrived.
The Massacre of Wounded Knee
During the 1800s white settlers had begun to expand and build homes throughout Indian Territory. Many conflicts between the U.S government and Indian tribes arose. These conflicts consisted of killings from both sides for years until December 29th 1890 when the last battle between the Indians and the U.S military was conducted. In South Dakota on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian reservation, the seventh Calvary of the United States government had gathered to confiscate firearms and weapons from the Lakota. After they had corralled them like cattle, there was one Indian by the name of Black Coyote whom refused that he should be required to give up his firearm. As troops from the 7th Calvary had resorted to physically remove his firearm, a believed to have been accidental misfire of Black Coyotes rifle had created absolute chaos as the entire troop fired upon Lakota without hesitation. The open fire had sent bullets flying in every direction murdering Lakota woman, children, unarmed men and even companions of the 7th Calvary troops. As Lakota who had not yet given up their weapons started to resist, they did not stand much of a chance against the U.S military. Few Lakota managed to scramble for the forest in search of survival as most were run down by the Calvary men on horseback.
The Future of the Indians
As the Indians were continually forced to occupy the reservations the U.S government had supplied, they suffered major loss of resources. The reservation produced much less game for them to eat because it mainly consisted of dry plains rather than forest. In 1891 after the battle of Wounded Knee, the Indians began to realize that the reservations held no future for them. There was 23,000,000 acres of reservation land that was separated from the reservation and created for Indians who decided to branch off from their ancestors and endure the practices of the whites. The U.S government offered schooling to teach the Indians English, and free housing on the 23,000,000 acres of land under the United States beneficial laws. Many of the Indians decided to take up the governments offer while other refused to join their enemy. This created bloodshed between the Indian races as the ones who decided to join the white culture were known as betrayers to their own culture.
Project Reflection questions:
1. Discuss your engagement with this assignment. What was interesting/difficult/rewarding/enlightening about it?
I was extremely engaged throughout this whole project. I found it to be so interesting because I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the conflicts between the Indians and white settlers. The part I enjoyed the most about this project was being able to see every different angle and perspective on the conflicts by reading all the articles.
2. Where do you see bias in your passage? What evidence of your own ideology do you see?
I struggled a lot making my passage seem not bias. Even after all the editing I did there are still clear signs of the perspective that the Indians were treated very cruel and did not by any means deserve what happened to their culture. Looking back at my own passage I can see that just by the word choice I used my passage created a little sympathy for the Indians.
3. How has this inquiry informed, changed, or expanded your perception of the study of history?
This inquiry has completely shifted my perception of the study of history. It makes me want to look deeper into more aspects during the time the whites first began to expand across America. Being able to study history and completely taking a step back to analyze and critically think about what people went through is interesting. I have never taken the study of history to this level before. I have a new perspective on history in general after this project.
In 1868 the treaty of Laramie granted the Sioux Indians reservation territory which included the black hills. Years later in 1874 general George Armstrong Custer of the United States Military was sent to investigate the Indian Territory after receiving word that gold had been discovered in the black hills with addition 1000 men. Not long after Custer’s arrival, the black hills had been flooded by miners and white settlers in seek of starting their own lives. According to U.S laws, settlers did not have the right to invade on Indian Territory. There were many reports of Indian attacks and killing of settlers as well as the abuse of settler’s resources such as food and weapons. Custer was then assigned the task to force the Indians back to their reservations and off the land they had previously occupied for the white settlers. As the Indians refused to leave their sacred land, the U.S military had no other choice but to prepare for battle. As Custer planned his surprise attack, Chief Sitting Bull had received word of his plan. As Custer charged the Indian camp with roughly 300 troops, they were quickly circled by the Indians leaving them no escape. It was not even an hour before every soldier in Custer’s troop had been killed. The Indians then retreated before the reinforcements Custer refused to wait for arrived.
The Massacre of Wounded Knee
During the 1800s white settlers had begun to expand and build homes throughout Indian Territory. Many conflicts between the U.S government and Indian tribes arose. These conflicts consisted of killings from both sides for years until December 29th 1890 when the last battle between the Indians and the U.S military was conducted. In South Dakota on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian reservation, the seventh Calvary of the United States government had gathered to confiscate firearms and weapons from the Lakota. After they had corralled them like cattle, there was one Indian by the name of Black Coyote whom refused that he should be required to give up his firearm. As troops from the 7th Calvary had resorted to physically remove his firearm, a believed to have been accidental misfire of Black Coyotes rifle had created absolute chaos as the entire troop fired upon Lakota without hesitation. The open fire had sent bullets flying in every direction murdering Lakota woman, children, unarmed men and even companions of the 7th Calvary troops. As Lakota who had not yet given up their weapons started to resist, they did not stand much of a chance against the U.S military. Few Lakota managed to scramble for the forest in search of survival as most were run down by the Calvary men on horseback.
The Future of the Indians
As the Indians were continually forced to occupy the reservations the U.S government had supplied, they suffered major loss of resources. The reservation produced much less game for them to eat because it mainly consisted of dry plains rather than forest. In 1891 after the battle of Wounded Knee, the Indians began to realize that the reservations held no future for them. There was 23,000,000 acres of reservation land that was separated from the reservation and created for Indians who decided to branch off from their ancestors and endure the practices of the whites. The U.S government offered schooling to teach the Indians English, and free housing on the 23,000,000 acres of land under the United States beneficial laws. Many of the Indians decided to take up the governments offer while other refused to join their enemy. This created bloodshed between the Indian races as the ones who decided to join the white culture were known as betrayers to their own culture.
Project Reflection questions:
1. Discuss your engagement with this assignment. What was interesting/difficult/rewarding/enlightening about it?
I was extremely engaged throughout this whole project. I found it to be so interesting because I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the conflicts between the Indians and white settlers. The part I enjoyed the most about this project was being able to see every different angle and perspective on the conflicts by reading all the articles.
2. Where do you see bias in your passage? What evidence of your own ideology do you see?
I struggled a lot making my passage seem not bias. Even after all the editing I did there are still clear signs of the perspective that the Indians were treated very cruel and did not by any means deserve what happened to their culture. Looking back at my own passage I can see that just by the word choice I used my passage created a little sympathy for the Indians.
3. How has this inquiry informed, changed, or expanded your perception of the study of history?
This inquiry has completely shifted my perception of the study of history. It makes me want to look deeper into more aspects during the time the whites first began to expand across America. Being able to study history and completely taking a step back to analyze and critically think about what people went through is interesting. I have never taken the study of history to this level before. I have a new perspective on history in general after this project.
HBO Film Response Writing
Film response writing Tanner Smith
Option 1: Connect the film to the primary sources you read and make a claim about its effectiveness in relaying the history. Although you would have to study a lot more to really evaluate the historical accuracy of the film, you should still be able to make a claim about the degree to which the film captures the events as you understood them in your inquiry. Use specific examples from the film and the primary sources to support your perspective.
Although the filmmakers of the HBO film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee portrayed the conflicts between the Sioux and the white settlers accurately, there was still an ideological bias with the way the film was made. I did believe that this film did a great job of showing how there were different ideological perspectives during the 1890s. The point was clearly made during the film that many of the Indians who would decide to convert to the white’s culture were fairly torn by leaving their tribes. This ideology was not present in the majority of the primary sources. This film was supporting the ideological bias that the whites abused and took advantage of the Indians. There was a good representation of the Indians being victimized by the whites in the film, which was also accurate. But, there was not many perspectives of the whites shown without making them seem evil. The film developed the whites as the bad guys who in a way were, but not every white just wanted to kill off the Indians completely. There was one good representation of the white ideology at the time from the film that was not evil. In one of the opening scenes in the president’s office, Senator Henry Daus was arguing for the Indian population. He was pushing to decide a way to remove the Indians from their land, where as the others in the office wanted to just kill the Indians to get to the Black hills.
Only few articles were able to effectively describe pain and suffering of the Indians who converted to live amongst the whites. The way the movie portrayed these Indians perspectives was with the character that played Charless Eastmen Ohitesa. In the film, he was taken away from his tribe by his father and put into schooling. He then advanced through the reservation schooling and was sent to Illinois to study medicine. Then, the movie shows how he had adopted the mindset that the U.S government was the best option for the Indians. This is also accurate with the primary source he published The Ghost Dance War. He quotes in his story “It is our solemn duty to serve the United States Government.” In the movie, the character acting as Charles is helping Henry Daus divide up reservation land for the Indians to move upon after they evacuate the Black Hills. Thinking he is benefiting his people the hole time, he receives word of mass spreading of diseases such as whooping cough and measles. He then went to the reservation in attempt to cure the sick Indians by opening a doctor’s room. After the battle of little bighorn, his is completely devastated and is under the mindset that had contributed to the death of his people. His references the train rides to Illinois when he was a kid, and regrets not jumping off the train. This was also partially accurate to the way the real Charles reacted years after the battle of little bighorn. It was said that he was so devastated that Charles solidified himself in a cabin out in the woods for the remainder of his life.
The Indians of the Black hills had been granted the land by the treaty of Laramie in 1868. In the film, there was a very accurate representation of how the Indians reacted to the offers made to remove them from the black hills. The land was believed sacred by the Indians, and supplied a reasonable amount of food and resources as the water source would bring in many animals to hunt. With the discovery of gold in the black hills, the U.S government was in a hurry to occupy the black hills from the Indians before the white settlers and miners in search of gold. In the primary sources there was a lot of information about the way that the settlers began to invade the black hills, even though they were legally not allowed to. There were also many reports of the Indians stealing from the settlers which were not reflected in the movie. In the movie when the Indians refused to evacuate the black hills, it Henry quotes “If you don’t leave the black hills your people will perish.” Realistically, this quote is fairly similar to how the U.S government treated the Indians in the Black hills.
There were multiple signs during the film that were obviously pushing towards the Indians side that I don’t believe were historically accurate. For example, during the start of the little bighorn battle in the movie when the first shot was fired from the blind man on accident, the military began to fire. According to a few of the primary sources the Indian by the name of “Black Coyote” was not blind, he was being ignorant to give up his rifle and fired the riffle. Its just small differences that the movie did a very good job adding in that give the audience more sympathy and innocence towards the victims. Then of course the slaughter of the innocent woman and children was created very well by the producers to really impact the audience members. I know that personally the scene at little big horn extremely impacted me. One more example was when they went to arrest chief Sitting Bull in the film, they were shown breaking through the door and when a shot was fired, the officers killed Sitting Bull and then his wives. According to the primary sources, he was only killed during the arrest not him and his wives.
My favorite part of this film and personally the best reenacted, was the ghost dance movement. There was a lot of information in Charles’s primary source that matched up well with the way HBO reenacted it. For example when Charles was talking about how his area on the reservation was becoming completely flooded with scared people and soldiers it was re created in the film as a very emotional moment for Charles. This was also a large turning point for Charles. He began to question whether or not he was helping the good side, which I believe was realistic in history. Overall I would say the film did a very effective job relaying what happened at that point in time. It was very interesting to finally get a graphic visual for all the articles we had been reading.
Option 1: Connect the film to the primary sources you read and make a claim about its effectiveness in relaying the history. Although you would have to study a lot more to really evaluate the historical accuracy of the film, you should still be able to make a claim about the degree to which the film captures the events as you understood them in your inquiry. Use specific examples from the film and the primary sources to support your perspective.
Although the filmmakers of the HBO film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee portrayed the conflicts between the Sioux and the white settlers accurately, there was still an ideological bias with the way the film was made. I did believe that this film did a great job of showing how there were different ideological perspectives during the 1890s. The point was clearly made during the film that many of the Indians who would decide to convert to the white’s culture were fairly torn by leaving their tribes. This ideology was not present in the majority of the primary sources. This film was supporting the ideological bias that the whites abused and took advantage of the Indians. There was a good representation of the Indians being victimized by the whites in the film, which was also accurate. But, there was not many perspectives of the whites shown without making them seem evil. The film developed the whites as the bad guys who in a way were, but not every white just wanted to kill off the Indians completely. There was one good representation of the white ideology at the time from the film that was not evil. In one of the opening scenes in the president’s office, Senator Henry Daus was arguing for the Indian population. He was pushing to decide a way to remove the Indians from their land, where as the others in the office wanted to just kill the Indians to get to the Black hills.
Only few articles were able to effectively describe pain and suffering of the Indians who converted to live amongst the whites. The way the movie portrayed these Indians perspectives was with the character that played Charless Eastmen Ohitesa. In the film, he was taken away from his tribe by his father and put into schooling. He then advanced through the reservation schooling and was sent to Illinois to study medicine. Then, the movie shows how he had adopted the mindset that the U.S government was the best option for the Indians. This is also accurate with the primary source he published The Ghost Dance War. He quotes in his story “It is our solemn duty to serve the United States Government.” In the movie, the character acting as Charles is helping Henry Daus divide up reservation land for the Indians to move upon after they evacuate the Black Hills. Thinking he is benefiting his people the hole time, he receives word of mass spreading of diseases such as whooping cough and measles. He then went to the reservation in attempt to cure the sick Indians by opening a doctor’s room. After the battle of little bighorn, his is completely devastated and is under the mindset that had contributed to the death of his people. His references the train rides to Illinois when he was a kid, and regrets not jumping off the train. This was also partially accurate to the way the real Charles reacted years after the battle of little bighorn. It was said that he was so devastated that Charles solidified himself in a cabin out in the woods for the remainder of his life.
The Indians of the Black hills had been granted the land by the treaty of Laramie in 1868. In the film, there was a very accurate representation of how the Indians reacted to the offers made to remove them from the black hills. The land was believed sacred by the Indians, and supplied a reasonable amount of food and resources as the water source would bring in many animals to hunt. With the discovery of gold in the black hills, the U.S government was in a hurry to occupy the black hills from the Indians before the white settlers and miners in search of gold. In the primary sources there was a lot of information about the way that the settlers began to invade the black hills, even though they were legally not allowed to. There were also many reports of the Indians stealing from the settlers which were not reflected in the movie. In the movie when the Indians refused to evacuate the black hills, it Henry quotes “If you don’t leave the black hills your people will perish.” Realistically, this quote is fairly similar to how the U.S government treated the Indians in the Black hills.
There were multiple signs during the film that were obviously pushing towards the Indians side that I don’t believe were historically accurate. For example, during the start of the little bighorn battle in the movie when the first shot was fired from the blind man on accident, the military began to fire. According to a few of the primary sources the Indian by the name of “Black Coyote” was not blind, he was being ignorant to give up his rifle and fired the riffle. Its just small differences that the movie did a very good job adding in that give the audience more sympathy and innocence towards the victims. Then of course the slaughter of the innocent woman and children was created very well by the producers to really impact the audience members. I know that personally the scene at little big horn extremely impacted me. One more example was when they went to arrest chief Sitting Bull in the film, they were shown breaking through the door and when a shot was fired, the officers killed Sitting Bull and then his wives. According to the primary sources, he was only killed during the arrest not him and his wives.
My favorite part of this film and personally the best reenacted, was the ghost dance movement. There was a lot of information in Charles’s primary source that matched up well with the way HBO reenacted it. For example when Charles was talking about how his area on the reservation was becoming completely flooded with scared people and soldiers it was re created in the film as a very emotional moment for Charles. This was also a large turning point for Charles. He began to question whether or not he was helping the good side, which I believe was realistic in history. Overall I would say the film did a very effective job relaying what happened at that point in time. It was very interesting to finally get a graphic visual for all the articles we had been reading.