Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee begins just after the bloody battle at Little Big Horn. This film focuses on the lives of three characters: Charles Eastman, a young doctor who was once a member of the Sioux tribe and is used as an example to highlight the “success” of assimilation; Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief determined to keep the sacred Black hills in the hands of the Sioux; and Senator Henry Dawes, a large part in creating the government policy on Indian affairs. While Charles and the schoolteacher, Elaine Goodale work to the quality and balance of life on the reservation, Senator Dawes pushes for a more humane treatment. Hope seems to rise for the Indians however, this hope is ruined after the assassination of Sitting Bull and the massacre …show more content…
As they began to decline as a tribe, they began to turn on each other and lose faith in those in charge. They were starving and sick, and many of them were growing upset that the fact that nothing was being done to fix the suffering and struggling. Members of the tribe began to lose respect for Sitting Bull, as he struggled to keep his people together. However, this looked like he was letting his people starve and die and tension began to grow. When the parents of a sick daughter begged Sitting Bull for permission to return home for better treatment, he refused. After catching the family trying to run away, Sitting Bull shot their horse and forced the family to stay, even as the daughter grew worse and eventually died. Tension grows as the Sioux are accused of hunting on the neighboring tribe’s grounds and stealing their horses. When Sitting Bull finds the culprits, and realizing that to prevent his entire tribe from being driven from the land, he decides that must punish the two thieves. In front of the officers and the entire tribe, he hangs the two men by their wrists and whips them. Although Sitting Bull obviously felt compelled to punish two men for the good of the whole tribe, soon the tribe begins to look at Sitting Bull with anger and hatred. Later, we see that the tribe has lost much respect for Sitting Bull and a group of boys call him a coward for "hiding under his blanket" during the Battle of Little Bighorn (George & Simoneau, 2007). The filmmakers also made it clear for the viewers with the message: "Every man a chief," to show us that there is no longer a respectable leader to follow and that everyone now must make their own decisions. The filmmakers clearly wanted to point out the tension that divided the Sioux and show that although Sitting Bull is still seen as an emblem of Native American resistance today, members of his own
Sitting bull was probably one of the most famous Native American. When sitting bull was ten he killed his first buffalo. In June 1863 he took arms against the United States for the first time. Sitting bull fought some American soldiers again the next year.
However, Chief Sitting Bull had attracted many more tribes from throughout the region, based on his leadership and resistance to adhering to the terms imposed by the Treaty of Fort Laramie. During the annual Sun Dance ceremony, which took place in southeast Montana the numbers swelled, up to 8,000 people and 1,800 warriors. Two weeks later the camp had moved south and settled on the banks of the Little Bighorn river which was fertile hunting ground. It was now mid-June of 1876 and the column moving east from the Dakota territory was also in the southeast of the Montana territory. At this time, Major General Terry had decided to detach the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col George Custer from the formation.
The purpose of this chapter was to illustrate what had happened prior to the Sand Creek Massacre and explain the process of retaliation that the Indians had against the United States government. As well as to tell the story of Sitting Bull, one of the most known Native American leaders. The value within this source includes that the author included background information about the people involved in the Sand Creek Massacre. Another value of this source is the amount of explanation about the people involved, this source gives details of the relationship between Indians and the Chiefs of Fort Lyon. The limitations include that the author only focused on the perspective of the Native Americans and neglected the perspective of the volunteer army or Colonel Chievington.
Sitting Bull Champion of the Sioux: A Biography, by Stanley Vestal, is a great book to read for anyone wanting vivid, yet serious, insight of the lives of the Sioux Indians, or more specifically, one Sioux Indian, Sitting Bull. There are three sections in the book that describe three major time periods of Sitting Bull’s life. Each section focuses on a different time span. The author highly exceeds his goal of “writing the first biography of a great American Indian soldier and statesman in which his character and achievements are presented with the same care and seriousness they would have received had he been of European ancestry.” (xxi)
The battle of the Little of Bighorn occurred on June 25th- 26th in southeastern Montana. The Seventh Cavalry, led by Custer, formulated a plan for a surprise attack on the Sioux and Cheyenne camp. It was between 1,500-1,800 Native American Indians against 700 US army soldiers. On the day of the attack Custer split his men into three groups in order to attack from different sides and to prevent the Indians from running away.
Yesterday, on Dec. 10, 1890, a Sioux leader named Sitting Bull was arrested for allegedly being a Ghost Dancer. We await to see how the Indians will respond to this, especially since Sitting Bull was killed.
Houses were burned down, wagon trains, farms, and homes were raided. It had gotten out of control, and so the governor demanded the Native Americans surrender, so that they could be taken care of, and no one would die. A couple of hundred surrendered, but many of the others did not, and sought out for a negotiation instead. The governor did not have the power to negotiate, so he told them to wait at the sand creek while he figured it out. Instead of negotiating he was ordered to kill them, since the Native Americans had killed so many people.
The People’s Temple was a religious movement founded by Reverend Jim Jones in the mid 1950’s. Reverend Jones initially came from a humble begining living with his poor family in Indiana. As Jones grew older he began attending meetings and rallies for the U.S. communist party. Due to ongoing fear of the spread of communism in the U.S. Jones was often harassed and ridiculed by both the government and the public for his political leanings. It wasn 't until the early 1950’s when Jones became increasingly involved in the sommerset southside methodist church in Indianapolis, Indiana when his real intentions began to take shape.
The difference in the two accounts is the prelude to the battle. According to Lakota Chief Red Horse, he with many Sioux Indians were only moving across the land in attempts to find a place to settle. When they did settle next to the Little Bighorn River, there were many Native Americans with them ten different tribes and eleven including themselves. The account from the military standpoint was the Sioux, and Cheyenne were hostile over the Black Hills and was corresponding with Sitting Bull. From the event of the Sioux Nation on the move, the U.S. Calvary dispatched three units to attack.
Sitting Bull was considered a great leader and helped shape the way we treat Indians today. Throughout the 1800s the U.S. Government fought against many Indian tribes because of the rich land that promised gold. Sitting Bull and many others “set aside their differences in the face of intolerable abuse by the U.S. Government” (www.californiaindianeducation.org). Sitting Bull fought in wars and united with other tribes to protect his land.
Class, One reason for the defeat of the Plains Indians was the decline of the buffalo herds, due to the killing by white hunters. The buffalo was one of the most sacred things to the Native Americans, but was their main source of supplies, because they used every part of the buffalo to help them. Second are the former Indian lands being settled by homesteaders, because this reduced the ability of tribes to migrate freely through the plains. This also did not allow the Indians to hunt for more buffalo herds. Lastly was the hostile encounter with the US Army which provided a few victories for the Indian population although Sitting Bull and the Indians fought stunning battles such as the defeat of the US Calvary at Little Big Horn, in the end
Show Indians “Buffalo Bill Cody was the perfect carrier of interest in the Indian” (Boehme, 1998:77). Over a thousand Native American performers appeared in Buffalo Bill 's Wild West Show, participating in historical event reenactments, horseback riding, and performing ceremonial dances. These performers often participated in reenactments that included attacks on settler 's cabins, stagecoaches, pony–express mail riders, and wagon trains. Among the historical reenactments were the Battle of Little Big Horn and the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Although they had to perform under stereotypical guidelines, the Show at least provided natives an opportunity to continue participating in their own cultural practices, which were deemed illegal on
The word hero may bring to mind images of spiderman or batman, but it doesn’t take a talented illustrator to create a hero. A heroic action is a sacrifice made in order to reach a higher level of society. In this sense, the age of exploration that began in the fifteen hundreds is classified as a heroic event. The explorers who paved the way to modern civilization opened opportunities for technology, increased diversity, and a stronger economy. The effect their voyages have had on the world today outweigh the mistakes they made along the way.
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer executed poor mission command during the Battle of Little Bighorn by failing to create a shared understanding of the operational environment and exercise disciplined initiative. Custer was the commander of a battalion in the Battle of Little Bighorn during the Indian Wars1. Little Bighorn was the location of a nomadic village of Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes2. Custer approached the unified Indian village with his force of nearly 650 men from the east and south to act as a hammer. Following Custer’s advance, additional infantry and cavalry approached from the north to act as a blocking force or anvil in support of Custer's movements2.
It was a time when white men wanted to claim everything. They wanted to let Native Americans know they had all the fire power to do as they pleased. Sitting Bull did not agree to this IRA because in his speech he said loved the freedom to go where his people pleased, to hunt wherever, and set up teepees where they chose to set up home base. It was this act that led to Sitting Bull’s important speech. The additional information I knew prior to reading Sitting Bull’s speech is everything I had learned in high school about Native American history.