Surviving Wounded Knee

David Grua sets out to demonstrate the significance of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre in American collective memory. He examines the tension between experience, official memory, and countermemory associated with the tragedy, when soldiers of the United States Seventh Cavalry killed over one hundred and fifty Lakota people. Scholars have long relied on the military records, transcripts of oral testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and contemporary newspaper articles connected with this confrontation to inform their work. Using the same material, Grua reveals the almost-unknown story of how the Lakota survivors campaigned for nearly fifty years to gain justice from the U. S. government. Grua divides his book into two parts, first outlining how the Seventh Cavalry participants, military leaders, and the descendants of soldiers killed there created, extended, and perpetuated the “official memory” of the Wounded Knee “battle.” The second, greater part of the book concerns the countermemories collected and presented by Lakota survivors of Big Foot’s band, and the pursuit of justice led by brothers Joseph Horn Cloud and Dewey Beard. 168). In the end, they received nothing.

Ancient history · Battle · Collective memory · Criminology · Economic Justice · Government (linguistics) · Newspaper · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Politics of memory · Social science · Sociology · Tragedy (event) · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies