The American Indian in the United States, Period 1850-1914: ... The Present Condition of the American Indian; His Political History and Other Topics; A Plea for JusticeMoorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The American Indian in the United States, Period 1850-1914: ... The Present Condition of the American Indian; His Political History and Other Topics; A Plea for Justice
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Government relations -- 1869-1934
There was one heroic character, Father Kraft, of the Catholic mission,
Pine Ridge. He spoke Sioux fluently and endeavored to stop the fight. He
was stabbed through the lungs, yet with bullets flying about him, he
administered the last rites of the church to the dying until he fell
unconscious. Mooney pays him a deserved tribute. The Indians were so
excited that they did not recognize him, claiming that he had on a
soldier’s overcoat because of the cold. Mooney affirms this is not
correct, but that he wore his priestly robes.
The immediate result of the massacre of Wounded Knee was the stampeding
of all the Indians into the hills. They believed that they were to be
murdered.
General Miles adopted harsh measures against the Indians and they soon
surrendered all their guns and came in to the agency.
Doctor McGillicuddy, the former Agent at Pine Ridge, who was entirely
familiar with the events, stated to Mooney on January 15, 1891, “Up to
date there has been neither a Sioux outbreak nor war. No citizen in
Nebraska or Dakota has been killed, molested, or can show the scratch of
a pin, and no property has been destroyed off the reservation. Only a
single non-combatant was killed by the Indians, and that was close to
the agency. The entire time occupied by the campaign, from the killing
of Sitting Bull to the surrender at Pine Ridge, was only thirty-two
days. The late hostiles were returned to their homes as speedily as
possible.”
The Indians quit, but the white people did not. On January 11th, some
white people led by three brothers named Culbertson,[19] pursued an aged
Oglala, who was a very friendly Indian, for many miles. His name was Few
Tails, and he was accompanied by his wife, another Indian named One
Feather, his wife and two children. They had been hunting in the Black
Hills and had a pass from the agency. They were returning in two wagons
loaded with meat. The Culbertson brothers and these other white men
fired on Few Tails, killing that Indian and both ponies attached to that
wagon. His wife jumped out and received two bullets, bringing her down.
Mooney says that the murderers then attacked the other wagon shooting
the wife of One Feather, but as she was not badly hurt, she drove away
as rapidly as possible and the Indian leaped upon one of the spare
ponies and held off the white men for eight or ten miles. They again
came up, and he turned and fought them off while his wife drove ahead
with the wagon.
The senseless panic had seized upon all settlers in the country because
of the Ghost dance and the Wounded Knee fight. This is illustrated by
Mooney’s concluding description of the first part of the fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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