Smoke Signals
May 1991
page 14
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This picture of Jane Smith (left) and her sister Margaret Bean (right) was taken nearly SO years ago.
Federal Study to Investigate
Wounded Knee Massacre
WOUNDED KNEE, S.D. (NANS) - A $125,000 study
of the Wounded Knee battlefield, expected to take two
years, may clarify for Sioux Tribes and historians the
details of the massacre there that took place Dec. 29,
1890.
It is widely agreed that members of the U.S. Seventh
Cavalry killed many unarmed Sioux men, women,
children and elders on this site just over 100 years ago.
But a debate continues over how the massacre began
and how many people died.
The study will help determine whether the site should
be declared a national memorial. It already has been
designated a national historic landmark, but only a small
sign marks its existence.
An earlier study conducted by the South Dakota
Historical Preservation Society recommended a $5.9
million memorial including a visitors center and walking
trails through the site. Sioux Tribes, the U.S. Park
service and the state of South Dakota were involved in
that study, which was completed last November.
The future survey is expected to include an analysis of
the positions of shell casings, bullets and other artifacts
to help investigators reconstruct in detail what happened
there.
Lakota oral histories always have maintained the event
constituted a slaughter of unarmed people. U.S. Army
accounts have described it as a "battle".
Oglala Sioux Tribal Council members have proposed
that a memorial be co-managed by the Park Service and
the Tribe until Tribal members can be trained to fully
assume operation of the visitors center and grounds,
then for the memorial to be fully managed by the Tribe.
A number of groups will be involved in negotiating the
outcome, including other Sioux Tribes, the Park Service,
the community of Wounded Knee, and several associa
tions of descendants of Wounded Knee survivors.
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Grand Ronde Tribal chairman Mark Mercier recently presented this check for $9(yXW to representatives of
Tillamook County for the purpose of compensating the county for revenues losst due to the establishment
of the Grand Ronde reservation lands. (Photo by Jim Willis).