As the 19th century drew to a close, the Sioux attempted one last stab at victory. A messianic movement known as the Ghost Dance was being promoted by a Nevada Paiute known as Wovoka. Wovoka had had a vision in which he had been taught a dance to take back to his people. By dancing in a certain way for a prescribed number of days, the buffalo would once again roam the earth in great numbers, the ancestors would rise from their graves, and Indians would no longer suffer in hunger and poverty. It was a welcome, cathartic message to Indians of the west who had undergone much upheaval and suffering over the course of the century.
Wovoka's message and dance drew Indians from afar to hear him preach. Visitors such as Arapaho and Cheyenne related the Ghost Dance and the prophet's message to their own people. Rapidly the trance-inducing dance and its message spread from California through Oklahoma. It was Kicking Bear, a Teton Sioux leader, who brought it to the Lakota in the late nineteenth century.
Once the Great Sioux Reservation had been broken up into tiny individual reservations, and the surplus land had been opened up to non-Indians at bargain prices, railroads surveyed and built lines across the Sioux's lost territory. On the reservations, the Sioux were encouraged to live on individual allotments and support themselves by agriculture. White farmers hired as instructors by the Bureau of Indian Affairs would teach them this vital and honorable skill.
Since the Sioux reservations lay in the semi-arid zone of the Plains, European agriculture was unsuccessful. Most of the land was better suited to range. But hunting was no longer an option for the Sioux, with the Black Hills, Powder River, and Bighorn countries lost, and the buffalo exterminated. Reliance upon government rations increased. When the government cut rations drastically in 1890, the Sioux faced starvation. A number of people began dancing the Ghost Dance. A group of Sioux occupied an area of the Badlands inaccessible to the US troops, and danced there day and night.
On 20 November 1890, US troops marched onto the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. More troops were deployed in and around the other Sioux reservations. Big Foot, leader of the Miniconjou band of Lakota Sioux, was on the Army's list of potential troublemakers. He was invited to Pine Ridge by the Oglala there to negotiate a settlement of Sioux grievances. Troops were sent out to intercept Big Foot and his camp. They escorted the camp to Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. On the morning of the 29th of December, fighting broke out between the Sioux and the troops. 39 US soldiers were killed. Over 153 Sioux were killed, most of them women and children in the Big Foot camp.
In the wake of the massacre, the Ghost Dancers surrendered. The Sioux settled back into their reservation villages and usual levels of rations were resumed.
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