Remember the "caravan?" Trump is not the first to try to save the midterms by deploying troops against a pretend threat. On November 13, 1890, Republican Benjamin Harrison sent troops into South Dakota to put down a Lakota "uprising."
Let's see how that turned out, shall we? /1
Let's see how that turned out, shall we? /1
By 1890, Republicans were on the ropes. No longer the party of farmers and workers, they propped up big business with tariffs that enabled industrialists to collude to raise prices. In 1884, voters elected Democrat Grover Cleveland, who promised to protect workers. /2 
Panicked Republicans flooded media with pro-tariff literature and said Ds were socialists who would destroy the economy. In 1888 election, GOP won Congress, but voters reelected Cleveland by 100K votes. So GOP installed Harrison through the Electoral College. /3
To guarantee GOP would always hold Senate and presidency, GOP Congress admitted 6 new states (ND, SD, MT, WA, WY, ID) from 1889-1890 (largest acquisition since original 13). This meant 12 new Senators and 18 new votes in EC. GOP should be able to stop D legislation forever. /4
Seemingly secure, GOP Congress raised, rather than lowered, tariffs in October 1890, saying that protecting business would help workers by helping job creators. (In this famous cartoon, business trusts oversee Senators.) /5
Voters didn't buy it. In November, they elected D's 2:1 to the House. GOP held Senate by only 4 votes, but three of those folks had voted against the new tariff. GOP legislation hung by one Senate seat: that of Gideon Moody, the Senator from South Dakota. /6
Senators in 1890 were still chosen by state legislatures, and SD elections had been unclear who won, so Moody rushed home to lobby legislators. And Harrison sent 7000 soldiers to SD, to stop a Lakota "uprising" that had taken no lives or property. /7
Panicked Lakota ran to the Badlands to hide. Officers eager to get their troops home, negotiated to get them back, and tried to round folks back to the agencies (essentially a town at the heart of each giant reservation), where government could watch them. /8
On December 15, Indian police killed great leader Sitting Bull as he surrendered at his home on Standing Rock. His band, many wounded, ran south to take shelter with Sitanka on Cheyenne River. They all went south toward Pine Ridge, to shelter with famous negotiator Red Cloud. /9
But Sitanka was sick. His folks moved slowly. Army officers worried they would intercept the Badlands folks- who had finally agreed to come to their agency- and tell them about Sitting Bull. On December 28, troops finally ran into Sitanka's folks coming into Pine Ridge. /10
Sitanka's folks "surrendered" and agreed to go to the Pine Ridge agency (that was where they were going anyway). Troops escorted them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek and gave them food (they were starving). /11
All night, troops came in, celebrating that they could finally go home and that there had been no bloodshed. But a new officer, James Forsyth, commander of Custer's 7th Cavalry (rebuilt after Little Bighorn) took over. (Here are members of the 7th at Wounded Knee). /12
The morning of December 29, 1890, Forsyth decided to disarm the Lakota, but that would mean they couldn't feed themselves in the upcoming winter. They refused. In the struggle over a gun, it went off into the sky. Forsyth yelled "Fire! Fire on them!" His men fired... /13
But Forsyth had placed them in a circle around the Lakota men. The first volley wounded 25 soldiers and half the surrendering Lakota. Lakotas dove for the dry creek bed while the women tried to get away in wagons on the road. Artillery on a rise opened fire on them. /14
Over the next two hours, soldiers hunted down and killed every Lakota they could find, including women and children, about 270, total. 30 soldiers were also killed or wounded. Here is a wagon that had been full of women and children: /15
The first hail of bullets mowed down boys who had been playing leap frog. A group of dying women crawled around a toddler girl, who was found days later, alive inside a cocoon of their frozen bodies. The dead Lakota were buried in a mass grave where the artillery had been. /16
When the South Dakota legislature met in January, it took four weeks of balloting to choose a Senator. They chose not a Republican, but an Independent who caucused with the Democrats. The Democrats swept national elections in 1892, reelecting Cleveland. /17
The site of the artillery, the site of that mass grave, became the site of the church that was so central to the Wounded Knee "Incident" of 1973. "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee," indeed. /18
I have written this story in a book, of course, but I wrote it up for today and for this political moment, here: bit.ly/2DDJeDc
