On this day in 1890, the US army massacred over 300 starving Lakota men, women, & children at Wounded Knee Creek as part of US policy to hunt every Lakota person down and kill them or force them onto concentration camps. 
On Dec. 27, 1890, the US army forced Spotted Elk and his followers to camp near Wounded Knee Creek. The next morning the army demanded the Lakota give up all their weapons, which the Lakota did despite saying they were peaceful & would turn them over once they got to Pine Ridge.
After the Lakota had been nearly totally disarmed, the US army indiscriminately opened fire. The US army even used a Hotchkiss Mountain gun to mow down teepees full of women and children & continued to fire on them as they fled for their lives.
Soldiered fired on women fleeing with babies in their arms. After most of the Lakota had been slaughtered, the soldiers called out saying that anyone who emerged now would be saved. A few young boys come out of their hiding places and were immediately surrounded and butchered.
The soldiers hunting for any sign of life and executed anyone found alive. Army general Nelson Miles visited the killing field days later and expressed shock that women with babies in their arms had been tracked down & shot down miles from the initial “battle” site.
For 3 days, the frozen bodies of those massacred lay were they fell... until the army finally dug a mass grave and pitched the bodies in.
At least 20 soldiers who participated in the massacre were awarded the Medal of Honor & Colonel James W. Forsyth--who headed the 7th cavalry that committed the massacre--was later promoted to Major General.
Black Elk, who survived the massacre, described it: “When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women & children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes young."
Dewey Beard also survived the massacre, despite having been shot twice, described the massacre: “I had not gone far till I met White Face, my wife. She had been shot, the ball passing though her chin and shoulder, but she mumbled: “Let me pass. Let me pass. You go on..."
"We will all die soon, she said, but I must get my mother." She crawled to where her mother lay, at the top of the bank, but as she lifted the body in her arms she fell dead, shot again."
Dewey Beard Continued: “I learned that Horn Cloud, my father, Yellow Leaf, my mother, my wife White Face, White Foot, our little child, my brother Pursued, my sister Her Horses had all been killed, and that my two brothers White Lance and Enemy were wounded.”
