The holy man Black Elk, said, "I did not know then how much was ended.When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch, as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young.
And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud and was buried in the blizzard.
A people's dream died there. And it was a beautiful dream.
"With this event, a new era in Native American history began. Everything can be measured before Wounded Knee and after, because it was in this moment, with the fingers on the triggers of the Hotchkiss guns, that the US government openly declared its position on Native rights. They were tired of treaties.They were tired of sacred hills. They were tired of ghost dances. And they were tired of all the inconveniences of the Sioux. So they brought out their cannons. "You want to be an Indian now?" they said, finger on the trigger.
...
The United States continues on a daily basis to violate the terms of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties with the Lakota.
The call to action I offer today -- my TED wish -- is this: Honor the treaties.
Give back the Black Hills. I
t's not your business what they do with them.