"December 29, 1890, Wounded Knee, battle or massacre?" Topic

Hello everyone,

Wounded Knee, battle or massacre?

For me in fact when the "Indians" are attacked in one of their camps and they have more losses than the whites, it is a massacre and when they have fewer losses it is a battle.
And for you ?

For example they don't call the Little Big Horn battle "the massacre of Little Big Horn" but "the battle of Little Big Horn" or "Custer's Last Stand".

But According to Gregory F. Michno, the "Indians" had fewer civilian losses than their adversaries, but more combatant losses. (Encyclopedia of Indian Wars – Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850 – 1890).

Would the "Indians" have behaved less well with white civilians than the whites with "Indian civilians"?

Yours aye

Paskal

Paskal, "the Custer Massacre" is or was a fairly common term, as is the "Fetterman Massacre." (You also hear of the "Paoli Massacre" which would meet your definition except that there were no Indians on either side.) inventing a definition to get the answer you want is cheating--unless you're an "educator" of course.

"Indians" covers many cultures over centuries of time. Are we discussing Iroquois killing toddlers to keep up the pace in King George's War, of Joseph Brant preventing just such an action by the same Iroquois in the AWI?

I'm not sure you can overlook the overall situation. The native Americans were being driven from their lands by colonists. And the relative power of the two groups. Talk of what was a battle and what was a massacre – if it is really relevant – needs to be considered in this context.

Indian culture was so fragile it began to collapse at the slightest contact -- with disease being the first and most powerful factor. A hunting culture has a population density of, what, 10% or less of an agricultural culture?

But the Indians used power to decide who got the best valley. And hunting across land does not really make it "yours," not in any real sense. Had the Indians been stronger, they'd have treated the whites as brutally, or more so. White expansion was a tragic inevitability.

The thing to remember about native tribes versus whites is that the two cultures were so uneven in power that it was impossible to have a "fair fight." Whites could lose, but mostly when they blundered: Braddock's defeat, St Clair's defeat, Little Big Horn, Blue Licks. But the Indians had no staying power. The Comanche swept across Texas in the great raid, and changed . . . nothing. The Virginia militia at Point Pleasant were probably inferior as individual fighters to the Shawnee, but the weight of the culture behind them was irresistible. Indians could USE muskets and gunpowder, but they could not make them.

The consequences of this disparity of power is that the weaker side mostly wins only by being sneaky. Wars tend to be alternating massacres. And the powerful side learns it cannot trust the weaker side because . . . sneaky. So "the only good ----- is a dead ……."

This sort of confrontation has great appeal -- to me as well -- as a wargame, but the reality is that the Indians were doomed regardless.

It was not an intended massacre. However, I believe that the 7th Cavalry was looking for payback so if anything started they were going to go all out. Well, something did happen and the 7th went all out. This did lead to a massacre of many innocent women and children.

Easily the most controversial single "action" between the US Army and the Plains Indians, though the Sioux were the specific aggrieved party that day.

However, if their losses were far higher, and most were women and children, the fact is that the 7th Cavalry suffered enough dead and wounded to classify it as a "battle."

Originally, the word "massacre" meant a mass killing of one side only, though when the acting party were held to be something less than human, it was common to use the term to portray a Native "Victory" into an act akin to a modern "war crime."

The "Fetterman Massacre" is a case in point. His command was indeed killed to the last man, but there were at least some Sioux casualties, still the lopsided nature of the thing allowed the Whites to portray themselves as the victims. Little Big Horn was contemporarily referred to as a "massacre," but its multiple battle sites and actions more accurately represent a "battle." Only Custer's battalion suffered the ultimate defeat.

Part of what made Wounded Knee so one-sided was, alas, the very effectiveness of the 7th's Hotchkiss Mountain Gun that killed Sioux otherwise hiding in a ravine and elsewhere. Killing people who could not respond to such firepower can't help but make the whole battle appear to be a "massacre."

TVAG

Interestingly, my kids at the high school level learned nearly nothing about the relations between the colonists and layer the US government. They only touched on two facts:
1- that traders in the 1600 and 1700s deliberately and knowingly gave small pox infected blankets to native Americans to kill them. (it may have been a consequence of Europeans having diseases that natives didnt have BUT the theory of germs causing disease arose in the 1860s. So one huge lie.)
2- That the US government kept moving native Americans further and further away causing mass deaths. (This one they actually got right amazingly!)
…
They never got into the battles, resistance and massacres. I think we may be the last generations to critically think about history. When "educators" only get it half right….sigh

bingo Egoodlander.

Yes. Uh, who were the traders trading with? That would be the Indians. So it is good business to infect your customers with a deadly disease?

The "fact" that traders spread blankets with smallpox is a complete and utter lie. It never happened. The myth arises during Pontiac's Rebellion when the commander of Fort Pitt tried sending blankets out to the Indians surrounding the fort. It didn't work and was never done anywhere else.

No matter what one wants to refer to an historical event, regardless of the label, it will never change what happened. No matter how much vitriol and level of desire to, the event happened and nothing nor anyone can change the factual history. What label one assigns to such historical events is usually just a reflection of their personal feelings of one side. You have the right to express your label but you don't have the ability to bend history to match your feelings. Battle? Massacre? Whatever? History gave us the event- we would better understanding what events lead up to the event and learn from it so we don't make the same mistakes again. In that way, even though many met their demise under horrible circumstances, they would have died in vain and a meaningless death if we don't avert a recurrence taking even more life. Not only is there not enough history taught in school, neither is the teaching what caused wars and events that evoked such passion that so many gave their lives to end it. So, whatever label you want assign to Wounded knee, Little Big Horn, etc. just remember that such labels reflect bias and will never change the outcome that occurred.

It is certain that if one wants to qualify an historical event, whatever the label, it will unfortunately never change what happened.

The event has happened and nothing and no one can change the factual history and if the label one assigns to such historical events is only the expression of personal feelings one has the right to express and want the story to correspond to our feelings; this is normal because we are human.

Battle?

Massacre?

Never mind?

No, there are big differences. Events have led to actions and learning from them so as not to make the same mistakes again, it is impossible, because human beings are like that and if history does not repeat itself, she stutters.

It is not a question of changing the result that occurred but of calling a cat, a cat.