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| Photo Credit: AP. |
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Two American Indian tribes in South Dakota have joined forces to purchase 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of one of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history.
The Oglala
Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux said the purchase of the land on the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation was an act of cooperation to ensure the area was
preserved as a sacred site. More than 200 Native Americans — including children
and elderly people — were killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The bloodshed marked
a seminal moment in the frontier battles the U.S. Army waged against tribes.
“It’s a
small step towards healing and really making sure that we as a tribe are
protecting our critical areas and assets,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin
Killer told The Associated Press.
The tribes
agreed this week to petition the U.S. Department of the Interior to take the
land into trust on behalf of both tribes. The Oglala Sioux tribe will pay
$255,000 and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe will pay $245,000 for the site,
Indian Country Today reported. The title to the land will be held in the name
of the Oglala Sioux tribe.
Marlis
Afraid of Hawk, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe whose grandfather,
Albert Afraid of Hawk, survived the 1890 massacre as a 13-year-old boy, said
she was overjoyed to see the tribes take ownership. She said she carries on the
oral tradition of telling her grandchildren how her grandfather survived by
fleeing through a ravine after a rifle held by a U.S. calvary soldier failed to
fire at him.
As a member
of a group that represents the descendants of the massacre’s survivors, she had
initially raised objections to the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s purchase of the land,
but said the joint purchase made her feel “honored and grateful.”
Members of
the Oglala Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux
tribes were all at Wounded Knee in 1890, Afraid of Hawk said.
She hoped
the site could be used for “education for the people who come and see the
massacre site.”
“They need
to know the history. It needs to come through the true, true Lakota people,”
she said.
The tribes’
agreement ends a decades-long dispute over ownership of a site that has figured
largely in Indigenous people’s struggles with the U.S. government. Jeanette
Czywczynski became sole owner of the property after her husband, James, died in
2019. He had purchased the property in 1968.
The
Czywczynski family operated a trading post and museum there until 1973, when
American Indian Movement protesters occupied the site, destroying both the post
and Czywczynski’s home.
The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded led to heightened awareness about Native American struggles and propelled a wider protest movement.
The family
moved away from the area and put the land up for sale, asking $3.9 million for
the 40-acre parcel nearest the massacre site even though the land, including an
additional adjacent 40-acre plot, had been assessed at $14,000.
In 2013,
film star Johnny Depp announced a plan to buy the property and donate it to the
Oglala Sioux tribe. Depp, who played the role of Tonto in a remake of the film,
“The Lone Ranger,” was criticized for trying to capitalize on the film by
making unsubstantiated claims of having Native American ancestry. Depp did not follow
through on the purchase.
Killer, the
Oglala Sioux Tribe’s president, said the tribe’s resolution for the land
purchase calls for it to be preserved as a sacred site.
He said,
“There’s still a lot of unresolved artifacts and items that should be left
undisturbed.”
Manny Iron
Hawk, another member of the Wounded Knee Survivor’s Association, said he saw
the land acquisition as another step in the century-old Indian revival movement
known as the Ghost Dance. The U.S. military was trying to suppress the Ghost
Dance in 1890 after it had swept across Indigenous communities with a prophecy
that colonial expansion would end and Native American communities would unite
for prosperity.
“The Ghost
Dance was a beautiful dream for our people. It wasn’t a dream of death, it was
a dream of life,” Iron Hawk said. “Today we are the new Ghost Dancers and we
carry on a duty that came to us to do what we can for our relatives there at
Wounded Knee.”