Letter To Editor: Wounded Knee And The Demands of History

One of the ongoing culture war debates tends to be about our nation’s history and how to learn about it.  If the pendulum swings back and forth in these debates, it is officially swinging in one direction currently.  Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently announced that 20 soldiers from what has sometimes been called a Battle at Wounded Knee, but more often referred to as a massacre of the Lakota Tribe December 29, 1890.  The generally agreed-upon body count is about 250 to 300 of the Lakota, with more dying of wounds over the next several days.  20 US soldiers died, with some from friendly fire.  In 1990, Congress apologized to the descendants of the Massacre, but no medals were revoked.  The report, never released by former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, is currently being claimed by the current administration, although evidence of such has not been released.  Hegseth stated that the soldiers deserved the medals, and their place in U.S. history is no longer up for debate.

The political pendulum swings as much as it is allowed, but our current understanding of the Massacre at Wounded Knee comes from published studies of first-person accounts over a long period of time, and admissions that it wasn’t what could be reasonably called a battle, by anyone’s stretch of the term.  As for the soldiers’ bravery, actions taken by soldiers often fall under someone’s loose or tight definition of bravery, but the deaths of women and children and the pattern of agreeing on treaties then denying them is one that the Lakota lived and died for in relation to dealing with the U.S. Government and its military.  These dark chapters are part of our history.  History is a remarkably messy discipline, which at times has to admit its sources were not comprehensive.  History is written by the conquerors, and ours is no different than other countries, which were built in large part by conquest.  That does not mean that there aren’t great and noble aspects of US History, but good actions of a nation do not cancel out its sins, even as good and bad actions of individuals do not cancel each other out.

In a different tribe, but similar pattern, Col. George Custer attacked one of Chief Black Kettle’s villages in Oklahoma in 1868.  Chief Black Kettle, despite being a known advocate for peace, was killed along with his wife and roughly 60 of the people from the village, including women and children.  Of this particular act, Dee Brown writes

“Not all of Anthony’s officers, however, were eager or even willing to join Chivington’s well-planned massacre. Captain Silas Soule, Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, and Lieutenant James Connor protested that an attack on Black Kettle’s peaceful camp would violate the pledge of safety given the Indians by both Wynkoop and Anthony, “that it would be murder in every sense of the word,” and any officer participating would dishonor the uniform of the Army.”

― Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Brown’s research and writing show that there were soldiers who questioned unjust, illegal orders during the time of the massacres against the Lakota.  Brown’s seminal work, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, is a powerful example of American History.  That is the point that needs to be stressed, mainly that the American Experiment, with the brilliance of its political documents, the evils of slavery and creation of reservations, the bravery of its abolitionists, must be admitted and looked at in its totality, not by whitewashing or heroizing, but by admission, confession, and commitment to progress.  Our admissions will tell us what needs to be confessed and remembered.  Our celebrations can continue more honestly as a result.  But if we celebrate and commemorate without the honest confession, we will suffer collective amnesia and corporate denial, which result in neither truth nor heroism.  Secretary of Hegseth announced his decision, and others like it, as not up for debate.  Fortunately, albeit not without pain and regret, history doesn’t listen to men who announce themselves and their positions as unquestionable.  Whether the blood of Abel or the blood of the Lakota, blood cries out from the ground and demands to be remembered.

John Cabascango

John Cabascango is the author of Throwing Moses Under the Bus: A High School English Teacher Looks at the Ten Commandments and Off the Rails: Evangelicals, Power and Politics.  He writes on Substack.