Today is the 133rd anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre, the last major armed conflict between the United States and the Plains Indians.
Between 200 and 400 Native Americans – mostly unarmed women, children, and old men – were killed when the men of the 7th Cavalry fired into a Lakota encampment along Wound Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
The Oglala and Cheyenne River tribes purchased 40 acres of privately-owned land near the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark last year and the Department of Interior took the land into trust for both tribes with the title in the Oglala Sioux name.
A bill introduced by South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson to safeguard that land by designating it as a memorial and exempting it from local and state taxes was passed the House by unanimous consent in September.
An identical bill introduced by Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds was unanimously sent to the Senate floor last month by the Senate
Congressman Johnson called what happened at Wounded Knee “a stain on our nation’s past that cannot be washed away” and must not be forgotten with his bill “a step closer to properly memorializing the lives lost and protecting the land forever.”
Oglala Sioux President Frank Star Comes Out says the bill not only protects sacred land at Wounded Knee, but also continues the healing process for the descendants of victims and survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre.”
Both Star Comes Out and Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Ryman LeBeau testified before the House Natural Resources this summer before the panel advanced the bill