The Massacre at Wounded Knee

On December 29, 1890, the Seventh Cavalry surrounded a band of Lakota Sioux led by Chief Spotted Elk, known as Big Foot, on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. What followed was not a battle, but one of the darkest massacres in American history. More than 250 Lakota men, women, and children were killed in the snow, cut down by rifle fire and Hotchkiss guns. Among the dead lay families who had sought peace, a chief too ill to stand, and children who never had a chance to grow. The United States called it victory. Survivors called it murder. History still calls it Wounded Knee. In The Massacre at Wounded Knee, John Frances tells this story with unflinching truth and vivid detail. Drawing on survivor testimony, historical records, and the haunting legacy carried across generations, this book takes readers from the loss of the buffalo herds to the rise of the Ghost Dance, from the death of Sitting Bull to the frozen trench where hundreds were buried together. But this is more than the story of 1890. It is the story of memory and survival. From the silence that followed to the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement, Frances traces how the massacre became both scar and symbol — a wound in the land, and a rallying cry for justice. The Massacre at Wounded Knee is not written as a dry textbook. It is written in the style of lived history — descriptive, human, and unforgettable. It honors those who fell, those who survived, and those who carried the truth forward.