Red Cloud’s Speech After Wounded Knee

Red Cloud (or Maȟpíya Lúta) (1822-1909) was an important leader of the Oglala Lakota who led a successful campaign
against the U.S. Army between 1866 and 1868. The conflict
began over white encroachment into territory inhabited by
Native American Plains tribes in the Wyoming and Montana
territories, and it ended with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868,
which established the Great Sioux Reservation. Red Cloud and
his people settled on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in
South Dakota, but he would go on to regret signing the treaty,
stating: “They made us many promises, more than I can
remember. But they kept but one—They promised to take our
land…and they took it.” On December 29, 1890, near
Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, U.S. Cavalry troops fired on a group of Lakota
people, many of them women and children, and killed more
than 150 and wounded 51, some of whom died later.

Red Cloud delivers the following speech after the Wounded
Knee Massacre in order to shed light on the plight of the Native
American peoples living on reservations. Throughout Red
Cloud’s life, he was a proponent of peace and in this speech he
argues that those who were killed at Wounded Knee and
involved in the Ghost Dance movement were not proponents of
violence against whites.

I will tell you the reason for the trouble. When we first made
treaties with the Government, our old life and our old customs
were about to end; the game on which we lived was disappearing; the whites were closing around us, and nothing
remained for us but to adopt their way—the Government
promised all the means necessary to make our living out of the
land, and to instruct us how to do it, and with abundant food
to support us until we could take care of ourselves. We looked
forward with hope to the time we could be as independent as
whites, and have a voice in the Government.

The army officers could have helped better than anyone else
but we were not left to them. An Indian Department was made
with a large number of agents and other officials drawing large
salaries — then came the beginning of trouble; these men took
care of themselves but not of us. It was very hard to deal with
the government through them — they could make more for
themselves by keeping us back than by helping us forward. We
did not get the means for working for our lands; the few
things they gave us did little good. Our rations began to be
reduced; they said we were lazy. That is false. How does any
man of sense suppose that so great a number of people could
get work at once unless they were once supplied with the
means to work and instructors enough to teach them? Our
ponies were taken away from us under the promise that they
would be replaced by oxen and large horses; it was long before
we saw any, and then we got very few. We tried with the men
we had, but on one pretext or another, we were shifted from
one place to another, or were told that such a transfer was
coming. Great efforts were made to break up our customs, but
nothing was done to introduce us to the customs of the whites.
Everything was done to break up the power of the real chiefs.
Those old men really wished their people to improve, but little
men, so-called chiefs, were made to act as disturbers and
agitators. Spotted Tail wanted the ways of the whites, but an
assassin was found to remove him. This was charged to the
Indians because an Indian did it, but who set on the Indian? I
was abused and slandered, to weaken my influence for good.
This was done by men paid by the government to teach us the
ways of the whites. I have visited many other tribes and found
that the same things were done among them; all was done to
discourage us and nothing to encourage us. I saw men paid by
the government to help us, all very busy making money for
themselves, but doing nothing for us…. The men who counted
[the U.S. census] told all around that [we] were feasting and
wasting food. Where did he see it? How could we waste what
we did not have? We felt we were mocked in our misery; we
had no newspaper and no one to speak for us. Our rations
were again reduced.

You who eat three times a day and see your children well and
happy around you cannot understand what a starving Indian
feels! We were faint with hunger and maddened by despair.
We held our dying children and felt their little bodies tremble
as their soul went out and left only a dead weight in our hands.
They were not very heavy but we were faint and the dead
weighed us down. There was no hope on earth. God seemed to
have forgotten. Someone had been talking of the Son of God and said He had come [a reference to the Ghost Dance
movement]. The people did not know; they did not care; they
snatched at hope; they screamed like crazy people to Him for
mercy they caught at the promise they heard he made. The
white men were frightened and called for soldiers. We begged
for life and the white men thought we wanted theirs; we heard
the soldiers coming. We did not fear. We hoped we could tell
them our suffering and could get help. The white men told us
the soldiers meant to kill us; we did not believe it but some
were frightened and ran away to the Badlands. The soldiers
came. They said: “don’t be afraid — we come to make peace not, war.” It was true; they brought us food. But the hunger-
crazed who had taken fright at the soldiers’ coming and went to the Badlands could not be induced to return to the horrors
of reservation life. They were called Hostiles and the
Government sent the army to force them back to their
reservation prison.