The Wounded Knee cemetery on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Photo: Jeremiah Murphy
On behalf of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation, we have called upon President Joe Biden to rescind the Presidential Medals of Honor issued to 7th Cavalry soldiers for the Wounded Knee Massacre.
On July 25, 2024, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a Pentagon board to review Medal of Honor awards for 7th Cavalry troops who participated in the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, where Native American women and children were killed by U.S. soldiers in the deadliest mass shooting in the nation’s history.
On October 15, the Review Board — composed of 3 Military Officers from the Department of Defense and 2 Department of the Interior Officials — reported back to Secretary Austin. Our People have no confidence in such a Pentagon board, and we expect by a vote of 3 (DOD) to 2 (DOI), as the Pentagon board has recommended that America keep the Medals of Honor for the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Until the Wounded Knee Massacre Medals of Honor are rescinded, America’s Medals of Honor will always bear the stain of Mass Murder.
Today, our Lakota still suffer the legacy of American genocide. In 1650, there were 150,000 Lakota, according to Jesuit accounts. By 1900, only 25,000 of us survived. Before America came to our land, our Lakota were healthy, free people.
Now, a Lakota man’s life expectancy is only 47 years. Native women die of pregnancy complications at rates 2 to 4 times higher than White women. Native infants die at rates 2 to 3 times higher.
In our 1868 Treaty, the Great Sioux Nation reserved our homeland to freely live in our traditional way. America pledged its honor: “war shall forever cease.” In 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant said, there must be “Civilization” or a “War of Extermination.”
Grant seized Lakota children and sent them to forced labor boarding schools, taking them from our families, culture and language. “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” the Army said. Many of our Lakota children died far from home. (Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has only now made the Army return our children to us. On October 25, 2024, President Biden apologized for the Boarding Schools.)
In June 1876, President Grant sent General Custer to attack us. Custer sent soldiers east against our village at Little Big Horn, killing women and children. With his personal command, Custer came and attacked from the south. Lakota and Cheyenne warriors defending our village, stayed between us and the 7th Cavalry. Chief White Bull shot Custer before he crossed the river. After the battle, Grant sent 5 more Armies, forcing Sitting Bull and many of our Lakota into Canada. (Many of our Lakota remain in Canada at the Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation in Saskatchewan.)
In 1877, America stole our Black Hills and made us prisoners of war, taking our freedom and way of life. Weeks after Crazy Horse peacefully surrendered, the Army asked him to scout against the Nez Perce. He said, “No.”
While “arresting” him, the Army stabbed him in the back. As he lay dying, Crazy Horse said: “All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, who destroyed our villages.”
In 1889, America took 11 million more acres. Sitting Bull said, “No.” On December 16, 1890, at dawn, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent 42 Police and 115 Cavalry to “arrest” Sitting Bull.
The BIA Agent wrote: “Under no circumstances let Sitting Bull escape.” Police shot him in the back.
The Wounded Knee Massacre burial ground on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Photo: Jeremiah M. Murphy
Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa Lakota camp fled, joining Chief Big Foot and our Mnicoujou at Cheyenne River. He was on the way to see Red Cloud at Pine Ridge.
The 7th Cavalry stopped us at Wounded Knee. On December 29, 1890, the Army lined up men and large boys in front of the cannons. Soldiers seized Black Coyote, the last man disarmed, and his gun went off in the air.
With a sound like canvas tearing, the 7th Cavalry commenced firing, killing our people for hours. The soldiers told little boys hidden in a ravine: “Come out you are safe now. It’s over.” When they came out, soldiers shot them.
Iron Hail said: “They murdered us.” Shot three times himself, soldiers killed his parents, wife and babies.
American Horse said: “The women, as they were fleeing with their babes on their backs, were killed. Shot right through. The women who were heavy with child were also killed.”
General Nelson A. Miles said that the Wounded Knee Massacre was “the most abominable criminal military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children. … The official reports make the number killed 90 warriors and 200 women and children.” Over 350 Lakota were killed, many of our wounded died at the nearby church after the Massacre.
Among our People, we know that the 7th Cavalry was pursuing revenge on our innocent Lakota for Custer’s 1876 defeat at the Little Big Horn. Major Samuel Whitside’s son acknowledged this truth, and those at the site of Wounded Knee Massacre said that the murders of innocent women and children, shot in the back between three and five miles away and children shot while they covered their heads with blankets showed the 7th Cavalry’s murderous campaign for revenge.
America awarded 20 Medals of Honor for Wounded Knee Massacre. America awarded only 16 Medals of Honor for the World War II Normandy Campaign — including D-Day.
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My grandmother, Marcella LeBeau, served as a U.S. Army nurse at the Battle of the Bulge, saving wounded soldiers. Germans bombed her camp. France awarded her the Legion of Honor.
In 2020, when she was 100 years-old, she asked Congress to rescind the Medals of Honor for Wounded Knee. She said: “A pervasive sadness exists among our Lakota due to the tragic loss of our Relatives at Wounded Knee.”
To promote healing, America must remove all Medals of Honor awarded for the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Ryman LeBeau serves as Itancan (Chief) of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe — consisting of the Mnicoujou, Itazipco, Siha Sapa and Oohenumpa Lakota Bands.
