1890 Wounded Knee Creek, SD, US Seventh Cavalry kills over 150 Sioux men, women and children
The Wounded Knee Massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Lakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
On December 29, 1890, five hundred troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece capable of rapid fire), surrounded an encampment of Minneconjou Lakota with orders to escort them back to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska.
The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding and placed his men in too close proximity to the Lakota, alarming them. Shooting broke out near the end of the disarmament, and accounts differ regarding who fired first and why. By the time it was over, twenty-five troopers and one hundred and fifty-three Paiute lay dead, including sixty-two women and small children.
Many of the dead on both sides may have been the victims of "friendly fire" as the shooting took place at point blank range in chaotic conditions. Around one hundred and fifty Lakota fled the chaos, of which an unknown number are later believed to have died from exposure.