WOUNDED KNEE

So much has been documented about the Battle of Wounded Knee and since it did
not happen in Ziebach County, but affected so many people who lived here at that time,
this story told by Alice War Bonnet Charging Cloud and related by William War Bonnet,
her son, is included. The translator is Sidney Keith.
"We started from Cherry Creek where it forks with the Cheyenne River.

We were
running the horses at a quick pace to try to catch the main band of our people under the
leadership of Spotted Elk traveling towards Red Cloud's camp at Pine Ridge some 100
miles distance. Following almost side by side path with the Cheyenne River, sometimes
crossing on the snow-covered thick ice where it curved too much, we tracked their fresh
trail.

I was thirteen years old at that time (December 26, 1890) and riding horseback
following my parent's wagon, with my two little brothers, the year old brother in my
mother's arms and the six year old sitting alongside. By sunset we reached Spotted Elk's camp
at a riverbend and branch creek.

[photo – Big Foot's Camp (SDSHS)]

The following day, our village broke camp and headed south for Pine Ridge. After a
good day's ride,

we finally reached Bad River, where we set up our encampment for the
night.
Bright and early the following day, the caravan of 200 people in wagons or on
horseback meandered along. By mid-day we rode past Porcupine Butte. Some miles
past, as we were climbing a long slope and using a water runoff trough to help conceal
our movement towards a high hill, the lead portion of the caravan stopped at the highest
point.

When we pulled up to the lead group, my mother called me over and she said,
'There are horseback soldiers camped nearby. Stay close to the wagon.' Mother came to
tighten my saddle cinch up tight. 'We may have to make a run for our lives, to scatter,'
she said.

I noticed many tents and horses and many cavalrymen with guns were milling around
down below.

Four of our men got on their horses, one of them carrying a white flag tied to a long
stick as a peace gesture, riding down towards the cavalrymen. All the soldiers lay down
immediately and pointed their rifles at our men riding down. But our men kept going and
stopped in the center where they had a big gun on wheels. Two of their soldiers got up
and started talking to our men, while the rest of their foot soldiers rose to their feet and
closed in.

Suddenly two of our riders broke through the encircling foot soldiers, rode back at a
gallop and said the soldiers wanted to talk to Spotted Elk who was lying sick in a wagon.
Soon the soldiers brought a buggy, put Spotted Elk in it, and took him back to the
confrontation.
After some moments of talk, they told us we could camp on the west side, so
everybody got busy pitching their tents and small tipis. All this time the foot soldiers were
watching every move we made.

A buggy came around the camp after everyone was
settled and they were issuing coffee, sugar, bacon and hardtack. They said there would
be no trouble.
But by nightfall they had us surrounded and guarded us all night, like horses.
Unknown to us in the darkness, they had moved in more soldiers and more big guns.
Early next morning we broke camp, loading the wagons and hitching up the horses.

I
had my horse about ready when a crier came around the camp telling our men to go to
the center for peace talks. So they walked over while the women and children finished
packing the wagons. Everyone being jumpy, including myself, my eyes seemed to work
as must the owl's at night. I noticed our men being surrounded with rifles pointing at
them. On signal it seems, some of their cavalrymen galloped over to our wagons and
started searching for guns, whatever

awls, axes and knives, and
practically tearing up the wagons. The weapons they found, they took to the center and
dumped them on the ground. Not being satisfied with this, they inspected our men,
feeling whatever garments and blankets they wore.
With things strewn all over the ground, we started quickly to pick up, repacking our
belongings back into the wagons. Then I got on my horse and waited.
Suddenly cavalrymen on white horses appeared with their sabers glinting in the sun.

In the north, cavalrymen on bay horses lined up, ready. Nearby several foot soldiers
pulled up a big gun on a hill within sight and range of us. Almost all around us, except to
the southeast and south where a creek snaked out of sight, the soldiers were peeking
over the hill. A soldier on a bay horse from the bunch to the north rode down at a fast
clip, reining in at the center. He looked in all directions and seemed excited about
something.

He turned his horse real fast, galloping to the north yelling something. And all
the soldiers started firing, even the big guns boomed.
My horse bolted, then started to rear up, so my mother told me to jump off and let him
go. I let go of the reins as I jumped and he took off running towards the southeast
through the tree line along the creek, the only opening the horse saw, and I saw too, for
ourselves.

Mother carrying one brother and I half dragging the older, fled toward the
creek and jumped out of sight into a big washout. Soon Father (Ghost Horse) came
crawling in, shot above the right knee. He had no gun, just his hands to defend us. He
said, "I must move you all further away". Then he picked up the oldest boy and crawled
away with him. But a while later he came back and said, "Hun he! They killed my son".
And even then he still said he wanted us to move further down the creek,

but my mother
objected and she said, "We'll die here together, as a family". Mother told me to stand so I
got up, but Father pulled me down again. Eventually, without any further words, we
crawled to where some plum bushes were, where we hid again. Right away while all
hugged the earth for dear life, Father scooted away again to help others, despite
Mother's plea for him to stay with us there.
Two people came crawling in: Phillip Black Moon and his mother

After that women
and children also came to where we were hidden, the children whimpering. Groups
came in at intervals. Four of the wounded died while we were lying there. A man by the
name of Breast Plate came in and told us that my father was killed. Charge-In-Kill and
Nistuste came in later but they left again to help others.

Toward sundown more wounded people straggled in. As it got dark the shooting
stopped all of a sudden and we heard wagons moving about or away, to the

to the west and
southwest.
Those who could got up and walked or limped to the north, tiptoeing our way through
creek beds and ravines. Occasionally we stumbled over dark objects which turned out to
be dead animals or dead Lakotas. And we heard a child saying, "Mama, I want some
water" some place in the dark, cold night. Many more wounded were crying for help.
We walked north in the creek bed.

It must have been Wounded Knee Creek where
we separated into four even groups, each to take different routes, to better the chances
for one or all groups to escape. By morning, our group reached a high hill. From there
we could see a long way.
We had traveled a northwesterly direction for the sunup showed the plains and level
landscape to the east, the higher buttes and pine-covered hills to the west. The sky
showed polka-dotted white puffs with blue background, changing

changing patterns by the wind,
strong enough to make eyes water.
We had two boys stay up on the hill to watch for soldiers in all directions.
"A rider is following our tracks!" the boys hollered down. And like cottontails we dove
deeper under the brushes and trees. But it was a Lakota wearing a woman's scarf. It
was Nistuste. After we shook hands with him we all cried. He told us that after the
shooting he walked to Red Cloud Agency (Pine Ridge).

He then walked back to Wounded Knee where he
found this horse. He started tracking our several trails northward, hoping to meet up with
somebody. He insisted that our group go with him back toward Pine Ridge.
Before our group could decide which way to go, some more riders appeared and we
took off for the creek to hide. They rode up yelling, "We are Lakotas, do not run!" All got
up and shook hands with them, one woman and three men. We all cried again.

hey had
some pemmican which they shared with us. We hadn't eaten anything since we had left
Wounded Knee a day and a half earlier. One of the men said there were cattle foraging
over the hill, that he was going after one. Two men went with him. When they had
carried the already quartered beef in to us, one lady did the cooking from a pail and
dishes she had gotten from a deserted log house not far from there. We really ate for
once, thanks to the men and the nice woman.

Nistuste and the three men rode back toward Wounded Knee. That left us with
thirteen people, mostly women and children. I was with my brother &mother; a lady
that always carried a little one on her back; a woman who had her braids cut off, she
was slightly wounded; Alex High Hawk; Blue Hair; and five members of the Many Arrows
family. Next morning we got ready to leave and found Dog Chasing had come in with
two women sometime during the night. The men who rode out must have sent them in.

With our number at sixteen, we left bright and early. I was again riding a horse with
my little brother, and Mother, on foot, was leading the horse.
Along the way I must have catnapped. When I became clear headed again, we were
heading down a hill. At the bottom of the valley stood a log house with a wooden floor
and fireplace which they fired up for us to warm up by, and rest. With some daylight left,
we started off again.

It started to cloud up Some minutes later it turned into a blizzard.
One of the men had steered us toward a cabin which he had spotted from a butte. This
blessed haven we reached, so we stayed warm sitting out the storm. We had plenty of
meat from that last butchering.
Later in the night voices woke me up, loud high pitched voices, women arguing to
scatter or to stay and the calmer voices of the men, sometimes whispering. I sat up.

Then a new meaning came to my senses. I got scared for the first time. My heart was
beating fast, my breathing becoming harder and shorter. Quickly moving and squirming
closer to Mother's body was to me as natural as a cottontail rabbit's jumping from danger
into its lair. But it turned out that the women may have heard something, then imagined
their fears into loud noises. For some time, we just sat there staring at the darkness.

During the night some riders went and later they came back and said in a low voice,
"It is time to go". It was cloudy and still dark when we left. Sometimes snow would blow
but we kept going down a deep draw, always keeping to the lowlands.
Finally we stumbled onto a camp of Oglalas who ran away from Pine Ridge during
the shooting. At the end of the camp we came to Short Bull's tent. All of the people came
to welcome

us in, and the rest of our group were all taken to different tents and fed well.
We stayed at this camp three months and the sun kept coming out higher and higher.
Soon the snow was melting and all knew it was spring.
A rider on horseback came into camp one day and said there was going to be a
treaty council at Pine Ridge. The next day we headed for Pine Ridge. The chiefs were
walking in front, followed by young warriors on horseback. Over the hill we could see
many tents and

and cavalry all over the place. Dust was flying. Horses were tied to hitching
posts face to face.
We made camp near the post. Canraraka and Iron Thunder came to the camp and
said they came after all the Minneconjous who were wounded or deceased--that they
belong to the Minneconjous band.
In Pine Ridge my mother signed our names as survivors along with the rest of our
people.
They pitched three big tipis in the center where they told us to go.

I remember there
was Black Moon and his mother and brothers, Iron Horn and Wood Pile. There were
many Minneconjous who showed up at the tipi, even some we thought had died. Ashe
was a young girl then, she was there, too. I noticed other people were Blue Hair, Blue
Arm, Axe, Brown Eagle and Canraraka.
We left Pine Ridge for Minneconjou country at Cherry Creek. We were traveling in
five wagons. One wagon was loaded with oats and hay, another one with rations.

One
wagon full of soldiers was leading us out of Pine Ridge.
Despite all these nice things being done for us, I can't forget what happened at
Wounded Knee. I cried many nights thinking about it many months afterwards.....they
killed my brother and father.

#RememberWoundedKnee #NativeAmerican #history ^^^

This is just one account. I'll be sharing more during #nativeamericanheritagemonth

Even sellers on Amazon are selling photos of dead ancestors we don't have.