Spotted Elk

After this, several hundred Lakota fled south.

Joined by Sitting Bull's half-brother, Chief Spotted Elk, also called Chief Bigfoot, they trekked to the Pine Ridge Reservation, some 200 miles to the south.

The U.S. Army caught up to the fleeing Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek, and on December 29th, while trying to disarm the captured Indians, a firearm went off.

The details of what happened next are up to debate, and I'll cover that later in the episode.

Well, because I was in South Dakota already, the following day I traveled south to Wounded Knee Cemetery, where approximately 300 Native American Indians had been killed and buried in a mass grave.

And according to history, after the capture and killing of Chief Sitting Bull, the 7th Cavalry set out to capture Bigfoot's people as they fled to Pine Ridge.

And this pursuit was finally, you know, I should say this pursuit was to finally put an end to the ghost dance movement and other perceived accounts of insurrection against the United States.

And when the cavalry reached Bigfoot's camp on December, I think it was December 29th, actually in 1890, they attempted to confiscate the weapons from the Native American Indian people.

And suddenly a single shot ran out, and within seconds the cavalry began firing volley after volley into the Sioux camp.

And Native American Indian men rushed to retrieve their confiscated rifles while the women and children ran for a ravine near the camp.

only to be cut down in crossfire.

And some historians actually believe that the 7th Cavalry attacked Bigfoot's people to avenge their regiment's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.