Did These People Die So
that They Could Become Mascots?
The mass grave of over 300 Indian children,
women and men can be visited today at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Barely
25 years later these people were declared to be mascots by a baseball
team in Cleveland and the University of Illinois along with many U.S.
public schools, including Wichita North
High School.
They are to this day still
considered mascots.
HOW IS THIS AN HONOR?
(above) A grandmother shows off her grandchild.
(below) The frozen body of Chief Spotted
Elk, (Big Foot) the leader who led his people in under the white flag.
Left for 4 days in the wasteland with the bodies of over 300 others.
Legislate a mass execution into HONOR status?
20 Congressional Medals of Honor were
given to the soldiers including those who operated the
four Hotchkiss machine guns to kill these people because of their
religious beliefs.
A survivor speaks of the day the soldiers
killed his wife, mother and child.
The United States maintains
this dishonor by allowing schools, universities and professional
sports to ridicule these people and their ancestor's religious beliefs.
It is time to get rid of the Indian mascot.
It is time to restore the honor and meaning to the Congressional Medal
of Honor.
Indians have the right to enjoy the same
protection as all other religious groups within the United States.
These people died at Wounded Knee because
of their religion. 
Chief (Big Foot) Spotted Elk's body, four days
later.
Carts stacked with the dead at Wounded Knee, South
Dakota, 1890. The little bundles are children.
ABOUT THE PEOPLE KILLED
They were members of the band led by Chief (Big
Foot) Spotted Elk, Sioux, who were participating in the Ghost Dance,
a religion descended in parts from Christianity and Native beliefs.
They had been marched to Wounded Knee Creek and disarmed by the US Army.
A group of 120 men and 230 women and children were counted by Major
Samuel Whitside at sundown December 28, 1890.
Hungry and exhausted the Native people had assembled
under armed guard as requested to receive the protection of the Government
of the United States of America surrendering their arms and submitting
to a forced search of tents and teepees that yielded but two remaining
rifles. An unidentified shot rang out and the well armed 487 U.S. soldiers
ringing the defenseless people opened fire. Later in a private letter,
General Nelson A. Miles who was commanding officer had this to say:
"Wholesale massacre occurred and I
have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that
at Wounded Knee. About two hundred women and children were killed
and wounded; women with little children on their backs, and small
children powder burned by the men who killed them being so near as
to burn the flesh and clothing with the powder of their guns, and
nursing babes with five bullet holes through them....Col. Forsyth
is responsible for allowing the command to remain where it was stationed
after he assumed command, and in allowing his troops to be in such
a position that the line of fire of every troop was in direct line
of their own of their own comrades or their camp"- [ Nelson A.
Miles to George W. Baird, November 20, 1891, Baird Collection, WA-S901,
M596, Western Americana Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.]
The Sioux dead were left where they had fallen
and a blizzard swept the wasteland for 4 days. Meanwhile, wagon loads
of wounded Sioux were taken to Pine Ridge Agency where they were treated
at the Episcopalian mission. Lying on hay spread on the mission floor
they were in plain sight of the words written above the Christian pulpit,
"Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men".
The Indian people had begun a Ghost Dance religious
ceremony, which called for the return of the old ways of the Indian
people. The date was December 29, 1890, four days after the celebrated
birth of Jesus Christ and over 250 years after the Pilgrims arrived
in this country seeking religious freedom. Ignorant of the meaning and
significance of the Ghost Dance, and wanting to see dead Indian children,
women and men, the waiting well armed professional army had opened fire
with howitzer automatic guns carbines. They followed those who ran under
cover of the gun smoke into the ravines and shot them regardless of
their age.
WHAT DOES RELIGIOUS FREEDOM MEAN TO YOU?
In a country based on religious freedom
the Native American has yet to see it. Their religious symbols are being
mocked by schools universities and professional sports.
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Only
36 years later these Sioux are made mascots.
Chief Illiniwek, University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, Illinois,
USA
ONLY IN AMERICA
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