Wounded Knee 1973: Forty Years Later
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Wounded Knee 1973: Forty Years Later Papers of the Forty-Fourth Annual DAKOTA CONFERENCE A National Conference on the Northern Plains THE CENTER FOR WESTERN STUDIES 2012 Papers of the Forty-Fourth Annual Dakota Conference A National Conference on the Northern Plains “Wounded Knee 1973: Forty Years Later” The Center for Western Studies Augustana College Sioux Falls, South Dakota April 27-28, 2012 Compiled by: Kelsey Goplen Jasmin Graves Amy Nelson Harry F. Thompson Major funding for the Forty-Fourth Annual Dakota Conference was provided by: Loren and Mavis Amundson CWS Endowment/SFACF Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission Tony & Anne Haga Carol Rae Hansen, Andrew Gilmour & Grace Hansen-Gilmour Carol M. Mashek Elaine Nelson McIntosh Mellon Fund Committee of Augustana College Rex Myers & Susan Richards V.R. & Joyce Nelson Rollyn H. Samp, in Honor of Ardyce Samp Roger & Shirley Schuller, in Honor of Matthew Schuller Jerry & Gail Simmons South Dakota Humanities Council Robert & Sharon Steensma Blair & Linda Tremere Richard & Michelle Van Demark Jamie & Penny Volin 1 Table of Contents Preface ....................................................................................................................................... v Amundson, Loren H. Winter on the Range: The Blizzards of 1944 in the Letters of Sisters Margaret Swenson and Clarice “Kay” Swenson Weiss, Edited by Peggy Froehlich ............................................. 1 Anderson, Grant K. Social History in a Rural South Dakota Township circa 1910 ................................................ 4 Benson, Robert Central Meade County Tenacity .......................................................................................... 16 Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth Dissent in Indian Country .................................................................................................... 25 DeGroot, Abby Letter Contaxt Review—Letters from Samuel DeForest Woodford and Martin Larson .... 33 Dobrowski, Jordan Letters from Frederick Manfred and Bishop Hare .............................................................. 43 Forbush, Sebastian Letter Context Review—Letters from Mary Collins and Frank Waters .............................. 52 Garred, Matthew Letter Context Review—Letters from William Cleveland and Max Evans .......................... 60 Muller, Richard Wounded Knee 1973: Forty Years Later A Journalist Reminisces ...................................... 70 Rahja, Jean Peter Norbeck Brought Artesian Water to the prairie and Common Sense to Washington D.C. ............................................................................................................. 80 Richardson, Mavis Hero or Villain: Newspaper Images of AIM at Wounded Knee .......................................... 90 Thrond, Elizabeth Archival Records of the Bergsaker Hall Occupation at the Center for Western Studies ................................................................................................................ 102 Tremere, Blair Dancing With Ghosts: Wounded Knee 1890, Forty Years Later ....................................... 115 iii Trimbach, John Wounded Knee ’73 and the Violent Aftermath—A New Perspective .............................. 129 Voorhees, Richard A Waldensian at Wounded Knee ...................................................................................... 141 Walker, Rebekah Responses from Indian Servicemen and Women During World War II ............................ 151 Woodard, Aaron Divide and Conquer: Fur Trader Manuel Lisa and The Sioux War of 1812 ...................... 166 iv PREFACE For the Forty-fourth Annual Dakota Conference, the Center for Western Studies observed the upcoming fortieth anniversary of the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. We did so in the larger context of the massacre at Wounded Knee by the U.S. Seventh Calvary on December 29, 1890. On that date, Miniconjou Lakota chief Spotted Elk (Big Foot), over 300 of his Ghost Dance followers, and 38 Hunkpapas were attacked at their encampment on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Of the 230 Indian women and children and 120 men at the camp, at least 153 were counted dead and 44 wounded. Army casualties were 25 dead and 39 wounded. Eighty-three years later, on February 27, 1973, 200 Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement (AIM) supporters seized and occupied the village of Wounded Knee for 71 days in protest of a recent murder and long-held grievances against the BIA. They demanded an end to intimidation of AIM members and "traditionals" on the reservation. They demanded that treaties signed by the U.S. government be honored, especially the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, which acknowledged Sioux claims to the Black Hills. The village was quickly surrounded by law-enforcement officials, and a siege ensued. Before it ended on May 5, the armed conflict claimed the lives of two AIM supporters. An FBI agent and a U.S. Marshall were wounded, and 1,200 people were arrested. Through the free and open exchange among all conference attendees, we considered the legacy of the occupation and the earlier massacre. Many of the more than seventy presentations, however, did not result in a written format that could be included in this compilation. However, the talk by Russell Means in the Chapel of Reconciliation was recorded and is available on C-Span, and talks by several others were recorded by Indian Country TV and are available on YouTube. Many presentations were on topics unrelated to the theme of the conference, which is an option we welcome. Two sessions, in fact, discussed new books about the Great Plains in separate panel sessions: Remaking the Heartland: Middle America in the 1950s (Princeton University Press) and The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Culture (South Dakota State Historical Society Press). Dedicated to examining contemporary issues in their historical and cultural contexts, the Dakota Conference is a signature event of the Center for Western Studies, which provides programming in Northern Plains Studies at Augustana College. In awarding a Challenge Grant in support of the Center’s endowment in 2008, the National Endowment for the Humanities cited the Dakota Conference, specifically, for its hallmark blending of academic and non-academic presentations. Harry F. Thompson, Ph.D. Executive Director The Center for Western Studies v Center for Western Studies, Augustana College Dakota Conference Presentation Saturday April 28, 2012 Loren H. Amundson Winter on the Range The Blizzards of 1944 in the Letters of Sisters Margaret Swenson & Clarice “Kay” Swenson Weiss Edited by Peggy Froehlich This article originally appeared in Vol. 41, No.2 (Summer 2011) pages 226-266 South Dakota History, Copyright 2011 by South Dakota Historical Society All Rights Reserved. Copied with Historical Society Permission For most of ninety days during the winter of 1944, blizzard after blizzard, then floods and mud, closed roads in and around the ranching community of Opal in northeast Meade County of western South Dakota. Two country school teacher sisters—Margaret “Muggs” Swenson, twenty- eight, and Clarice Kay Swenson Weiss, twenty-three—captured details of the winter in letters as they shared resources, entertainment, and news with neighbors who were also “prisoners of the snow.” They also waited to hear word of Kay’s husband Glen as just before the first blizzard Kay had learned that his Air Force bombardier crew was missing in action in Germany. The sisters thrived in time of hardship, recording their stories to entertain themselves and to inform their sister Judy who lived in Kansas City, Missouri. In April of that year Kay received official word that Glen was a prisoner of war in Germany. Kay taught another term at East Pine School waiting for Glen to return, which he did in June 1945, having spent seventeen months as a POW in northern Germany. In March of 1946 they purchased and moved to a farm one mile east of Colton in Minnehaha County where they farmed and raised sheep. Glen died in 1992 and Kay, now ninety-two continues to live on the farm. Kay is with us today to share her memories. Clarice Kay Swenson Weiss Prairie Schoolteacher and Farmer Kay Swenson [Norwegian, Swede and Dane] was born in 1920 in Minnesota where the family farmed near Willmar and raised shorthorn cattle. After WWI, when she was four, they moved to Timber Lake in Dewey County, South Dakota off the Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Visitors included Black Fox and Bear Necklace. The land there was too sandy for farming so they looked for 1 more fertile land further southwest and rented one mile north of Faith where the children walked to school. Then her grandmother died, leaving them some money, so they settle on Sulphur Creek southwest of Faith in northeast Meade County in 1928. The first year they had a great alfalfa crop that allowed them to purchase the land from a divorced couple at $10/acre. John and Hannah’s family included four daughters; Kay, Margaret “Muggs,” Anna and Judy, and two sons; Harland and Wally. Harland, a West Point graduate and military career man, was serving in Northern Ireland. Wally lived in the bunkhouse at home during the war and his help was essential to the family livelihood. The Swenson’s first family home about eight miles southeast of Opal burned and her father bought and moved another house onto their land. They were not able to sell the place later and the Swenson Ranch Inc. remains in the family today and leased since 1946, now by a great- granddaughter.