LIABILITIES OF CONQUEST: WOUNDED KNEE AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY by DAVID W. GRUA Bachelor of Arts, 2004 Brigham Young University Provo, Utah Master of Arts, 2008 Brigham Young University Provo, Utah Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of AddRan College of Liberal Arts Texas Christian University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December, 2013 Copyright by David William Grua 2013 Acknowledgments Any author can tell you that, while research is often a solitary activity, writing a manuscript results from many hours of conversation and assistance from interested friends and colleagues. My debts to these individuals are many. Dedicated professors mentored me in the historian’s craft both in and out of the classroom. Todd M. Kerstetter has been a consummate doctoral advisor, sacrificing his own time and energy to answer questions, provide feedback, and teach the fascinating and intersecting histories of the North American West and Native America. Committee members Rebecca Sharpless and Peter Szok mentored me in coursework, refined my arguments in the dissertation, and imparted invaluable professional advice. Though I never had the privilege of taking their classes, committee members Greg Cantrell and Max Krochmal improved the dissertation through their comments and insights. Several institutions provided travel and research support, as well as venues to present my research. Texas Christian University’s Department of History and Geography, Graduate Student Senate, and Graduate School awarded grants that funded transportation to archives in Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, and elsewhere. In addition, these grants permitted travel for presentations at the 2011 and 2012 annual conferences of the Western History Association, in Oakland, California, and Denver, Colorado, respectively. The History Department’s generous Dissertation Fellowship made it possible for me to devote the 2012-13 academic year to intensive writing and revising. The University of Nebraska’s James A. Rawley History Graduate Student Association transportation stipend allowed me to present at the association’s 2011 annual conference at the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska. Lastly, a fellowship at the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, allowed me to complete the final revisions for the manuscript. ii The staff at the following institutions’ archives provided invaluable assistance in locating materials: Assumption Abbey Archives, Richardton, North Dakota; Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, South Dakota; Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas; National Archives and Records Administration, Kansas City, Missouri; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC; Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, Nebraska; South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre, South Dakota; South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota; University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota; and the US Cavalry Museum, Fort Riley, Kansas. Several colleagues and friends provided important advice and insights that immeasurably improved the manuscript. Ari Kelman of the University of California, Davis, who was in the final stages of his own memory study of the Sand Creek Massacre, and Philip Burnham of George Mason University, who was writing a biography of Wounded Knee survivor Dewey Beard, read and commented on chapter drafts. Kenneth N. Owens, professor emeritus at California State University-Sacramento, Kent Blansett of the University of Minnesota-Morris, and Rob Voss of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln offered useful feedback on versions of my research presented at conferences. Fellow TCU graduate students Lisa Barnett, Rebekah Crowe, Brett Dowdle, and Beth Hessel all read and commented on chapters. Scholars of Lakota history and Wounded Knee, including Rani-Hendrick Andersson of the University of Helsinki, Raymond DeMallie of Indiana University, Jeffrey Ostler of the University of Oregon, and Akim Reinhardt of Towson University encouraged me along the way and answered multiple email queries. I am also indebted to Boyd Cothran of York University, Andrew R. Graybill of Southern Methodist University, Margaret Jacobs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Jean O’Brien of iii the University of Minnesota, Larry Skogen of Bismark State College, Sherry L. Smith of Southern Methodist University, Robert Wooster of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and John R. Wunder of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, each of whom advised me at some point on various aspects of the dissertation. I owe some of my greatest intellectual debts to the Lakotas who agreed to discuss the Wounded Knee survivors’ fascinating lives and histories with me. Mario Gonzalez, former attorney for the Wounded Knee Survivors Association and a key figure in the Lakotas’ ongoing legal battles surrounding the Black Hills, allowed me to interview him in his law office in Rapid City, South Dakota. Mike Her Many Horses shared his files accumulated from many years of archival research and his memories of his own contributions to the Survivors Association’s memorial activities. Marie Not Help Him, former president of the Survivors Association, hosted me in her home on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and described her powerful memories of her great-grandfather Dewey Beard. Leonard Little Finger, another descendant of important survivors, answered my questions in a phone interview. Fellow graduate student Bill Kingfisher, who was raised in the Takini (the Lakota word for survivor) community on the Cheyenne River Reservation, responded to questions via email and connected me with other descendants. My last and most deeply felt thanks go to my family. My parents, Marilyn and Corey W. Grua, instilled in me a love of books and learning that sustained me through the grueling, yet rewarding, rigors of graduate study. My wife, the former Hope Hendricksen, accompanied me emotionally and intellectually through the entire process of researching and writing this dissertation. She even scrolled through microfilms of old newspapers and searched dusty archival boxes for references to Wounded Knee. For her, I reserve my most profound gratitude. iv Contents Acknowledgments ii Introduction: Wounded Knee and the Politics of Memory 1 Chapter 1. Honoring the Seventh Cavalry for Wounded Knee 42 Chapter 2. Competing Sites of Wounded Knee Memory: Fort Riley and Pine Ridge 86 Chapter 3. No Thought of Hostility 138 Chapter 4. Liquidating the Liability of the United States for Wounded Knee 198 Epilogue: The Survivors’ Legacies 238 Bibliography 262 v Introduction Wounded Knee and the Politics of Memory Four days after Christmas in 1940, reporter Paul Friggens noted that “Congress has just appropriated $15,000,000,000 for national defense, but lying before it is a bill for America’s last major Indian battle fought exactly 50 years ago today.” He referred to the engagement at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, where the US Seventh Cavalry killed over two hundred Lakota men, women, and children on December 29, 1890. Twenty-five cavalrymen also died in the fight. Friggens explained that Wounded Knee was among the most controversial military engagements in the nation’s history, even after five decades had passed. The embroilment over the meaning of Wounded Knee had even been imprinted on the memorial landscape of the American West, with competing monuments to the dead. One stood at Fort Riley, Kansas, honoring the fallen soldiers. The other obelisk was located at Wounded Knee itself, where it memorialized the Lakotas who lost their lives. “They’re fighting the action all over again in Washington on the 50th anniversary,” Friggens continued, “and the reason is a bill introduced by Representative Francis Case, South Dakota, ‘to liquidate the liability of the United States for the massacre of Sioux Indian men, women, and children at Wounded Knee.’”1 Congress was therefore tasked with deciding whether the United States Army had conducted itself honorably against “hostile” Indians or if the Seventh Cavalry had massacred innocent Lakotas. The trouble started long before 1890, Friggens argued, as settlers encroached on Lakota lands on the northern Great Plains. “It reached its climax late in 1890 with a Messianic ghost 1 Paul Friggens, “Uncle Sam Still Pays for Wars and Indian Massacres of 1890,” Everyweek Magazine, December 29, 1940. 1 dance, a frenzied religious revival, common among the Sioux. Lasting for days and nights at a time, these ghost dances drove the Indians virtually mad until they believed the ghost shirts they wore were sacred and bullet-proof against the soldiers.” Although admitting that “historians have never agreed precisely as to all that happened that morning when, a drab Sioux camp on Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota was turned into shambles,” Friggens turned to ethnologist James Mooney’s 1896 The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 to describe the arrest and disarmament of Minneconjou Lakota leader Big Foot (Sithánka) and his four hundred “Messianic dancers.”2 For Mooney, what started as a battle quickly turned into a horrific massacre. A young Lakota warrior, acting on a signal from the Ghost Dance medicine man, started the fight by firing at the soldiers. Although Mooney considered the Lakotas responsible for the initial volley, the Seventh Cavalry, aided by Hotchkiss cannons, proceeded to slaughter fleeing men, women, and children.3 To