Wounded Knee Event Comparison

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Two significant events for took place at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. The first one was a massacre that occurred in 1890, the second a siege on the area that occured in 1973. These events were similar in terms of parties involved and motives, but very different in terms of things like the starts of the events, the people involved, death tolls, and time periods in which they were waged. The Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 occurred on December 29th, 1890. Chief Big Foot and his followers were on their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation in hopes that they could persuade those at the stronghold to surrender. The group had stopped along Wounded Knee Creek, and James W. Forscyth intercepted them during the previous night. At daybreak, Forscyth ordered the Indians to surrender their weapons and move from the "zone of military operations" to trains that would take them away. The medicine man of the tribe, Yellow Bird, began urging the tribe to defy the demands of Forscyth, and one Indian, Black Coyote, raised his newly bought rifle and declared that he would not give it up. When Forscyth's troops surrounded Black Coyote to disarm the man, Black Coyote's gun fired off and caused the troops to fire their weapons at other Indians, thus triggering the massacre. The massacre lasted for less than an hour, but the death toll was high, with 150 Lakota dead and 50 wounded. The siege of Wounded Knee occurred over 80 years later in the year 1973. Before the siege started, members of the Lakota tribe, whose ancestors were involved in the Wounded Knee massacre, and other tribes decided to meet in order to discuss issues such as high unemployment rates and the policies of the Federal Government concerning the tribes. This meeting formed the American Indian Movement, or AIM. The AIM was the beginning of the siege on Wounded Knee, as a large group of Native Americans gathered with

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