– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

In 1973, 200 Indigenous protestors staged an armed takeover of Wounded Knee

– where the U.S. military had massacred 300 Lakota less than a hundred years earlier.

They held the site for 71 days, exchanging gunfire with federal authorities,

who later admitted to firing over half a million rounds at tribal members,

killing two Native men.

And while most remember  the occupation for its violence, 

the protesters also held ceremonial  dances, songs, and prayers

—and gained a lot of attention for their cause.

But what were they fighting for?

Hi, I’m Che Jim, and welcome to Crash Course Native American History.

[THEME MUSIC]

The occupation of Wounded Knee was, broadly, about treaties

—formal agreements, usually between two or more states or nations.

Many of the protesters were members of the American Indian Movement,

which, among other things,  fought for the U.S. government 

to honor its treaty obligations  with Native nations.

See, between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, a period called the Treaty Era,

the U.S. entered into nearly 400  treaties with Indian Nations.

And it wasn’t a fun Taylor Swift kind of “era.”

Most tribes were coerced  into signing these treaties.

And the few that entered willingly often did so without full understanding of their meaning.

Treaties changed tribal borders in major ways during this period

and played a huge part in  removing Native Americans 

from their lands as colonists pushed westward.

And when treaties didn’t work in their favor, the U.S. government often just disregarded them.

And trust me: they ignored a lot.

During this period, we also saw the formation and scaling up of reservations.

These were specific portions of land that the U.S. government allocated to tribes,

often forcing them to move there.

We call the period between 1850 and 1887 the Reservation Era.

But to understand how we  ever got here to this point— 

and to the occupation a hundred years later—

we have to look backwards.

So, I’m gonna walk you through  that 100-ish year timeline,

which means I’m about to cover a lot of history in a short amount of time.

Think of this as a primer. A little appetizer.

Don’t make me say it… Crash Course.

So when you finish this video,

you might want to dig deeper.

Actually, you should want to dig a little deeper.

You WILL dig deeper.

Let’s start back in the olden times, 1626,

when the Indigenous Lenape  people of what’s now New York 

sold the island of Manhattan  – then called Manahatta –

to the Dutch for 24 dollars worth  of beads and other trinkets.

Or at least, that’s probably  the story you’ve heard.

It’s been retold in textbooks and paintings,

and has even been cited as one of the foundational myths of New York City.

I hear it’s engraved on the Statue of Liberty, right under “I’m walkin’ here!”

But…this story has likely been exaggerated.

Our records of the deal come  from the writings of one 

lone Dutch dude who wasn’t  even there when it happened.

The fact is, it’s possible  that a band of Lenape did 

sell the island to the Dutch,  for about 1,000 dollars.

But the terms of the agreement were influenced by each party having very different worldviews.

The Dutch, like most Europeans, thought of land ownership as something tangible and permanent.

But many Native nations, including some clans among the Lenape, had a very different viewpoint.

In their culture, land was  controlled by the community, 

and divided for use among extended family.

Which was different from the “individual” system of ownership Europeans were used to.

Anyway, the Lenape likely believed that they were 

renting or leasing the land  – not selling it outright.

Johanna Gorelick, from the Museum of the American Indian, put it this way:

"I don't think the exchange itself is in question. 

I think the meaning of that  exchange is in question.”

This is just one early example, but these cultural misunderstandings

– and some intentionally fine print — would play a large role in the Treaty Era.

As more and more colonists came to the so-called New World,

they pushed Native Americans westward — often violently.

And tribes would understandably retaliate against 

the colonists who used their  land and stole their resources.

But during and after the  American Revolution especially, 

when the young republic was  weakened by its war with Britain,

the threat of conflict with  Native Americans was… threatening.

So, many treaties at this time were focused on “peace and friendship” in exchange for land.

In fact, the very first treaty — called the Treaty with the Delawares

— was signed during the Revolution in 1778, 

between the newly formed  United States and the Lenape

—who the Americans called the Delaware.

It promised sovereignty and statehood in exchange for, among other things,

letting American troops pass through their land unscathed during battles with the Brits.

But although the Lenape held  up their end of the bargain, 

the U.S. failed to deliver on theirs.

What a twist! Just kidding, we all know how this goes.

This pattern would unfortunately repeat itself many times over.

In the words of Lakota leader Red Cloud,

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember,

but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.”

As the U.S. continued to grow, these treaties became less about keeping the peace,

and more explicitly about gaining territory.

Some tribes signed away their lands, either willingly or unwillingly, but many resisted

– including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations in the Southeast.

In this region, colonists saw the tribes as a roadblock to fertile land for growing cotton.

In 1814, future president Andrew Jackson, then a Major General in the Army,

led a push against the Creek Nation.

It came to a head in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, near what’s now the Georgia-Alabama border.

Many of the Creek were massacred,

and the remaining were forced to sign a treaty that ceded over 20 million acres to the U.S.

Which was a wake-up call for many tribes.

Realizing it would be nearly impossible to defeat the Americans in battle,

many chose to sign treaties  that gave up much of their land, 

in the hopes that they would at  least get to keep some of it.

But in 1830, a year after  Jackson was elected president, 

Congress passed the Indian Removal Act

which gave the U.S. government sweeping power to grant land west of the Mississippi River

to any Native nation that agreed  to give up their land in the east.

These treaties were officially  considered “voluntary,”

but in practice, that was far from the truth, as bribery and threats were commonplace.

Consider the Treaty of New Echota,

which Jackson signed with the  backing of a single Cherokee chief, 

who represented barely a fraction of the tribe.

It gave the U.S. government  7 million acres of land 

in exchange for just 5 million dollars.

Unsurprisingly, many Cherokee didn’t want to leave their ancestral homeland.

So, under the leadership of  Principal Chief John Ross, 

they held out against removal.

Ross and his supporters  argued the treaty was a fraud 

and worked to convince the government to recognize

the older treaties it had signed guaranteeing the Cherokee the land they were already on.

Ultimately, though, their  resistance broke down in 1838 

when the remaining Cherokee were  finally removed – at gunpoint

– by the Army and members of the Georgia militia.

From there, Ross led his people westward as part of what would become known as the Trail of Tears.

All told, during the 1830s, an estimated 100,000 

Native American people were  forced to leave their homes

and journey thousands of miles West.

And around 15,000 individuals died along the way.

But it didn’t end there.

As the U.S. continued to expand westward, 

the government began  re-encountering the same peoples

they had driven from the  east a few decades earlier, 

not to mention those western  tribes who’d already lived there.

I mean, what did they expect?

But this time, the government  took a different approach.

What if instead of signing a bunch of treaties,

they just “reserved” a small piece  of land for tribes to live on?

It had been done before with some success in 1786 

when the United States  established its first reservation.

So in 1851, Congress passed the Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs,

which allocated funds to build a more robust reservation system,

kicking off the Reservation Era.

Over the next 30-some years,

most Native Americans were  either forcibly relocated 

or saw their land dramatically reduced.

And, in 1871, Congress  officially took away the right 

of Native nations to enter into  treaties with the U.S. government.

It was an unceremonious amendment attached to an appropriations act

passed without the input of any tribal members.

And it was officially the end of the Treaty Era.

But what did this mean for the nearly 400 treaties that had been made in the last century?

Technically, they remained  intact, but this decision 

made it even harder for them to be enforced.

Which brings us back to Wounded Knee.

See, in 1868, the Lakota-Sioux  signed a treaty with the U.S. that 

established the Great Sioux Reservation  on 60 million acres of land.

But not long after, the U.S. government discovered a lot of natural resources on that land

and decided to do some classic takesies-backsies.

By the end of the Reservation Era,

only about 20 percent of the  original reservation remained, 

with the rest back in the hands  of the federal government.

On top of that, reservation life  was difficult for the Lakota.

Drought, combined with allotments that were bad 

for sustainable crop growth  made farming difficult.

And both a near extinction  of the buffalo population, 

and rules against hunting on reservation land,

made their traditional way of  life nearly impossible to sustain.

So they had no choice but to  rely on government rations.

They were also disconnected  from their culture and identity,

forced to wear western clothing and abandon their 

traditional spiritual practices  in favor of Christianity.

We’ll talk more about life on  reservations in a future episode.

By 1890, after a series of conflicts and the murder of Lakota Chief Sitting Bull,

tensions between the tribe and the government had reached a breaking point.

U.S. forces surrounded a Miniconjou Lakota camp near Wounded Knee Creek

where, after a gun went off  accidentally, the military 

massacred upwards of 300 Lakota  men, women, and children.

Eighty-three years later, the  Occupation of Wounded Knee 

brought this massacre back into the public eye.

Many scholars point to the occupation as the spark that kicked off a massive push for recognition

of Native treaty rights all around the country.

After all, those hundreds of treaties are still 

the law of the land, whether  or not they’re honored.

So, evoking them has become a major strategy 

for Native nations to push  for the return of their lands.

And since the occupation,  a number of them have used 

historic treaties to fight  for and achieve legal wins.

And I know all of this can feel  like the distant past, but it’s not.

Babies born on the day of  the Wounded Knee Massacre 

would have been in their early  eighties during the occupation.

And occupiers from 1973 joined  protests at Standing Rock 

to object to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016.

The point is, the fight for treaty recognition continues right here, right now.

Native leaders and activists continue to push the federal government to honor its promises,

and momentum only continues to build as new generations join the fight.

Next time, we’ll talk about Native American assimilation and the Allotment Era.

And I will see you then.

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Native American History,

which was filmed at our studio  in Indianapolis, Indiana, 

and was made with the help  of all these nice people.

If you want to help keep Crash  Course free for everyone, 

forever, you can join our community on Patreon.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
treaties /ˈtriːtiːz/ B2	noun - a formal agreement between two or more countries
nations /ˈneɪʃənz/ B1	noun - a large group of people sharing the same culture, language, etc.
government /ˈɡʌvərnmənt/ B1	noun - the group of people who rule a country or state
reservations /ˌrezərˈveɪʃənz/ B2	noun - an area of land kept for a particular purpose
violence /ˈvaɪələns/ B1	noun - behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something
forced /fɔːrst/ A2	verb - to make someone do something they don't want to do
culture /ˈkʌltʃər/ B1	noun - the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or group
lands /lændz/ A2	noun - the part of the Earth's surface that is not covered by water
chief /tʃiːf/ B1	noun - the leader of a tribe or people
conflict /ˈkɒnflɪkt/ B2	noun - a serious disagreement or argument
history /ˈhɪstəri/ B1	noun - the study of past events
ignored /ɪɡˈnɔːrd/ A2	verb - to pay no attention to
scaling /ˈskeɪlɪŋ/ B2	verb - increase or decrease something by a certain amount or proportion
colonists /ˈkɒlənɪsts/ B1	noun - a person who settles in a new country
understanding /ˌʌndərˈstændɪŋ/ B1	noun - the ability to understand something
borders /ˈbɔːrdərz/ A2	noun - the line separating two countries or areas
massacred /ˈmæsəkd/ C1	verb - kill (a large number of people) cruelly and violently