In short
On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry opened fire on an encampment of Lakota people at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing as many as 300 civilians and warriors. The massacre marked the final armed confrontation of the Indian Wars and effectively ended organized Lakota resistance to federal authority.
How it unfolded.
The five-minute version
What actually happened.
The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was an 1890 armed conflict between Native Americans and the United States Army. It was part of the U.S. Army’s Pine Ridge Campaign. Between 250 and 300 Lakota people were killed, and 51 were wounded. Twenty-five U.S. soldiers were killed and 39 were wounded. Nineteen soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor specifically for Wounded Knee, and 31 overall for the campaign.
Day by day.
Across 31 days, 5 pivotal moments.
Timeline
How it actually unfolded.
Sitting Bull killed
Sitting Bull is shot and killed during an arrest attempt at Standing Rock Reservation by Indian police, escalating tensions across the Lakota nation.
Big Foot's band departs
Big Foot leads a group of Miniconjou Lakota from Cheyenne River Reservation southward toward Pine Ridge, seeking sanctuary with Red Cloud's band.
7th Cavalry intercepts
The 7th Cavalry Regiment intercepts Big Foot's band approximately 40 miles northeast of Pine Ridge and orders them to camp at Wounded Knee Creek.
Massacre occurs
Soldiers attempt to disarm the Lakota encampment. A struggle over a rifle triggers gunfire; the cavalry's Hotchkiss guns rake the village for hours, killing approximately 250–300 people, mostly women, children, and elders.
Final surrender
The last major Lakota resistance ends as remaining bands surrender at Pine Ridge Reservation, formally concluding the Indian Wars.
The numbers.
5 numbers that anchor the scale.
By the numbers
The countable parts.
Lakota killed
0–300
Lakota wounded
0
U.S. soldiers killed
0
U.S. soldiers wounded
0
Military unit
0th Cavalry Regiment
The chain begins -
The chain of consequence.
Impact
What followed.
Wounded Knee crystallized the fate of the Great Plains tribes under U.S. expansion. It closed a chapter of frontier conflict while opening decades of institutional oppression on reservations—and became a symbol that would resurface in Native American activism a century later.
Captured in time.
Captured before it changed
The web as it looked, the day it happened.
Wayback Machine snapshots of the pages people actually loaded that day. Click any card to open the archive at full size.
Sources & citations.
Sources
Where this came from.
Every claim on this page traces to a public, license-clean source. We don't asterisk well.
Wikipedia
1 source- 1.Wounded Knee Massacre
en.wikipedia.org