The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka, proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, end American westward expansion, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples throughout the region.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is a 1970 non-fiction book by American writer Dee Brown that covers the history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. The book expresses details of the history of American expansionism from a point of view that is critical of its effects on the Native Americans. Brown describes Native Americans' displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government. The government's dealings are portrayed as a continuing effort to destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native American peoples. Helen Hunt Jackson's 1881 book A Century of Dishonor is often considered a nineteenth-century precursor to Dee Brown's writing.
Dennis Banks was a Native American activist, teacher, and author. He was a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, which he co-founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968 to represent urban Indians.
Irene Bedard is an American actress, who has played mostly lead Native American roles in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the 1998 film Smoke Signals, an adaptation from a Sherman Alexie collection of short stories, as well as for providing the speaking voice for the titular character in the 1995 animated film Pocahontas.
The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičháŋǧu Oyáte, or "Burnt Thighs Nation", and so, were called Brûlé by the French. The name may have derived from an incident where they were fleeing through a grass fire on the plains.
Mary Brave Bird, also known as Mary Brave Woman Olguin and Mary Crow Dog was a Sicangu Lakota writer and activist who was a member of the American Indian Movement during the 1970s and participated in some of their most publicized events, including the Wounded Knee Incident when she was 18 years old.
The Wounded Knee Occupation began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Friar Paul Manhart S.J. and ten other residents of the area were apprehended at gunpoint and taken hostage. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Additionally, protesters criticized the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations to hopefully arrive at fair and equitable treatment of Native Americans.
Moving Robe Woman, also known as Mary Crawler, Her Eagle Robe, She Walks With Her Shawl, Walking Blanket Woman, Moves Robe Woman, Walks With Her Robe and Tashenamani was a Hunkpapa Sioux woman who fought against General George Custer during the Battle of Little Big Horn to avenge her brother, One Hawk, who had been killed.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
Archie Fire Lame Deer or Tȟáȟča Hušté (1935-2001) was a US Army veteran, a Wicasa Wakan or Medicine man and a lecturer on Lakota people, traditions and religion. He grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation served in the US Army during the Korean war, was a Hollywood stuntman and translator. With Richard Erdoes he wrote Gift of Power: the life and teachings of a Lakota medicine man. He is the son of John Fire Lame Deer Lakota Medicine Man and the subject of the classic book, "Lame Deer Seeker of Visions” with Richard Erdoes.
Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee is a 1994 TNT film starring Irene Bedard, Tantoo Cardinal, Pato Hoffmann, Joseph Runningfox, Lawrence Bayne, and Michael Horse and August Schellenberg. The film is based on Mary Crow Dog's autobiography Lakota Woman, wherein she accounts her troubled youth, involvement with the American Indian Movement, and relationship with Lakota medicine man and activist Leonard Crow Dog. The film is notable for being the first American film to feature an indigenous Native American actress in the starring role. Lakota Woman is also the third overall and first sound film with an entirely indigenous cast after In the Land of the Head Hunters and Daughter of Dawn.
Crow Dog was a Brulé Lakota subchief, born at Horse Stealing Creek, Montana Territory.
Leonard Crow Dog is a medicine man and spiritual leader who became well known during the Lakota takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1973, known as the Wounded Knee Incident. Through his writings and teachings, he has sought to unify Indian people of all nations. As a practitioner of traditional herbal medicine and a leader of Sun Dance ceremonies, Crow Dog is also dedicated to keeping Lakota traditions alive.
Jancita Eagle Deer was a Brulé Lakota who lived on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She was notable for accusing William Janklow of having raped her in January 1967 when he was a poverty lawyer and Director of the Rosebud Sioux Legal Services program on the reservation. She had worked as his babysitter. At the time the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not prosecute the case.
Richard Erdoes was born in Frankfurt, 7 July 1912, and died in Santa Fe, 16 July 2008. He was an artist, photographer, illustrator and author. He described himself as "equal parts Austrian, Hungarian and German, as well as equal parts Catholic, Protestant and Jew..."
Henry Crow Dog was a Rosebud Indian Reservation Sioux medicine man who resided on his land, Crow Dog's Paradise.
Madonna Thunder Hawk, born Madonna Gilbert, is a Native American civil rights activist best known as a leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM) and as an organizer against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She co-founded the American Indian organization Women of All Red Nations and serves as an organizer and tribal liaison for the Lakota People's Law Project.
Lorelei DeCora Means, born Lorelei De Cora, was a Native American nurse and civil rights activist. She is best known for her role in the second siege in the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She was also a co-founder of the American Indian organization, Women of All Red Nations.
Zintkála Nuni, alternatively 'Zintka Lanuni', was a Lakota Sioux woman who was a 4-month-old infant when she was found alive among the victims at the Wounded Knee Massacre.
