Wounded Knee


noun
  1. a village in SW South Dakota: site of a massacre of about 300 Oglala Sioux Indians on Dec. 29, 1890.

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Cultural definitions for Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee

A creek in South Dakota where United States soldiers killed large numbers of Dakota Native AmericansSioux — in 1890. The Sioux, under Chief Big Foot, had been resisting settlement of the area and had fled to Montana, but United States troops brought them back to South Dakota for detention. As the soldiers were disarming the warriors in an army camp at Wounded Knee, a rifle shot alarmed the soldiers, and fighting broke out in which more than two hundred Sioux were killed, including women and children. The massacre was the last major military conflict between whites and Native Americans.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.