Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Thematic Question #1

Why does the story of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” begin in 1492?

In 1492 Columbus set out on a sea journey, on a route that he believed would lead him to the East Indies. He traveled under the financial aid of Spain, hoping that his way would make a better trade route. When Columbus landed on the 12th of October, he was convinced that he had landed in India. In fact, he was standing on a whole different continent that most of his world had no idea existed.

Believing he was in India, Columbus called the people native to the land he was now on “Indios” or Indians; thinking that they were people of India. Even after the realization that the land was not India, the name had already been used many times and stayed. This was the first misunderstanding of many that separated many of the new settlers from the Native Americans.

Columbus sailed back to Europe and told of the land he had found and the people he had found there. The Spanish began to send explorers and missionaries to this new land; and some Spaniards went on their own in search of gold or mysterious fountains. This was the beginning of the rush of Europeans that streamed into the Americas.

English and French were quick to follow, spreading into the land already occupied by the Indians. With Spanish, English and French men all coming into the Indian territories, confusion, hostility, misunderstanding and change for both parties was certain. The English however, seemed to have the most conflict and lasting changes with the Indians; or so it would read from a history book.

The culture of the Indians was drastically different from the culture of the English; and neither group understood the other. Wamditanka an Indian of the Santee Sioux said “The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like the white men…If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same with many Indians.” When the English came and saw the ways in which the Indians lived, they did try to change them, in many different ways; but almost all ended up in violence.

Some Indians complied with the white English people’s requests; others started out seeking good will with the white men, but became fed up with their forceful and often cheating ways, and some never tried at all. Red Cloud said: “If white men come into my land again, I will punish them again.” In almost all cases the confrontations or submissions ended in Indians being pushed out of their land, or bloody fights.

The fights and battles between the English and the Indians only escalated and became bloodier their treatment of each other only worsened. The Indians adopted the European weapons when they could but not their culture and the Europeans would not let the Indians be in their culture and continued to try and move change or kill them.

When Columbus landed in America by mistake he could hardly have known that he was going to start the first wave of countless Europeans that would come to the land; but it was the beginning. Europeans came with their ideas and wants and found the Indians to either need changing or to be moved out of their way, and when this wasn’t as easy as they wished it to be, loss and bloodshed followed, escalating up to the point of the massacre at Wounded Knee.