Wounded Knee

American  

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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Wounded Knee Cultural  

1. A creek in South Dakota where United States soldiers killed large numbers of Dakota Native Americans — Sioux — 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.

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Example Sentences

In a speech on Monday on the House floor, Johnson described his trip to the Wounded Knee site in June, when he visited with descendants, including an elder whose grandmother survived the massacre.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 20, 2023

In 1973, they released as a single, "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee," a protest song depicting the massacre of Lakota Sioux Indians in 1890.

From Salon • Aug. 12, 2023

On Dec. 29, the items were brought to Wounded Knee.

From New York Times • Mar. 16, 2023

Five items had labels indicating that they came from Wounded Knee, she said.

From New York Times • Mar. 16, 2023

Would survivors and relatives of the Lakota Sioux Indians butchered at the Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place just three years before the symphony’s first performance, have recognised its melodies as theirs?

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall