Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

by Ernestine Chasing Hawk 

The Oceti Sakonwin (the Great Sioux Nation) was a buzz with anticipation awaiting the upcoming May 17 South Dakota Premiere of “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Theater in Rapid City.

            The film would depict the seizure of millions of acres of land promised to the Oceti Sakowin by the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty which included Sacred He Sapa and end at Cankpe Opi, where in 1890 hundreds of Hunkpapa and Minnecoujou Lakota were brutally massacred by U.S. 7th Cavalry.

            As the 7 p.m. event neared, hundreds of Tribal dignitaries invited to view the premiere, gathered around the red carpet and in front of an HBO backdrop awaiting the arrival of the actors, producers, screenwriters and directors of the epic drama that many hoped would unearth the truth and arouse the consciousness of the American public about the atrocities inflicted on indigenous peoples in the taking of America.

            Among those gathered was Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder, great-great grandson of Tatanka Iyotaka (Chief Sitting Bull) portrayed in the HBO film by August Schellenberg and great-grandson of Chief One Bull portrayed by Nathan Chasing Horse (Smiles A Lot in “Dances with Wolves”).

            Also present to view the premiere were Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Joe Brings Plenty, Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal Chairman Josh Weston, and members of the Executive Council, Gary Kills-A-Hundred, Jason Taylor, Ardetta Love Joy and Eloise Drapeaux all descendent of Charles Eastman, portrayed by Adam Beach in the HBO special. Yankton Sioux Tribal Chairman Robert Cournoyer, Santee Sioux Tribal Chairman Roger Trudell and Oglala Sioux Tribal Chairman John Yellowbird Steele were also in the audience.

            According to screenwriter Daniel Giat, HBO made the decision to premiere the special before a Rapid City audience filled with Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people, those who to this day live with the aftermath of the Dawes Act, which has been referred to as the most devastating piece of legislation for Indian People, as the “Acid test” for the film.

            The question foremost in mind when news broke that HBO would bring to a television audience of millions the last tragic days of Oceti Sakowin was: Why would HBO want to tell this story now and what did they hope it would accomplish? Would it be an accurate portrayal of history and for the descendents of those massacred at Cankpe Opi, would this be another exploitation of their tragic history for monetary gain or just pure entertainment purposes?

            The film opens with a scene from the Battle of the Little Big Horn, where a young Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman) is among Sitting Bulls Oyate during their triumphant victory over General Armstrong Custer where Ohiyesa is narrowly saved from death by an uncle. In a following scene the Christianized father of Ohiyesa comes for him and ships him off to a Christianized Boarding school where he is stripped of his culture and his braids are cut off.

            For the most part HBO’s portrayal of Eastman is accurate with the exception that he was a Wahpeton Dakota not a Hunkpapa Lakota. He and his family had fled to Canada after the Dakota War of 1862 where he was sheltered. His father, Many Lightnings, a Dakota warrior captured after the War was among the more than 300 sentenced to be hanged at Mankato, did come for Ohiyesa and they settled near Flandreau, South Dakota, where a number of Christianized Dakota had homesteaded farms. Many Lightning’s had been among those pardoned by President Lincoln, and had been imprisoned in Davenport, Iowa, for 12 years during which time he had converted to Christianity. Ohiyesa was baptized, given the name Charles Alexander Eastman, and entered the Flandreau Santee Normal Indian school, run by the Presbyterian missionary Joseph Riggs. The film mentions Eastman’s connection to Chief Little Crow who led the Dakota War of 1862.

            In the HBO special Shellenberg offers a compelling portrayal of Chief Sitting Bull as a proud man who had never experienced the oppressive hand of colonialism and boarding school life and still had his self-esteem intact. He is depicted throughout the film as the lone chief who resisted the eminent encroachment of the white settlers and after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, leads his people to safety in Canada where they are protected by the Canadian government from the ensuing U.S Cavalry.

            The film poignantly takes us through the last days for the Oceti Sakowin whose way of life would forever be changed by the enactment of the Dawes Act and the creation of reservations. It shows the desperation of a people who grasped at hope through the promises of Wovoka and the Ghost dance to bring back the old way. 

            The despair the Non-fictional Eastman must have felt when confronted with the reality of Wounded Knee Massacre and the inner conflict of assimilation was carried through the ages by Beach’s excellent performance.

            Looking past the inaccuracies of the film, and in an attempt not to dampen the momentum it creates in uncovering the tragic events that lead to today’s complex land controversy wherein hundreds of individuals can possess holdings on relatively small tracts of land, one has to admit a triumphant victory for HBO filmmakers.

            Perhaps the film will bring visibility the aftermath of the public policy wherein the very reservations shown created in the film top the list of poorest counties in the nation, including 1. Buffalo, (Crow Creek), 2. Shannon, (Pine Ridge), 4. Ziebach and 11. Dewey, (Cheyenne River), and 5. Todd (Rosebud), 7. Corson and 6. Sioux (Standing Rock). Wikipedia.org/wiki/Poorest_places_in_the_United_States

            Also in answering what it might accomplish, it may bring some clarity and a settlement to the Cobell case, which demands a government accounting for mismanagement of billions of dollars in revenue for Indian account holders and created a nightmare for the United States government.

            Hopefully it will spur Congress and the President to pass S.J. Res. 4 which acknowledges “a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native People’s on behalf of the United States.”

            And maybe it will move Congress to officially change the name from the Battle of Wounded Knee to the Massacre at Wounded Knee and Congress will recall the Twenty-two medals of honor awarded for the action. And last but not least perhaps the United States Government will award monetary reparations to the survivors of those who were massacred at Cankpe Opi as they did to those who called themselves “friendlies.”