SD tribes purchase land near Wounded Knee massacre site
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Two American Indian tribes in South Dakota have joined forces to purchase 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of one of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history.
The Oglala Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux said the purchase of the land on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was an act of cooperation to ensure the area was preserved as a sacred site. More than 200 Native Americans – including children and elderly people – were killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The bloodshed marked a seminal moment in the frontier battles the U.S. Army waged against tribes.
“It’s a small step towards healing and really making sure that we as a tribe are protecting our critical areas and assets,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer told The Associated Press.
The tribes agreed last week to petition the U.S. Department of the Interior to take the land into trust on behalf of both tribes. The Oglala Sioux tribe will pay $255,000 and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe will pay $245,000 for the site, Indian Country Today reported. The title to the land will be held in the name of the Oglala Sioux tribe.
Marlis Afraid of Hawk, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe whose grandfather, Albert Afraid of Hawk, survived the 1890 massacre as a 13year-old boy, said she was overjoyed to see the tribes take ownership. She said she carries on the oral tradition of telling her grandchildren how her grandfather survived by fleeing through a ravine after a rifle held by a U.S. calvary soldier failed to fire at him
As a member of a group that represents the descendants of the massacre’s survivors, she initially raised objections to the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s purchase of the land, but said the joint purchase made her feel “honored and grateful.”
Members of the Oglala Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes were at Wounded Knee in 1890, Afraid of Hawk said. She said she hoped the site could be used for “education for the people who come and see the massacre site.”
“They need to know the history. It needs to come through the true, true Lakota people,” she said.
The tribes’ agreement ends a decades-long dispute over ownership of a site that has figured largely in Indigenous people’s struggles with the U.S. government. Jeanette Czywczynski became sole owner of the property after her husband, James, died in 2019. He purchased the property in 1968.
The Czywczynski family operated a trading post and museum there until 1973, when American Indian Movement protesters occupied the site, destroying the post and Czywczynski’s home. The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded led to heightened awareness about Native American struggles and propelled a wider protest movement.
The family moved away from the area and put the land up for sale, asking $3.9 million for the 40-acre parcel nearest the massacre site, even though the land, including an additional adjacent 40-acre plot, had been assessed at $14,000.
Killer, the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s president, said the tribe’s resolution for the land purchase calls for it to be preserved as a sacred site.
He said, “There’s still a lot of unresolved artifacts and items that should be left undisturbed.”