Who Shot First?
Wounded Knee and the Fragility of Power
I came to the United States in the 1970s under political asylum, seeking refuge in a country that promised safety, opportunity, and a future. America delivered on that promise, allowing me to pursue an education and build a life that would have been impossible elsewhere. But as I embraced my new homeland, I also came to realize how much of its history remained hidden from view—stories of conquest, suppression, and violence that were never part of my high school curriculum. One of those stories was the Wounded Knee Massacre, an event I only learned about in college, long after I should have.
I first encountered Wounded Knee through discussions and lectures in my undergraduate years. A professor mentioned Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a book that had reshaped many Americans’ understanding of westward expansion and the U.S. government’s treatment of Native peoples. I never read it, but I understood from what was discussed that Brown’s account, largely told from the perspective of Native American sources, painted the massacre as an indiscriminate slaughter rather than a tragic battle. That framing stayed with me, prompting me to look further into what had actually happened that winter morning in 1890.
The Ghost Dance Movement: A Misunderstood Threat
To fully understand the massacre at Wounded Knee, one has to understand what the Ghost Dance Movement was and why the U.S. government feared it. The movement, often misunderstood as a call to violent resistance, was in reality a deeply spiritual and millenarian belief system that emerged in the late 19th century. It was founded by Wovoka, a Northern Paiute religious leader, who claimed to have received a vision during a solar eclipse in 1889. In his vision, he was shown a future in which white settlers would disappear, the buffalo would return, and Native American life would be restored to its former balance—but only if Native peoples lived righteously, abandoned violence, and performed the sacred Ghost Dance.
For many Lakota Sioux, who had been stripped of their lands, subjected to starvation, and confined to reservations, the Ghost Dance was a source of hope. It promised renewal, a way to reclaim dignity and cultural identity in the face of annihilation. It was not an uprising in a military sense; it was a religious movement that sought to reshape the future through faith, ceremony, and communal discipline.
However, white settlers and U.S. officials saw it as a direct threat. To them, the sight of hundreds of Lakota men and women performing the dance, wearing Ghost Shirts—which were believed to have spiritual protection against bullets—looked like an act of war. Newspapers fueled paranoia, calling the movement a dangerous cult and warning that Native tribes were planning a mass rebellion. The government’s fear was so profound that it led directly to the assassination of Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890, an event that sent shockwaves through the Lakota people.
Just two weeks later, the U.S. Army descended on a group of Lakota led by Chief Spotted Elk (Big Foot), who had been fleeing to safety. The 7th Cavalry, still haunted by its defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn 14 years earlier, intercepted them at Wounded Knee. What followed was not a battle, but a massacre, sparked by a single gunshot.
The Mystery of the First Shot
The moment that set off the massacre remains one of history’s unresolved mysteries. Historians and eyewitness accounts provide different versions of how the first shot was fired, and over time, a few dominant theories have emerged.
One of the most widely accepted theories concerns a deaf Lakota man named Black Coyote. Based on survivor testimonies and military records, what is suggested is that Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle when soldiers attempted to disarm him. Some accounts say he did not understand what was happening due to his deafness; others claim he simply did not want to surrender his only means of protection. In the ensuing struggle, his gun went off.
Another theory suggests a nervous soldier fired first, either mistaking a movement for aggression or simply panicking in the tense standoff. Given the fear and uncertainty among the cavalry, this possibility is plausible. The U.S. Army was expecting resistance, and in the chaos, one soldier could have overreacted, leading the rest to unleash their firepower.
A third possibility is that a Lakota warrior intentionally fired the first shot, believing the disarmament process was the beginning of their execution. Given the overwhelming military disadvantage, this theory seems less likely. However, fear and desperation could have driven someone to fight back rather than face what seemed like certain death.
Regardless of who fired first, the result was the same: the U.S. cavalry unleashed a storm of bullets and artillery fire on unarmed Lakota men, women, and children. Soldiers on horseback pursued those who tried to flee, cutting them down as they ran. The Hotchkiss guns, positioned to fire directly into the camp, tore through tipis and bodies alike. Some survivors later described seeing their loved ones gunned down while clutching infants, or shot in the back while trying to escape into the snowy hills. By the time the guns fell silent, as many as 300 Lakota lay dead, their bodies frozen in the December cold.
What makes Wounded Knee even more disturbing is how it was framed in its immediate aftermath. Twenty U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their role in the massacre, despite overwhelming evidence that the event was not a battle, but a slaughter. The official government report at the time suggested that the cavalry had been “forced” into action, a claim that has since been debunked by survivor testimonies and historical analysis.
It is chilling to think that many of the soldiers who carried out this massacre were from the same 7th Cavalry unit that had fought—and lost—at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Some historians believe that Wounded Knee was, in part, an act of vengeance, a final, brutal retaliation against a people who had once humiliated them in battle.
Reckoning With a Forgotten History
For me, learning about Wounded Knee was not just an education in history—it was an education in power, in how narratives are shaped, in what is remembered and what is deliberately forgotten. How is it that I, someone who came to this country as an outsider, had to seek out this history on my own? Why do so many Americans graduate from high school without ever learning about the tragedy at Wounded Knee?
I am proud to be an American. But that pride is not blind. It is rooted in a belief that true patriotism means facing the past honestly. America gave me an opportunity, but it also has a responsibility—to acknowledge its history, to remember Wounded Knee not as an unfortunate battle, but as a massacre, as a moment when fear, miscommunication, and raw power led to the slaughter of innocents.
The shot that rang out at Wounded Knee, whether fired in confusion, in defiance, or as a deliberate spark for violence, set off a chain reaction that ended in bloodshed. But its echoes continue. The way we remember (or fail to remember) this event says as much about us as a nation as the massacre itself. True patriotism demands that we listen to those echoes and ensure that history is neither buried nor sanitized.