Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This study investigates questions of American Indian identity, specifically how the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 affected identity. The calamity that originally targeted the Lakota transformed into a pan-tribal narrative that saw a parallel between the problems of the Reconstruction era and the political climate of the 1960s and 70s. Out of the many historical factors that led to the massacre, one of the most one was the Ghost Dance Movement. It reclaimed tribal life but did not specify which tribal practices should be re-instituted. By bringing together people from various tribes, the Ghost Dance movement contributed to the notion of Pan-Indian identity. These policies created a new layer of identity: the urban Indian. In the new urban setting, supratribal groups, consisting largely of young urban Indians, were in search of a new identity, trying to define themselves in terms of the emerging Pan-Indian consciousness. The most radical of these associations was the American Indian Movement attempted to make changes in federal Indian policy. Building on the Ghost Dance Movement, and under the motto of “Remember Wounded Knee,” AIM was present at the landmark events that shaped American Indian life in the second half of the twentieth century The rhetoric of American Indian Movement made the Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 a concept that conflated identity and history. It inspired a new generation of American Indians on reservations and in the urban areas to form a sense of collective tribal identity and consciousness.