The Ghost Dance

The American colony expanded quickly in the seventeenth century. They were determined to conquer and settle into the Western frontier territories. However, this was done even though the British Royal Proclamation of 1763 disallowed it. The Proclamation declared:

..And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid.

The Americans needed new agricultural lands and more living space for the highly expanding settler population. Running into the already settled Native Americans was an unavoidable incident. As American settler history predicts, conflict between the Indian and Americans was inevitable. There were over nine hundred military engagements within this westward American expansion. The Americans used their military superiority over the Indians to enforce their removal. For example, in Northern California and Oregon, estimates of the loss of Indian populations between 1850 and 1910 averaged 86%. There are many examples of such conflicts such as the Old Northwest Warfare, the Battle of Tippecanoe, the Three Seminole Wars, and the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Wounded Knee Massacre is notoriously known as being the last large scaled conflict between Americans and Indians. The incident occurred on December 29, 1890 and led to the burial of 146 Sioux Indians. Originally, the event was called the Battle of Wounded Knee. The U.S army said the battle had erupted and they had to act in self defense. It even awarded commendations to its some of its soldiers; a Medal of Honor was awarded to a soldier for continuing to shoot at Indians while injured. However, James Mooney's interviews with Sioux survivors and an eye witness account from Philip Wells, a mixed blood Sioux interpreter for the Americans, state that what happened at Wounded Knee was far from a battle, but a massacre. Upon further analysis from James Mooney, and other scholars, it was concluded that religion, and in particular, the Indian religious practice, the ghost dance, played a significant role in the development of tension between the Americans and the Sioux Indians and led to the eventual massacre at Wounded Knee.

The Ghost Dance, an Indian religious movement, was inspired by the visions of Wovoka. The Sioux and Cheyenne disciples implied that the prophet was an Indian version of Jesus Christ. The ideals and practices were very similar to Christianity. The prophet, Wovoka told his followers that he had visited heaven. There, God told him that Indians should communal dance and live by a moral code. These codes were: do not steal or lie, love one another, remain at peace, and work. Furthermore, it was also their belief that dead Indians were reborn. Additionally, the Indians believed that the world would be destroyed by a fire, a flood, or another natural disaster and that the Indians would remain living on a beautiful world where their ancestors were reborn. Since the Indians had been at the target of centuries of violence from the English and the Americans, it was easy for them to see this religion as something very attractive. Accordingly so, a large following was gathered in belief of the prophecy. The Lakota, a Sioux Indian tribe, the dance suggested by the prophecy was called "the spirit dance". This has been translated to the more commonly known English name "The Ghost Dance".

There were a few factors that contributed the sudden rise of fierceness in the Ghost Dancers in 1890. The U.S congress stripped away Sioux land and passed it over to the white settlers, The Indians relied on much lower food rations for survival, and there was a serious agricultural drought in the summer of 1890. All of these factors contributed to the American's fear that the newly displaced Indians would make their reservations uncontrollable. The ghost dances began to grow in size as tensions and hardships grew. The army, Christian missionaries, the media, and the U.S congress all opposed the growing of the Ghost dances, and saw it as a threat. A U.S general, Nelson Miles, stated warned that the Ghost Dance would bring on a very serious Indian war. In late August of 1890, the first trouble between the ghost dancers and the United States occurred. Gallagher, an agent overlooking the Pine Ridge Reservation, learned that a dance camp of two thousand Indians was established nearby. He sent a detachment of police to disperse the dancers but they were not able to. Some Indians, according to Gallagher, were "stripped for fight, with Winchester rifles in hands and cartridge belts around their waists". By October of the same year, the Ghost Dances had spread to all of the major Lakota reservation. The Americans now viewed the dance as being very dangerous because the Indian got too excited and abandoned their daily routines. All established institutions, such as schools and churches, were not utilized and the advancement and assimilation of the Lakota civilization came to a stop. In November