Ripping the heart out of Wounded Knee: Indian massacre descendants 'devastated' at plan to sell off site where 300 were killed by U.S Cavalry

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception
 
The site of Wounded Knee where U.S. troops killed up to 300 Native American men, women and children in 1890 is up for sale - sparking fury among the descendants of the victims.
The land in South Dakota is on the market for $3.9 million (about £2.5 million).
One of the country's poorest Native American tribes wants to buy the historically significant piece of land where their ancestors were killed, but tribal leaders say the price tag for a property appraised at less than $7,000 is just too much.

Land owner James Czywczynski is trying to sell a 40-acre fraction of the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The land sits adjacent to a gravesite where about 150 of the 300 Lakota men, women and children killed by the 7th Cavalry in 1890 are buried.

Czywczynski, whose family has owned the property since 1968, recently gave the tribe an ultimatum: purchase the land for $3.9 million or he will open up bidding to non-Native Americans.

He said he has been trying to sell the land to the tribe for years.

Scene: This is the site where a battle was fought between the US Army and Sioux Indians. After the battle ended, there were approximately 300 dead Sioux and 25 dead soldiers

Artist impression: A lithograph after a Painting of the Battle of Wounded Knee by W.M. Cary

Killed: The 7th Cavalry overwhelmed the Lakota warriors and began shooting haphazardly killing men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux - they also wounded at least 51

The ultimatum comes just before the tribe receives about $20 million from the Cobell lawsuit— a $3.4 billion settlement stemming from a class-action lawsuit filed over American Indian land royalties mismanaged by the government for more than a century.

'I think it's ridiculous that he's putting a price on it like that,' said Kevin Yellow Bird Steele, a tribal council representative from the Wounded Knee district, who thinks Czywczynski is putting pressure on the tribe because of the impending money.
'We need to come down to earth and be realistic. We're not rich. We're not a rich tribe.'
Czywczynski insists the site's historical significance adds value.
'You can’t put a price on the lives that were taken there,' said Garfield Steele, a tribal council representative for the Wounded Knee district, reported the New York Times.
The last major bloodshed of the American Indian wars occurred on December 29 when the U.S. troops went into the camp to disarm the men.
According to the US version of the story, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote resisted attempts to disarm him that morning and in the struggle a shot was fired.
U.S. troops then opened fire in response and a small number of Lakota fighters who still had guns fired back.

 

Past: A picture of Wounded Knee on 28 Mar 1973. It was the site of a violent clash in 1973 between a group of native activists, the American Indian Movement and US Marshals

Massacre: U.S. Military authorities awarded twenty troopers the Medial of Honor for the massacre

Frozen: 'Big Foot,' the leader of the Sioux tribe, lies frozen on the battlefield of Wounded Knee, South Dakota

The 7th Cavalry overwhelmed the Lakota warriors and began shooting haphazardly killing men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux - they also wounded at least 51.
U.S. Military authorities awarded twenty troopers the Medial of Honor for the massacre.

Together with its proximity to the burial grounds, the land includes the site of a former trading post burned down during the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising, in which hundreds of American Indian Movement protesters occupied the town built at the site of the 1890 massacre.
The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded is credited with raising awareness about Native American struggles and giving rise to a wider protest movement that lasted the rest of the decade.

Czywczynski, who also is trying to sell another 40-acre piece of nearby land to the tribe for $1 million, also noted a coalition of Sioux tribes raised $9 million in December to buy land about 100 miles away in the Black Hills — although the Oglala Sioux Tribe did not contribute to that effort.

 

'I'm getting older now and my family and myself want to dispose of this property,' said Czywczynski, 75, who now lives in Rapid City.
'We just want to see it in the hands of the Indian people rather than put it on the open market to the public.'
Craig Dillon, a tribal council member on the Land Committee, said he would like to see the tribe buy the land at Wounded Knee because then they could build a museum commemorating the massacre with artifacts, food vendors and a place for local artists to sell their art to visitors.'But with the price the way it is, I don't think the tribe could ever buy it,' Dillon said