Description
The postcards for this week depict the aftermath of the Battle of Wounded Knee, what some people instead call “The Massacre of Wounded Knee,” as well as some information about the battle and its aftermath.
[accessible description of images]
In what ways do the cards echo Kipling’s sentiments from last week? What do these postcards suggest about America’s treatment of indigenous peoples during the 1890’s? How might these postcards be viewed differently by someone, in the words of Dee Brown, “looking east”? In what ways can you see the legacy of this treatment still around today?
When I see images like these, I can’t help but wonder why the photographer took pictures of dead people. I guess on one hand, the images of the frozen people at Wounded Knee are also representations of the end of a threat. The Battle of Wounded Knee is often considered the last battle of the frontier. If one considers that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were basically continually fraught with wars with native populations, pictures of the death of enemies also represents the death of this longstanding threat to American goals and ways of life. But then again, the battles didn’t necessarily stop. As you will learn soon, there was continuing resistance (i.e. The Battle of Wounded Knee II and the recent Dakota Pipeline protest) through protest and court cases. In fact, many of the people that we know now as powerful tribal leaders, such as Chief Joseph, Luther Standing Bear, and Plenty Coups, fought in the courtroom as well.
The horror of the images aside and presuming the people who took and bought the images were not sadists, why do you think that people might have taken pictures of these scenes?
Also, consider how the romantic narratives of the West that we are all familiar with are challenged by these images.
