Most people familiar with American Indian history know about the Wounded Knee Massacre of Dec. 29, 1890. Now, 133 years later, the Lakota people remember that tragic event in U.S. history with a 300-mile horseback ride in the dead of winter.
On Thursday, Dec, 29, the Oomaka Toatakiya, Future Generation Riders, rode into the town center of Pine Ridge, S.D. The weather was a mild 41 degrees considering it could have been a lot colder for the end of December. In 1890, the temperatures froze the massacred bodies of Hunkpapa and Miniconjou Lakota. They were gunned down with bullets and canons at the hands of some 500 merciless Seventh Cavalry soldiers. The Dakota and Lakota had been seeking refuge with Oglala allies on the Pine Ridge Reservation when the cavalry forced them into a camp Dec. 28 and opened fire on them the next day.
Horseback riders have been commemorating the event since 1986. The journey begins on the Standing Rock Reservation, continues into the Cheyenne River Reservation, and culminates with hundreds of riders circling up with their horses at the Wounded Knee Massacre site. Riders then continue into Pine Ridge Agency.
While the backstory pays tribute to those who died, the story today recognizes the future of Native people rests with the Oomaka Tokatakiya, those generations born more than a century after the massacre near Wounded Knee Creek.
Photos by Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
