Big Foot (c. 1825-c. 1890)

Minneconjou Teton Sioux chief. One of the first Sioux to raise a corn crop on the Cheyenne River, South Dakota, he travelled to Washington, DC, as a tribal delegate and worked to establish schools throughout the Sioux territory. In 1890 he encouraged his people to join the Ghost Dance spiritual movement sweeping the Plains Indians, believing that it would restore North America to the American Indians. When US officials moved to quell the movement, he fled with a party of Minneconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux, leading to the Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on 29 December 1890. Big Foot and over 150 Sioux were massacred.

Conditions at Cheyenne River In 1890 the Miniconjou Sioux on the Indian reservation were already suffering from disease and malnutrition owing to the failure of the US government to provide them with promised supplies and money. When the American Indian Paiute mystic Wovoka had a vision that the Ghost Dance would bring the Great Spirit to save the American Indians from destruction by the USA, Big Foot led his people enthusiastically in the ritual dancing. The local Indian agent, who ran the reservation for the US Bureau for Indian Affairs, was one of many US officials who felt threatened by the Ghost Dance rituals. After the death of the Hunkpapa Sioux chief Sitting Bull on the Standing Rock Reservation, supposedly while resisting arrest for permitting the Ghost Dance, Big Foot decided to lead his Miniconjou Sioux to safety on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux leader Red Cloud. They were joined by Sitting Bull's remaining Hunkpapa.

Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890 Big Foot led 350 Sioux people out of the Cheyenne River Reservation on 23 December 1890. He was old and already ill by this time, and the band flew a white flag of peace as they crossed the frozen Great Plains. Soon Big Foot was suffering from pneumonia and, on 28 December, the 7th Cavalry, Lt-Col George Custer's old regiment, caught up with the group. Big Foot attempted to mediate a peace but, during their disarmament on 29 December, a shot was fired that sparked off the Battle of Wounded Knee.

By the end of the fire-fight Big Foot and over 150 Sioux were dead, over half of whom were women and children. Some were killed while fleeing over the plains. Big Foot's body was left lying in the snow for three days before being buried in a large unmarked grave with the rest of the dead. The photograph of Big Foot's body lying with its arms raised in the snow has become one of the abiding images of the destruction of the Plains Indians by the USA.