Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an iconic work by historian Dee Brown that describes the Indian Wars of the Trans-Mississippi West from their first contact with Europeans to the final "battle" of Wounded Knee in 1890. The battle of Wounded Knee is also listed as the Wounded Knee Massacre, as due to a misunderstanding, the U.S. Army opened fire on hundreds of unarmed Lakota, killing many women and children. The massacre started when the leaders at Pine Ridge Reservation wanted to end the Ghost Dance religion, as they thought it would lead to a native uprising. When the natives resisted, the reservation agents rounded up the Indians and tried to disarm them. A gun accidentally discharged, and in that charged situation, the Army opened fire, killing hundreds and thus ending five hundred years of native resistance. The whole event summarizes the relationship between natives and Europeans that existed in the Americas since 1492. The natives had a certain culture. The Europeans either did not trust the native belief or were actually repelled by it. When the two cultures clashed, it usually ended in bloodshed and the native tribes suffered.
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