The last major battle between the US army and the Sioux people of the Great Plains. The site is a creek on Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota, where, after the killing of Sitting Bull, the 7th US Cavalry surrounded a band of Sioux. These were followers of the Native American ghost dance religion, evolved around 1888 among the Paiute by Wovoka, who preached the coming of a Native American messiah who would restore the country to the Native Americans and reunite the living with the dead. In 1890 a Ghost Dance uprising in South Dakota culminated at Wounded Knee, when US troops massacred some 200 Teton Sioux.

In 1973 the massacre was recalled when members of the American Indian Movement occupied the site. They were surrounded by a force of federal marshals; two Native Americans were killed, and one marshal seriously wounded. They agreed to evacuate the area in exchange for negotiation on Native American grievances.