All you, my dear sons, stand together and keep yourselves sober and all of you, if you die at once among your relations defending them I will be satisfied. Try to die in front of your relations, the old folks and the little ones, and I will be satisfied if you die trying to help them. ‒Horned Cloud

They encircled us like a band of sheep, the older ones were sitting down on the ground in groups smoking, we didn’t think that they would ever do what they did to us, it was all unexpected. ‒Joseph Black Hair

They took everything away from us that had a sharp point, any metal that had a sharp point, then fired on us. ‒Mrs. Mosseau

My father said to the medicine man, “Now is the time for help. Do your best.” Then the medicine man stopped singing and began to cry to the Great Spirit, and gathered up a handful of dust and threw it towards the sky and waved his blanket under the dust, as they did in the ghost dance when they call for the Messiah. ‒Dewey Beard

I was sitting in a tipi and all at once it sounded to me like a crash of lightning as though wire was falling over the tipi. ‒Frank Sits Poor

I was a boy, my grandmother asked me to take some tobacco over to Big Foot where he was lying, so I took it ... Just at this moment there was a big noise; I couldn’t see just what it was but it was sounding like quite a number of gun shots together. ‒James Pipe On Head

We tried to run but they shot us like we were buffalo. ‒Louise Weasel Bear

Someone came on the side of me and took hold of my hand. This woman was my mother. She had a baby on her back, my sister, but this girl that she was carrying on her back was shot. ‒James Pipe On Head

In this ravine where we took refuge, most of them were women and children and, of course, defenseless and helpless; above them the soldiers just got near them and shot these people down. ‒John Little Finger

I met White Face, my wife, coming down the ditch. She was shot, the ball passing through her chin and shoulder.  She said to me, “Let me go, you go on. We will die soon. I will get my mother. That is her body at the top of the bank.” She went up to her mother’s dead body and took it under her arms to lift it up when she fell dead, shot again. ‒Dewey Beard

Turning back, I filled my pipe and was about to find a seat on one of the boxes by the road when I saw Big Foot rise to a sitting posture from the ground where he had been laying on his back with his face to the glaring sun, feigning death as long as he could endure such suffering. No sooner had he done so than – ‘Crack! Crack’ spoke a couple of rifles, and he fell back to earth in actual death. Then his daughter, a woman of middle age, stoutly built and wrapped in a bright red blanket, came running from the tent where she had been nursing him. As she stooped to clasp him in her arms, another shot rang out and she fell dead at his side.

I walked around east of the grounds viewing the sad spectacle. On reaching the corner of the green where the school boys had been so happy in their sports but a short time before, there was spread before me the saddest picture I had seen or was to see thereafter, for on that spot of their playful choice were scattered the prostrate bodies of all those fine little Indian boys, cold in death. ‒Charles Allen

After a while some Indians on horseback came to the top of the hill, not very far from where we were hiding and these Indians had guns and were our friends that had come out to fight from Pine Ridge. ‒Dog Chief

I got up on top the hill, and it was terrible! Soldiers were standing there mowing the women and children down! So I decided I must defend my people some way ... we fought all day here. We went back to Pine Ridge just after dark. ‒Black Elk

We had to stay hid all day till the sun went down, and then the soldiers seemed to be away and we went out to hunt for our people. ‒Charley Blue Arm

The soldiers started to get active and the noisy wagons were moving. The sun had set, and the guns seemed to get quiet. In the meantime, we moved to the north, and a child was asking for water. There were dead horses scattered about, and there were wounded crying out, but it was dark and we could see black objects here and there, but we did try to recognize the objects. ‒Alice War Bonnet

That evening after they had ceased firing we started up that creek on foot. We saw our relatives lying dead all around there. ‒Peter Stand

The killing of the women, and more especially the killing of the young boys and girls who are to go to make up the future strength of the Indian people, is the saddest part of the whole affair and we feel it very sorely. ‒American Horse

I have never said anything about this. I didn’t like to on account of my mother who was shot right with me and it appears that it just happened this morning; it make me feel sad. ‒Harry Kills White Man

I want my good friends to tell the good white people what they did to us here at Wounded Knee. ‒Afraid Of The Enemy

A Thunder-being nation I am I have said

A Thunder-being nation I am I have said

You shall live

You shall live

You shall live

You shall live

‒Black Elk

On an unseasonably mild Monday morning, December 29, 1890, the U.S. military gathered Spotted Elk and all of the men with him for a meeting. Soldiers surrounded this council ground and the entire Lakota camp. These men, and the women in the camp, were disarmed by soldiers. A shot was fired mid-morning, and then for the rest of the day, Lakotas were killed. When the soldiers left Wounded Knee as the sun set, more than 300 children, women and men were dead.