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Inside Wounded Knee
The Native Americans and American Indian Movement decided that to protest the U.S.'s interference with tribal matters they would take control of Wounded Knee, making it their own area, ruled by the ancient laws of the Lakota and Ogala . When the government came in to try to stop the take-over. it exploded, hundreds of people from all walks of life went there, although the government quickly setup road blocks preventing people from gaining access to Wounded Knee.
When the government moved in, most of the people moved into the basement of the church, and those who didn't had their walls reinforced with mud. The children were generally kept in the dark about what was going and the elderly helped watch the children and run the everyday aspects of life in Wounded Knee. One of the leaders inside Wounded Knee, Gladis Bissonet, was given the task of inventing new foods that were edible but used little supplies. This was important because food only came in with the occasional backpacker.
One big story from Wounded Knee was that the Native Americans were holding the whites who ran the church and general store inside of Wounded Knee hostage. The truth was the whites agreed with the Native Americans and wanted to help them. The general store owner gave the Native Americans food and supplies, and the family that ran the church let them take shelter in it.
Many people think of Wounded Knee as being constant gunfights. There actually were only 4 major gun battles, and only two Native Americans and one FBI agent were killed during the take-over of Wounded Knee. Although there were many smaller battles most of them consisted of each side firing randomly.
After the second death things started to fall apart. People started thinking that it wasn't something to die over and lost their will to fight. The government then came in and made 200 arrests, even though most of the charges were later dropped.