Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial and Sacred Site Act

Floor Speech

I rise in support of H.R. 165, the Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial and Sacred Site Act.

This is an important step to honor the Lakota lives lost at Wounded Knee and the Lakota people for generations to come.

The bill would place approximately 40 acres of land located within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation into restricted fee status for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. This is land believed to be the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

In the late 1800s, Tribes began holding Ghost Dances for the renewal of stolen land and in protest of the U.S. Government, which had prohibited American Indians from practicing their religious freedom.

In December of 1890, the government, our government, sent the Army's 7th Cavalry to disarm the Lakota near Wounded Knee Creek, and what resulted was a brutal massacre. Troops murdered over 350 American Indian women, men, and children. Mr. Speaker, 25 U.S. soldiers were lost in that massacre, as well.

The Wounded Knee Massacre was one of the most atrocious moments in our Nation's history, the dark side of that manifest destiny that was romanticized in the President's speech yesterday.

In 2022, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe purchased this land and signed a covenant to hold and maintain the land as a memorial and sacred site.

This bill would reaffirm that covenant and would allow the Tribes to hold, maintain, and protect the land from any development.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Dakota for this bill. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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