Boarding School and Land Allotment Eras 1879-1933

1889

Ghost Dance revival

Wovoka Paiute Shaman. Image: National Archives and Records Administration
Wovoka Paiute Shaman. Image: National Archives and Records Administration

Wovoka, a Paiute spiritual leader in Nevada, leads the revitalization of the Ghost Dance movement, a ceremony to return connections to the ancestors, return peace, and expel settlers (and, among the Lakota, return the buffalo). With loss of land and genocide raging, the movement spreads rapidly among the Lakota, Cheyenne, Comanche, Assiniboine, Arapaho, and Shoshoni, among other tribal peoples. American settlers panic when they hear of the dancing and call for U.S. Army intervention to stop the dances, leading to the death of Sitting Bull as well as the death of Chief Big Foot and the massacre at Wounded Knee (Nies, 1996).

Native Resistance