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The Pine Ridge Reign of Terror was a marked period of time in the 1970s and into 1980 during which the Lakota people living on reservation land near Wounded Knee, South Dakota were joined by members of the American Indian Movement, also known as AIM, in protest of many political issues within tribal government. What began with a deceitful venture onto Indian territory led to not only the deaths of one Native American man and two FBI officers, but also the definition of the 'reign of terror': more than sixty consecutive days of daily discoveries of one or more deceased individuals, and others reported missing. Wounded Knee is historically symbolic to the Lakota people because of the 1890 massacre during the Battle of Wounded Knee As a result of this massacre, more than 300 men, women and children lost their lives. All were unarmed.

Background
The events surrounding and leading up to the Reign of Terror, so termed by residents of the reservation as well as AIM members a multitude and complicated. In an interview with NPR, Milo Yellowhair gives a brief idea of what led to the name, and provides a bit more definition. ""There had been a tremendous amount of carnage on the reservation [and] it was almost a daily occurrence, when people were disappearing or died or were found dead," Yellowhair says. "We always called it a 'reign of terror".

Life on the Reservation and Tribal Politics
First hand accounts given in an interview by Debbie Lang for an online journal by reservation residents portray acts of violence that were carried out daily against the residents at the behest of the then tribal president Dick Wilson. "Goon squads" were a supplemental, "private police force, composed mostly of out-of-work (Wilson) supporters...Due to the drunken brutality of its repressions, this force was soon known as the 'goon squad"; in its arrogance it adopted this name as an acronym for 'Guardians of the Oglala Nation' " . According to the first-hand accounts Lang collected, these men inflicted years of terror and violence that gave the Reign of Terror its length and definition. Residents reported accounts of loved ones and friends being followed along the road, only to be shot and killed simply because they "had long hair... they looked Indian" . Other accounts of the cruelty residents faced regularly included the severe curfew Wilson attempted to implement . Rosaline Jumping Bull gave this account to Lang:

"Dick Wilson said no more dancing, no more gatherings. People will have to be inside their houses at nine o'clock. There's no lights, no yard lights, no electricity. They shot out our outside lights. It's pitch black all over. GOONs patrolled the streets to make sure we were in bed. And if you have a gathering, the GOONs will go there and break it up. So we used to follow each other around at that time without lights and have meetings. Just one car would go and then we all followed. And we'd hide from them. We had to whisper when we'd go someplace. They were really getting bad. Even the police officers were right in there with them. "

Wilson's Politics
In a newspaper local to Wounded Knee just two years after the height of the Reign of Terror, just a few of the reasons Wilson had a very large hand in the events occurring on the reservation were listed. According to the newspaper, Wilson was a federal plant placed by not only the Bureau of Indian Affairs but also the Department of the Interior. Under Wilson's authority, tribal lands were leased without the knowledge or consent of the tribal government. This land was leased in part to major corporations and in part to white farmers. The corporations were seeking oil, other minerals, and timber from the land. The farmers were using the land for crops without any kind of contribution to the residents of the reservation or members of the tribe. The land was leased at a deeply and unfairly discounted rate .Many residents were too old or lacked any kind of transportation, money, or other means to leave the reservation and find food and other living necessities at a more reasonable cost, or even at all. The same newspaper article goes into further atrocities faced by reservation residents: "Illegal traders have been permitted to enter the reservation and overcharge residents who cannot afford to travel long distances for food and supplies".

AIM, or American Indian Movement and the Oglala peoples of the Pine Ridge Reservation
The American Indian Movement was derived from pieces of the Civil Rights movement and was geared towards the protection of Native American peoples and their rights. The beginnings of the movement found meaning in 1962 with two Ojibwa men who were cellmates at Minnesota's Stillwater State Prison. These two men "concluded that government supervision was destroying the Indian people and that Indians had to deal with their own problems if they were to survive".

Event
According to an NPR article: "The 71-day siege was only the beginning of turmoil on Pine Ridge. Local residents, such as AIM member Milo Yellowhair, say the violence continued for years". Arlene Little Hawk gives multiple accounts regarding the loved ones she lots as a young child during the Reign of Terror.

""There was this lady named Jeanette Bissonette. She's driving down the road, her and her children, and a sniper killed her. I have a friend, we were eighth graders. He had real long hair. His name            was Ellison Little Spotted Horse. He was walking down the road. Somebody just shot him dead. And we were grade school children. So the GOON squads, they started killing children. I thought I was invincible, that I would live forever and for some reason, that as a child, I had all this protection in the world. And here now they're killing children. I always remember my friend because nobody remembers him. Nobody even cares to mention his name. But he's one of the children that died in those times, all because he had long hair".

According to the FBI's website the initial shooting started "at approximately 11:50a.m. on June 26, 1975". Matthiessen's book continues with a considerably more in-depth timeline. He heavily relies on first-hand accounts of people who were a part of that day's events from various official documents. Bob Robideau states: "by noon, our defensive positions had been completely surrounded by FBI agents, some of which were SWAT-trained, BIA police, BIA SWAT teams, state law enforcement, and non-law enforcement who were comprised of local white farmers and goons".