James Mooney

Immediately following the massacre of Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), the well-known anthropologist James Mooney, under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology and the Smithsonian, investigated the incident. His interest was primarily in the Indian background to the uprising. Admitting that the Indians had been generally overpowered by the Whites, what led the Indians to think they stood a chance against White arms? His answer was astonishing:...