Characters in Wounded Knee

Supporting characters

• Benjamin Harrison

  The 23rd President of the United States, whose Republican administration and political maneuvers in the West set the stage for the military intervention.

• Sitting Bull

  The legendary Hunkpapa Lakota leader whose arrest and subsequent death in December 1890 heightened tensions across the reservations.

• Big Foot

  The Minneconjou Lakota chief who led his freezing, starving band toward Pine Ridge in search of safety before being intercepted by the military.

• James W. Forsyth

  The Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry who commanded the American troops during the disarmament and subsequent massacre at Wounded Knee.

• Daniel Royer

  The inexperienced, politically appointed Republican agent at the Pine Ridge Reservation whose panic over the Ghost Dance led to the call for federal troops.