186 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
that had crushed the people and further impoverished them. The
people opposed the increasingly authoritarian reign of the elected
tribal chairman, Richard Wilson. They invited AIM to send a del
egation to support them. On February 27, 1973 , long deliberations
took place in the Pine Ridge Calico Hall between the local people
and AIM leaders, led by Russell Means, a citizen of Pine Ridge. The
AIM activists were well known following the Trail of Broken Trea
ties Caravan, and upon AIM's arrival, the FBI, tribal police, and the
chairman's armed special unit, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation
(they called themselves "the GOON squad"), mobilized. The meet
ing ended with a consensus decision to go to Wounded Knee in a
caravan to protest the chairman's misdeeds and the violence of his
GOONs. The law enforcement contingent followed and circled the
protesters. Over the following days, hundreds of more armed men
surrounded Wounded Knee, and so began a two-and-a-half-month
siege of protesters at the 1890 massacre site. The late-twentieth
century hamlet of Wounded Knee was made up of little more than a
trading post, a Catholic church, and the mass grave of the hundreds
of Lakotas slaughtered in 1890. Now armed personnel carriers,
Huey helicopters, and military snipers surrounded the site, while
supply teams of mostly Lakota women made their way through the
military lines and back out again through dark of night.WOUNDED KNEE 1890 AND 1973
The period between the "closing of the frontier," marked by the
1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, and the 1973 siege of Wounded
Knee, which marks the beginning of Indigenous decolonization in
North America, is illuminated by following the historical experience
of the Sioux. The first international relationship between the Sioux
Nation and the US government was established in 1805 with a treaty
of peace and friendship two years after the United States acquired
the Louisiana Territory, which included the Sioux Nation among
many other Indigenous nations. Other such treaties followed in 1815
and 1825. These peace treaties had no immediate effect on Sioux po
litical autonomy or territory. By 1834, competition in the fur trade,