The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to by official historians as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and preventable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, the Big Foot group is unlikely to be willing to start the battle. Some historians speculate that the 7th Cavalry was deliberately seeking revenge for the defeat of the regiment at Little Bighorn in 1876, when near the Little Bighorn River in Montana, the 7th General Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army of the famous General Custer faced a coalition of Cheyennes and Sioux Indians, under the command of the famous indigenous leaders Touto Sitting and Crazy Horse, resulting in the annihilation of the detachment of General Custer, the biggest defeat of the American army during the so-called "Indian Wars".
Whatever the reasons, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in a series of bloody wars against the Plains Indians, Indians who lived on the plain between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
