The Wounded Knee Massacre of Lakota people in 1890 by U.S. Army soldiers took place in which American state?

The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was a domestic massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota Sioux people by soldiers of the United States Army. It occurred near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the American state of South Dakota. As the southern part of the former Dakota territory, South Dakota had just recently become a state on 2 November 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. It is either the 39th or 40th state admitted to the union.

Throughout 1890, the U.S. government was concerned about a spiritual movement at Pine Ridge, which taught that Indians had been confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their customs. On 29 December 1890, the army's 7th Cavalry surrounded the camp, shots were fired, and a massacre followed (nearly half of the deaths were women and children).

The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it's unlikely that the Indians would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Calvary were taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.

Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the spiritual movement and was the final clash between federal troops and the Lakota Sioux or any of the other Plains Indians at the time.