"All Guns Fired at One Time"
Native Voices of Wounded Knee, 1890
edited by Jerome A. Greene
August 2020 · 287 pages · black-and-white illustrations
“This compilation of seventy-eight accounts . . . is essential to understanding truthfully the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29,1890, and its aftermath. Another significant strength of the book is the author’s attention to the lifelong impact the massacre had on survivors and their descendants.”— Jon G. James , Montana The Magazine of Western History
"These accounts ... are essential for understanding this (still) controversial event."— R Eli Paul , co-author of Eyewitness at Wounded Knee
Historians and others have long debated events surrounding the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 1890, which followed decades of conflict between American Indians and the United States Army in the West. Government officials, reporters, and white Americans quickly appropriated the tragedy that took place on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, creating narratives of the events that echoed longstanding federal Indian policy.
“All Guns Fired at One Time” sets aside official narratives of what was once called a “battle” and centers instead on the voices of survivors and witnesses. In addition to extensive first-person accounts, Greene assembles an array of little-known newspaper stories, interviews, correspondence, and testimony, setting them in the context of the days and moments leading to the massacre and the landscape on which it occurred. Together, these sources add a new dimension to the story of what really happened at Wounded Knee.
Jerome A. Greene is the author of twenty-three books in addition to many scholarly articles and government reports. A United States Army veteran, he earned degrees in history from Black Hills State University and the University of South Dakota. Following studies at the University of Oklahoma, Greene taught American Indian history at Haskell Indian Nations University. He then began a career as a research historian with the National Park Service, retiring in 2007 after over forty years of government service. His 2014 book American Carnage: Wounded Knee, 1890 received a Spur Award for Best Western Historical Nonfiction from the Western Writers of America. A native of northern New York State, Greene now resides in the Denver area.
