The Crow Creek massacre occurred around A.D. 1325 between Indian groups in the South Dakota area. Crow Creek Site, the site of the massacre near Chamberlain, is an archaeological site and a U.S. National Historic Landmark, located at co-ordinates 43°58′48″N 99°19′54″W. The Siouan-speaking Initial Middle Missouri variant peoples, ancestral to the Mandan Nation, first occupied the site sometime after about A.D. 900. They built numerous earthlodges on the lower portion of the site. People of the Caddoan-speaking Initial Coalescent variant moved into the area sometime around A.D. 1150. Whether they displaced the earlier group or moved onto an abandoned site is unknown. The Initial Coalescent people built at least 55 lodges, mostly on the upper part of the site. There is no direct evidence that there was conflict between the two groups.
There is evidence that the Initial Coalescent villagers knew of the potential for attacks on its village. An earlier dry moat fortification was in the process of being replaced by a new fortification ditch around the expanded village when an attack occurred resulting in the massacre. The attacking group slaughtered the villagers. Archaeologists from the University of South Dakota, directed by project director Larry J. Zimmerman, field director Thomas Emerson, and osteologist P. Willey found the remains of at least 486 people killed during the attack. Many of these remains showed signs of mutilation. These included tongues being removed, scalping, teeth broken, beheading, hands and feet being cut off, and other forms of dismemberment.
Read more about Crow Creek Massacre: Site, Skeletal Remains, Hypotheses, Reburial and Further Study
Famous quotes containing the words crow, creek and/or massacre:
“The Indian attitude toward the land was expressed by a Crow named Curly: “The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down to find Nature’s earth, for the upper portion is Crow, my blood and my dead. I do not want to give it up.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program. Montana: A State Guide Book (The WPA Guide to Montana)
“The only law was that enforced by the Creek Lighthorsemen and the U.S. deputy marshals who paid rare and brief visits; or the “two volumes of common law” that every man carried strapped to his thighs.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. relief program (1935-1943)
“The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)