Frank Clearwater and Buddy Lamont Killed at Wounded Knee

Excerpts from ‘Akwesasne Notes’, Early Summer 1973

April 17, 1973

It was just a few minutes after sunrise at Wounded Knee and the village was quiet and deserted.

Then three planes came over the horizon, flying at about 500 feet altitude. They slowed down as they neared, then dropped about ten parachutes into the village. 3 or 4 landed in the middle of Wounded Knee compound, and the rest within the perimeter controlled by the Oglalas.

About fifty persons burst out of the buildings at the village to collect the badly-needed food as the planes swept away.

A few minutes later, all hell broke loose. A helicopter flew over, shooting at any moving target. Then there was ground fire from first one, then all federal positions. The Oglala force fired back a few bursts here and there — they have little ammunition and inferior weapons. U.S. guns fired 4,000 rounds, a federal spokesman said later — and the actual number seemed much higher. The intensive fire lasted about 90 minutes.

Frank Clearwater had just come into Wounded Knee a day or so earlier, hiking in at night over the back trails. He was tired, and was sleeping on a cot in the church when the planes flew over.

Shortly after, he was mortally wounded, as the heavy firing pounded through the church and a bullet smashed into his head.

The gunfire was the first in three weeks on either side. It — and Clearwater’s critical wounding — marked a whole new tone to the confrontation at Wounded Knee.

Clearwater was taken from the village under a white flag of truce by car, then rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Pine Ridge, and then by plane to the St. John McNamara Hospital in Rapid City. There, he underwent neurosurgery, and a hospital spokesman said his condition was “very critical.”

Clearwater’s wife, Morning Star, said that after she found her husband shot and bleeding at the church, she got a promise of safe conduct so she could accompany him to the hospital. However, she was immediately arrested by the FBI agents and was held in the Pine Ridge jail until the following day. She was not allowed to see her husband until the following evening.

(Mrs. Clearwater said the conditions in the Pine Ridge jail were very bad. There was no bed and prisoners must sleep on the floor, she said. She was fed a bowl of mush and a piece of cornbread for breakfast, and two or three spoonsful of soup and a cracker for supper.)

Dr. Michael Silverstein, a physician who accompanied the gravely-injured man out of Wounded Knee, said that the firing stemmed from a clear case of “unwarranted aggression” by the U.S.

The U.S. countercharged that the firing was initiated by the Oglalas, who, they said, moved out of their bunkers and attacked Government positions manned with armored personnel carriers. Furthermore, Stanley Pottinger, an assistant U.S. attorney general at the scene, said that federal forces would return fire only to protect themselves and would not counterattack. He claimed that 4,000 rounds of ammunition had been fired by the Oglalas and said that some of the fire appeared to come from automatic weapons.

An anonymous telephone caller told the Associated Press in New York that the planes were flown by members of the Wounded Knee Airlift. The caller said the delivery was made by antiwar activists who wanted to aid the Indians in the oldest undeclared war still being fought by the U.S. Each parachute had two or three duffel bags of flour, rice, sugar, and medicine, cheese.

Each bag of supplies contained the same message, addressed to the Independent Oglala Sioux Nation: “Your struggle for freedom and justice is our struggle. Our hearts are with you.”

The three single-engine Piper Cherokee aircraft arrive from three different directions. Later it was learned that they had taken off from three different cities, and had coordinated their arrival. A newspaper reporter, Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe, confirmed that he had accompanied one of the planes, and that he had witnessed the packing of the bags. There were no guns, he said, and not so much as a single round of ammunition.

The airlift was said to have been planned for several weeks by a group of 50 to 100 persons, including Vietnam veterans. The operation was put together in the midwest.

After the firing, additional U.S. troops were brought in, including at least 25 members of the Border Patrol, normally on duty in the northern states. At least 300 FBI agents and U.S. marshals are already at the scene — some say 500 is a more accurate number.

Stan Holder, AIM security chief and one of the advisors who had been inside Wounded Knee, surrendered himself to federal authorities in Rapid City this morning. Bond was set at $50,000, but because of the shooting going on in the village, U.S. magistrate James Wilson allowed Holder 48 hours of freedom to help bring a “peaceful end to the shooting.” He was returned to Pine Ridge by federal marshals.

[…]

April 25, 1973

Frank Clearwater passed into the Spirit World today.

Wounded Knee II had claimed its first life. He had not recovered consciousness since he was shot in the head April 17 while lying in a church inside the village. His wife. Morning Star, asked that he be buried at Wounded Knee. She is 37, a Cherokee from North Carolina. Her husband is Apache, and was 47.

Richard Hellstern, deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, the top U.S. official at Pine Ridge, said that the U.S. would not permit the body to be buried at Wounded Knee because Clearwater was not Sioux.

Hellstern said an FBI investigation had revealed that the man’s name was Frank Clear, and “we tend to believe he was white rather than Indian.” (Many states recognize only three racial classifications: white, black, and oriental. Most Indians are listed as “white” on driver’s licenses, birth certificates, etc.)

Mrs. Clearwater, three-months pregnant, said neither she nor her husband were members of AIM, but that they were sympathetic with the Oglala goals, and had come to South Dakota from North Carolina only a few days before her husband was shot.

Besides his petty remarks, Hellstern finally had to admit that for the time being, Community Relations Service personnel would not be allowed to enter Wounded Knee, and tribal council supporters could remain at a roadblock on the perimeter of the village. That represented a complete capitulation to the demands of Dick Wilson, tribal council chairman.

Hellstern also had to admit that guns had been levelled at him, chief Interior Department Solicitor Kent Frizzell, and the chief U.S. marshal, Wayne Colburn, late Tuesday at the disputed roadblock. However, none of the four men involved in the incident were arrested.

Relating his version of the incident, Wilson held his fingers a short distance apart and said, “We came this far from shooting Frizzell and Colburn.” Wilson, who said he was beginning to regard the U.S. officials as enemies, said that Frizzell had jumped from his car “raving mad” and had demanded the removal of the roadblock. The roadblock stayed.

Assistant for Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, Marvin Franklin, came to Pine Ridge today to try to mediate the widening gap between the reservation tribal council and the Justice Department. Although Hellstern said that the Justice Department would not budge from its position that it alone would decide who would go to and from Wounded Knee, he apparently was overruled by his superiors in Washington.

Word was sent out from Wounded Knee that there would not be any negotiations for the next four days because of a period of mourning which had been proclaimed for Frank Clearwater.

Earlier in the day, about 100 marchers en route to Wounded Knee from Pine Ridge were stopped by some 50 BIA policemen and federal officers. The group had covered about half of the 60 mile route, and were met about 10 miles east of Martin, a community about 40 miles from Wounded Knee and about 15 miles east of the reservation line.

The police blocked U.S. Highway 18. Generally, the area, although disputed as to ownership, is regarded to be off the reservation and is so shown on BIA maps. Delmar Eastman, a special BIA officer at Pine Ridge, said that reservation officials and the U.S. considered the state area part of the reservation “because there are thousands of acres of Indian trust land” in Bennett County. He served the marchers with a tribal council restraining order.

[…]

April 27, 1973

Wounded Knee II claimed its second life this afternoon during a gun battle which began late last night.

Lawrence “Buddy” Lamont, 31, was killed near a bunker used to defend the village. He is a brother-in-law of Lloyd (Toby) Eaglebull, secretary of the tribal council, and an outspoken critic of the force which occupies Wounded Knee.

The Oglalas charge that the firing was initiated by members of tribal council chairman Dick Wilson’s “goon squad” which has been acting as a vigilante force with the approval and cooperation of U.S. officials. They say almost 40,000 rounds were shot into the settlement in the two-day battle.

Dr. Richard Basford, who had manned the medical clinic in the tiny village, told a press conference in Rapid City that during the night, in the light cast by the federal agents’ flares, the occupying force could see gunmen running along creek beds and hiding behind small trees.

“They come up the creek on both sides,” said Gladys Bissonette, an Oglala. “They fire mostly on the offense to get a fire fight against the Indians. The Feds claim that the Indians are shooting at them, but the Indians really aren’t shooting — it’s the goons in the middle . . . The federal marshals all know what they’re doing — that’s just an excuse to kill Indians.”

Although the Oglalas have charged earlier that the federal agents were using gas to flush out bunkers, the charge was denied. However, the Oglalas were able to record a message over the U.S. radio communications, and later, Tom Oxendine, spokesman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, told press that “a non-toxic” gas had been used.

“Throw gas into that bunker and flush them out so we can have good targets,” the marshals said over their intercom.

The firing ended only when the U.S. forces received word of the casualty at 4:40 p.m. Oxendine said the U.S. responded that it would honor an indefinite ceasefire. He also said that the reason for the battle was that federal positions on the Wounded Knee perimeter had come under a heavy barrage, that federal officers had been ordered to hold their fire for more than four hours, but that the Oglalas kept shooting at them.

“I don’t know what kind of gas they were using on us,” a woman inside the village said. “They called it ’79’, and it would come across the prairie like a huge yellow ball.”

* * * * * * * *

“He was my only son, and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Agnes Lamont mourned. She lives at the reservation, the mother of seven children. “His sister and her little baby and some other people — they told them it was all right to bring him out in an ambulance,” she said. “And when they came out with the body, they put them all in handcuffs and threw them all in jail.”

Mrs. Lamont said her daughter’s baby was born at Wounded Knee and was only two weeks old. She said too that her son had expressed the wish to be buried at Wounded Knee if anything should happen to him, and she supported his wish.

Asked if she supported the American Indian Movement even after the death of her son, she replied, “I’m with them all the way now.”

When Lamont was killed, some of his relatives inside Wounded Knee requested — and obtained FBI permission to accompany the body as it left the site. However, as soon as the five women and two men reached the roadblocks, they were taken into custody and also nabbed was a two-month old baby of one of the women. Later, the baby was taken out of the Pine Ridge BIA jail by his grandmother, Mrs. Cheyenne Nichols.

Bernie Nichols Iron Cloud, a niece of Lamont’s, said she and her husband, Roger, were with Lamont when he died instantly about 1:15 p.m. She said he was not armed at the time. Witnesses said that he was shot in the back by BIA police.

The relatives said Lamont was not a member of the American Indian Movement. “Lawrence,” they said, “told us he was going down there to fight for his people’s rights.” They added that “last week, Lawrence knew he was going to die. He said then he wanted to be buried at Wounded Knee.”

One woman, Lawrence’s sister, said that after her arrest, she had asked to phone their mother so that she would learn of the death in that way, rather than by hearing it over the radio. She said that she was refused by a policeman who said she “could rot” before he would let her use the phone.

“Lawrence had just received his Vietnam bonus check,” one relative said. “He never had the chance to spend it.” Lamont had been employed by the tribal council, but after he signed a petition calling for the impeachment of Dick Wilson, he was fired from the job.

[…]

Leonard Crow Dog was back inside, however, where he is acting as spiritual adviser. He sent word to the U.S. that the occupation group would not negotiate with the Justice Department until the first victim of the battle over Wounded Knee — Frank Clearwater — was buried in the village.

Dick Wilson, who said he was speaking for the tribal council (which has not had a quorum since many of its members resigned over a month ago) said it had been ruled that Clearwater’s body would not be allowed in the village.

[…]

April 30, 1973

Three Oglala senior statesmen — Frank Fools Crow, Frank Kills Enemy, and Tom Bad Cob, and interpreter Matthew King — were allowed by the United States to pass its blockades to spend several hours talking with their people and the AIM advisors inside Wounded Knee. It was believed that they would carry the word given them yesterday by the United States — this was to be the last chance for negotiations before the U.S. would muster a move in by force.

“I allowed the meeting to occur because I felt it might be a catalyst to future negotiations,” said Interior Department Solicitor Kent Frizzell.

Preparations were also being made for the burial of the two men slain in the siege. A compromise which Frizzell had negotiated was in effect: the body of Frank Clearwater was permitted by tribal council chairman Richard Wilson to be taken to Fools Crow’s home for a one-day wake, but with the stipulation that the burial must take place off the reservation.

Leonard Crow Dog, a Lakotah spiritual leader from the next-door Rosebud Reservation, had said Clearwater could be buried in a family plot on his land, but Rosebud tribal council people had indicated that they might not permit this to happen.

The caravan accompanying Clearwater’s body was met before it reached Fools Crow’s home by Bureau of Indian Affairs policemen, who searched all the vehicles and arrested two persons for carrying rifles — although the guns were perfectly legal. Only six cars were allowed to enter the reservation, and fourteen others were turned back.

Delmar Eastman, a BIA policeman, said everyone who was not a resident of the reservation, not a member of the family, or not an enrolled Oglala were turned back.

Police then escorted the casket to a white canvas tipi at Fools Crow’s.

The mourners gathered off the muddy road in the small cluster of frame and log buildings. The coffin lay covered by an Indian blanket. A short distance away, about 50 mourners sat in rows of folding chairs inside a log cabin. Women served a meal of fry bread, hot cherry soup, and beef stew. Fools Crow had tried to get a buffalo for the wake, but government custodians said they could not provide one.

[…]

Frizzell said the tribal council chairman had agreed to let Lawrence Lamont, an Oglala, be buried at Wounded Knee. He said a limited number of family members — 8 or 10 persons — would be allowed to accompany the body into the village with the proviso that they return after the burial is completed.

Commenting on reports that village occupants were low on food, Frizzell said that “if our intelligence [reports -Akwesasne Notes] shows that they are to the point where they can’t sustain life down there, we may consider sending in food.”

[…]

Also, federal agents all over the U.S. were continuing to round up anyone who appeared to be aiding the cause at Wounded Knee. Nineteen persons had been arrested in Valentine, Nebraska, last Saturday. Others were arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at the same time, all charged with violating federal anti-riot laws.

May 1, 1973

The United States imposed a news blackout on the negotiations at Wounded Knee. The American people were not to be told of a build-up in arms, on the status of talks, nor other details of the occupation, officials decided. And the Oglalas couldn’t talk — newsmen were banned from entering the village.

[…]

The caravan bearing the body of Frank Clearwater, who had died from Wounded Knee gunfire, reached the Rosebud Reservation, and burial was held today.

The funeral procession was stopped by a BIA police car at Rosebud, but Vern Bellecourt, national coordinator for AIM, seized the wheel of the hearse and the procession swept past the police car to land owned by the Crow Dog family. The tribal council had been prepared to ban the burial, and then reversed itself.

A chief opponent of the burial was Webster Two Hawk, an Episcopal clergyman and tribal council chairman at Rosebud. He has been an opponent of the Wounded Knee takeover, and as president of the vice president of the U.S. National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, frequently has backed U.S. policies.

When, for a time, the Crow Dog property might be blocked, Al Running Horse of Rosebud offered his land. Two Hawk argued that burial should be at a cemetery, and off the reservation. At one point in the verbal encounter, Two Hawk told several members of the burial party, “Go home. You are on our land.”

[…]

May 2, 1973

U.S. negotiators were inside Wounded Knee today, but no information was released on what was discussed.

[…]

Federal negotiator Richard Hellstern was busy trying to discredit what he called “AIM’s public relations tactics” charging that the occupation force was dishonoring their own dead by delaying the funeral of Frank Clearwater. Rosebud BIA police chief Louis White said that the burial party wouldn’t talk to them, and they could not confirm that Clearwater had been buried. Hellstern said the public should be made aware of how AIM “has used the deceased as a public relations show. It is most disrespectful to the deceased himself. It is not the normal way you deal with death in normal Indian society.”

Hellstern did not point out that Clearwater had lost his life from wounds he received from U.S. guns as he lay sleeping in a chapel inside the village.

In Boston, Larry Levin, 25, surrendered to the FBI in response to a warrant issued with the airlift of food and medical supplies into Wounded Knee April 17.

[…]

May 3, 1973

The traditional Oglala leaders, headed by Frank Fools Crow, said today that a tentative agreement had been reached to settle the occupation of Wounded Knee. They said that approval of the agreement was expected from Washington before tomorrow.

A government spokesman denied the report, and said that it was not true, and that rumors that federal agents planned to clear the village this weekend were also not true

[…]

“There is still great sorrow among all the Indians at the loss of brothers Clearwater and Lamont who have unselfishly made the supreme sacrifice in a quest for recognition and rightful sovereignty,” the leaders said in their statement. “It is tragic that men have to make this sort of sacrifice to recognize inequities allowed to exist in this so-called civilized society.”

A spokesman for the traditional group said that the traditional chiefs and their followers are still being harassed by reservation police being paid by the BIA, but actually working for tribal chairman Richard Wilson. He charged that ‘The only thing that has been holding up negotiations is Wilson.”

[…]

Hellstern also reported that there was an impasse over the question of the burial of Lawrence Lamont. They wanted a full and open funeral before there would be any abandonment of the village, but the U.S. position was that only eight to ten close relatives could attend. It was Hellstern who only yesterday had accused the Oglalas of “dishonoring the dead.”

Five men and one woman were arrested during the night as they backpacked food and medical supplies into Wounded Knee. The arrests raised to over 300 the number of persons who had been arrested in the supply effort over the “Crazy Horse Trail.”

[…]

May 4, 1973

About fifty persons attended a funeral mass this afternoon for Lawrence Lamont, 31, killed when he was struck by U.S. bullets during a heavy exchange of gunfire last week. The service was held at Porcupine, eight miles north of Wounded Knee. He will eventually be buried at Wounded Knee.

The Rev. Paul Steinmetz presided at the Roman Catholic ceremony before a flag-draped coffin. Lamont was a Vietnam veteran.

After the service, Mrs. Lamont, Lawrence’s mother, was told by federal officials that an open burial at Wounded Knee would not be permitted, open to all mourners. Instead, only 6 to 10 “close family members” would be permitted to attend. Mrs. Lamont said she had scheduled the burial for tomorrow afternoon, and that she would have further talks with U.S. officials.

[…]

May 6, 1973

An agreement for disarmament of both U.S. and Oglala forces, and arrangements for further negotiations, was announced today.

[…]

The United States also gave in to another Oglala demand that Lawrence Lamont, who died of U.S. gunfire while he was inside Wounded Knee, be buried in the village. About 35 relatives accompanied the body and an estimated 80 village occupants were in the procession from the tipi chapel across the village to the burial site. The family allegedly had to pay a Nebraska undertaker $1,900 cash before he would release the body to them.

[…]

Statement by Morningstar Clearwater (1973)

An excerpt from Voices from Wounded Knee, by Akwesasne Notes, 1976 fourth edition, original edition published 1974

(Morningstar Clearwater did not leave Wounded Knee with her husband, as she said she was afraid of being arrested at the Government roadblock. Two days later, when word came in that Frank was dying, she decided to go out to Rapid City to be with him. Federal officials told Morningstar that they would take her to Rapid City where Frank was in the hospital. But as she feared, she was arrested by the FBI at the roadblock. When she got out of jail several days later, she made the following statement at a press conference in Rapid City)

I was in Wounded Knee when my husband got shot. I had gone to get some food at the church. He was at the little white church, laying down on a mattress. And the shot came on the right hand side of the big white church and the next thing I knowed, my husband was shot in the head, laying on the mattress, and he was almost dead.

My husband’s dying, and people in there are starving. They don’t even have cover, they don’t have no food, they don’t have nothing. The federals said they were going to take me to see my husband, and I had to walk up to the roadblock. When I got there they got me in the car and then they took me to jail, and the lawyers had a hard time getting me out to see my husband. I just got to see my husband yesterday evening. I stayed up all night with him. The doctor said he has a 50-50 chance.