Wind flutters around the peace offerings of tobacco ties that line the fence at the Wounded Knee Memorial on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, on October 20, 2014. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Survivors recalled arriving at the Wounded Knee camp three days after the fighting, finding a blizzard had buried the frozen bodies of Lakota men, women, children and infants in snow. They described horrific scenes : mothers still clutching their babies, others shot down as they fled. These were the people killed by US soldiers in December 1890 on the plains of South Dakota, in what was the final armed conflict of the Indian Wars.

The government largely hailed it as a victorious battle, saying it had stopped what it deemed a growing threat from the Lakota people. Twenty s

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