As I was trained to say (politely), the "excrement contacted the impeller" in February 1973, with the Wounded Knee Incident - not to be confused with the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.  Three weeks previously Wilson had survived an impeachment hearing organized by a coalition of locals grouped loosely around the "traditionals" and organized by both a local "civil rights" organization and the urban radical AIM members.  Wilson and the Marshals had been expecting conflict, and had made the tribal headquarters in Pine Ridge into an armed encampment, complete with machine gun emplacements on top of the administration building.  Ellen Moves Camp, the mother of six children and a Community Health representative on the Rez for eight years before Dick Wilson became upset with her respect for AIM and had her dumped, was one of the strong women who traveled to Wounded Knee and took over the community as a gesture of protest.  She said "We decided we did need the American Indian Movement in here because our men were scared, they hung to the back."  (Matthiessen, ibid, p. 65.)  However, Dennis Banks and Russell Means were there.  The Indians issued a public statement demanding hearings on their [Fort Laramie] treaty of 1851 and an investigation of the BIA.  The next day, Wounded Knee was surrounded by the FBI, the U.S. Marshal Service, and the BIA police.  It turned into an armed siege.  On March 1st, Senators George McGovern and James Abourek arrived, deploring AIM's seizure of white "hostages," one of whom (Father Paul Manhardt) told them "those who wished to depart had already gone; those who stayed on had done so voluntarily not only to protect their property, but because this village was their home."  It lasted most of three months.  Our News Media had a feeding frenzy.  On March 4th during preliminary talks with the Justice Department the leaders agreed to abandon Wounded Knee if the government withdrew its reservation forces and let the people work out their own problems.  (Matthiessen, ibid, p. 68.)  The Pentagon refused.  A (too) long, messy, and continuingly brutal siege followed.

An FBI report "Disorder by American Indians and Supporters at Wounded Knee" claims "The identity of individuals reportedly in or en route to Wounded Knee includes not only Indians but representatives of such revolutionary-type organizations as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the Students for a Democratic Society, violence-prone Weatherman associates, the Marxist-Lenninist-Maoist Vinceremos Organization, as well as representatives from a black extremist group."  Never one to be outdone in posturing, Dick Wilson issued a proclamation to "Fellow Oglalas and Fellow Patriots."  In part it read: "What has happened at Wounded Knee is all part of a long range plan of the Communist Party. . . . There is no doubt that Wounded Knee is a major Communist thrust. . . . . The supporters of AIM come in all shades and the National Council of Churches are very vocal because the Liberal Press and the T.V. News Media is right at their elbow.  No news reporter or t.v. cameraman has ever won a war, but they can destroy a Nation by the propaganda of lies and hate that they broadcast for every crackpot, Screwball, and Communist-front organization who wants to take a swat at our American way of life, take a blast at the U.S. Constitution, spit at the American Flag, burn it, wear it as a poncho, or hang it upside down."  Eventually the siege ended, and the town was evacuated.  For seventy-one days a few hundred men, women, and children - supplied by volunteer airlifts and by sympathizers who slipped in and out during the night - had challenged a large paramilitary force abetted by hundreds of short-hair vigilantes, red and white, who were eager to wipe out the "longhair troublemakers."  The government then took control of the town.  During the stand-off Marlon Brando asked a Native American woman, Sacheen Littlefeather to speak at the Oscars on his behalf, refusing the Oscar for his performance in The Godfather.  She appeared in full Apache clothing.  She stated that owing to the "poor treatment of Native Americans in the film industry" Brando would not accept the award.  The event grabbed the attention of the U.S. and the world media. This was considered a major event and victory for the movement by its supporters and participants.

The 1858 Treaty was never seriously discussed, nor was corruption in the BIA investigated: hearings in June by the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs accomplished nothing.  Despite open violations of the law, committed in the presence of FBI agents and U.S. marshals , neither Richard Wilson nor his goons were ever prosecuted.  Instead, more than five hundred traditional people were indicted by the FBI in connection with Wounded Knee, and one hundred eighty-five were subsequently indicted by federal grand juries on charges of arson, theft, assault, and "interfering with federal officers."  Wounded Knee II, which had already cost the nation $7 million, was at an end.  (Matthiessen, ibid, p. 82.)