Story Provided by William Purcell www.lakotawritings.com

My name is Morning Cloud, I am Oglala Lakota, or Sioux as the white man calls us. I have been camped within sight of the Reservation agency for a number of months now. Our men have no weapons or bullets with which to hunt for food, their rifles having been taken away from them when they were made to surrender to Bear Coat Miles and his army of bluecoats. Enslaved, they then brought us here, to Wazi Ahanhan (Pine Ridge.) Our children are beginning to cry because they are hungry. Their bellies are empty and the sickness is upon them. The little food that has been supplied by the agency, most of which consisted of meat that was bad, has only just managed to get us through the last stages of this long cruel winter. Now the agency is telling us there is no more meat and turns us away empty handed. The Government agent does not hear the cries of our children, and even if he did, this would not prompt him into giving us what is rightfully ours. Story Continues