The largest tribal advocacy group in the United States condemned President Trump on Monday for his late-night tweets about Sen. Elizabeth Warren in which he called her “Pocahontas” and invoked the Wounded Knee Massacre.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the casual and callous use of these events as part of a political attack. Hundreds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people lost their lives at the hands of the invading U.S. Army during these events, and their memories should not be desecrated as a rhetorical punch line,” said National Congress of American Indians President Jefferson Keel in a statement.
Keel was joined by Rodney Bordeaux, chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
“The President reference the Wounded Knee Massacre, one of the darkest and most tragic chapters in the history of the Sioux Nation, to mock Senator Warren. On behalf of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, I condemn President Trump’s racist and disrespectful tweet about this brutal incident, in which an estimated 300 unarmed men, women, and children were rounded up and slaughtered,” said Bordeaux, who also serves as the vice president of the National Congress of American Indians Great Plains Alternate Area. “President Trump should remember that the United States has broken and continues to dishonor the treaties of peace made with our nation and other tribal nations of this country, and he should apologize immediately to the people of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and other Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations for his shameful and ignorant misstatement.”
Trump tweeted out a video of a recent livestream by Warren in the Massachusetts senator’s kitchen where she notably drank a beer and spoke to her followers on the same day she announced her intent to pursue the 2020 Democratic president nomination. In the tweet, Trump jokingly said that her “commercial” would have been more successful in “Bighorn” and “Wounded Knee,” mocking Warren for her past claims of having Native American heritage.
“If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!,” Trump tweeted.
If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash! pic.twitter.com/D5KWr8EPan
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019
“Bighorn” is a reference to the Battle of Little Bighorn during the Great Sioux War of 1876 between Native American tribes and the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. The battle, often referred to as Custer’s Last Stand, ended in an overwhelming victory for the tribes and resulted in the deaths of 268 U.S. soldiers, including Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, and anywhere from 31 to 300 Native Americans.
The Wounded Knee Massacre took place in 1890, in which an effort by soldiers of the same regiment to disarm members of the Lakota tribe in South Dakota went awry and led to the death of an estimated 150 to 300 Native Americans, including many women and children.
Last year, Warren released the results of a DNA test to address questions about her past claims that she has Native American ancestry, which had earned her the nickname “Pocahontas” from Trump. The results showed “strong evidence” that she had a Native American ancestor dating back six or 10 generations, suggesting she is between 1/64 to 1/1024 Native American, according to a Boston Globe report that obtained the results.
