Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950), an Oglala Lakota visionary and healer, son of a medicine man, and relative of Crazy Horse, witnessed the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890, when federal agents massacred unarmed Lakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As Black Elk knew, Wounded Knee was not the first interaction between the federal government and the Lakota. Lakota peoples had been interacting with white people for hundreds of years, negotiating treaties, trading, and fighting. However, in the second half of the 19th century, interactions had become ever more hostile as white pressure for Lakota land increased due to railroad construction, white settlers’ desire for land, and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills—a sacred place for the Lakota.