James Pipe On Head was born in Montana. He was the son of Pipe On Head and Runs On, also named Waits For Him, and the grandson of Spotted Elk and Small Tail. 

Ten-year-old James and his mother and little sister were traveling with his grandfather Spotted Elk and his band when the Seventh Calvary intercepted them Dec 28, 1890 and escorted them to Wounded Knee Creek. On the morning of Dec 29, 1890 James was asked to go get Spotted Elk’s tobacco. When he returned with the tobacco and gave it to Spotted Elk, gunfire broke out and the massacre began. James was standing close to his grandfather when he was the first shot and killed. James suffered powder burns to his eyes as he ran through blinding gun smoke. In his successful effort to escape, he ran over dead horses and by dead old women and babies with their heads blown off. Both his mother and he somehow reached safety but his little sister did not. She was shot dead on his mother’s back.

After the first explosion of gunfire and the camp had cleared of those who had managed to run away; James watched from a hidden vantage point the soldiers walk across the fields shooting the Indians that were on the ground but still alive. He heard the soldiers call out to those who had taken refuge in a nearby canyon that it was over and that it was OK for them to come out of hiding. Those that came out were shot in cold blood.

James testified in person to these facts before the House of Representatives Committee on Indian Affairs. He adds to his congressional testimony a written statement that the soldiers were not human because they buried alive a helpless Indian man who had been shot in the eye. 

He also thought it important for the Committee to know that “Big Foot and his band are called the Minneconjou band. This name was given them because they were engaged in farming along the Missouri River on the bottomlands near what is now Fort Yates, North Dakota. The name Minneconjou means ‘planters along waters.’ They were one of the first Sioux bands to come into contact with the whites and have always maintained a friendly relationship with them. Big Foot had even advised General Custer not to go into Crazy Horse’s territory but he went out to capture the Siouxs [sic] and met his defeat.”

After the massacre and subsequent events, the Pipe On Head family settled on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the area of Oglala near the White River. Before he received his Christian name “James” the Indian census first listed him as Big Foot .

In the years following Wounded Knee Dewey Beard and his brother, Joseph Horn Cloud, and others formed the Wounded Knee Survivors Association. James grew up to become the president of the Wounded Knee Survivors Association. In 1938, at the request of Senator (then Congressman) Francis Case, Dewy Beard and he went to Washington, DC to testify before the House of Representatives Committee on Indian Affairs. They hoped that their personal testimony and the sworn testimony by many other survivors describing the  Wounded Knee massacre would help Case pass his bill, “Liquidating the Liability of the United States For the  Massacre of Sioux Indian Men, Women, and Children at Wounded Knee.”

Between 1937 to 1940 Case repeatedly submitted his bill to the Committee on Indian Affairs. After the Committee passed the 1940 bill they sent it to the House of Representatives where it never reached the floor for a vote. Many tribes were suing Congress for reparations for the historical massacres and other injustices done to them. The Congress did not want to set a precedent for other tribes by passing Case’s Wounded Knee bill.

In 1940 US engagement in WWII became the main concern of Congress. They set Indian affair aside. After WWII Sen. Case renewed his efforts well into the 1950’s to secure compensation for the losses at Wounded Knee. His efforts were not successful. The bill permanently stalled in Congress. The victims’ and their families never received compensation. It is still an unresolved matter. 

What Sen. Case and the Survivors of Wounded Knee Association did accomplish was to educate the American public and set history straight that Wounded Knee was not a battle, it was a massacre. James Pipe On Head and Dewy Beard’s trip to Washington, DC was a successful media event. All the major newspapers wrote articles about their testimony to Congress. The Times Magazine ran a photo of Dewy Beard and James Pipe On Head in full regalia standing with John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Their story of Wounded Knee spread around the world.