Johnny Depp, Wounded Knee and the Tribes Who Bought the Land Back

An engraving of the aftermath at Wounded Knee in 1890, beside actor Johnny Depp.

Yes, Johnny Depp did say he wanted to buy the land at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and give it back to the Sioux. He made the promise in a 2013 interview with the Mail on Sunday's Event magazine, as his film The Lone Ranger was about to open. But he never bought it. The 40 acres beside the massacre site were finally purchased in 2022 by two Lakota nations, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, for $500,000.

Here is what Depp said, why the land was for sale, what happened at Wounded Knee in 1890 and 1973, and how the tribes eventually brought the site back under their control.

What Johnny Depp promised

In mid-2013 Depp was promoting Disney's The Lone Ranger, in which he played Tonto. Talking about the film, he described Wounded Knee as sacred ground where many atrocities had been committed against the Sioux, mentioned the 1973 standoff between activists and federal agents, and said he wanted to buy the land and give it back. He asked why the government did not do so itself.

The story spread widely online over the following years, often presented as a done deal. It was not. Depp said he was doing his best to make it happen, but no purchase by him was ever reported, and the land remained in the hands of the private family who had owned it since 1968.

His casting as Tonto was itself controversial. Some Native American critics objected to a white star playing a Comanche character in heavy makeup, while Depp said he believed he had Native ancestry and described the role as an attempt to help right past wrongs. The film was a commercial failure, and by the time it left cinemas the Wounded Knee pledge had faded from the news.

Why the land was for sale

Wounded Knee lies on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Oglala Lakota. Yet the 40 acres closest to the massacre site, including the land around the mass grave, were privately owned. James Czywczynski bought the property in 1968 and ran a trading post there, which was destroyed during the 1973 occupation.

Around the time of Depp's interview, the family put the parcel up for sale with an asking price of $3.9 million. Tribal leaders and many Lakota people considered that far too high for land assessed at only about $14,000, and they argued that a sacred burial site should never have been treated as real estate. Negotiations went on for years without agreement.

Spotted Elk's Miniconjou Lakota band in 1890. The photo was published with a Corbis caption saying it was taken near Wounded Knee a month before the massacre; as with many frontier photographs, the exact date and place are uncertain.

What happened at Wounded Knee in 1890

By late 1890 the US Army was alarmed by the spread of the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement that promised renewal for Native peoples. After the killing of Sitting Bull in mid-December, Chief Spotted Elk (also known as Big Foot) led his Miniconjou Lakota band of about 350 people toward Pine Ridge. The 7th Cavalry intercepted them and escorted them to Wounded Knee Creek.

On the morning of 29 December 1890, soldiers under Colonel James Forsyth began disarming the Lakota. A man named Black Coyote, who was reportedly deaf and may not have understood the order, refused to give up his rifle. As soldiers seized him, the gun went off. Within moments the troops opened fire, including with rapid-firing Hotchkiss guns, and the shooting became indiscriminate. Many of the dead were women and children cut down as they fled.

Older accounts, including the one this story first circulated with, put the dead at "at least 150". That was an early official count. Most historians now estimate that between 250 and 300 Lakota were killed, with more wounded. About 25 to 31 soldiers also died, many probably from their own side's crossfire. The dead Lakota were buried in a mass grave on the hill where the memorial stands today.

The Medals of Honor dispute

Nineteen soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their actions at Wounded Knee (the number is often quoted as 20). For more than a century Lakota leaders and many historians have called for the medals to be withdrawn, arguing that killing unarmed people was not heroism.

The National Congress of American Indians passed resolutions urging this in 2001, and the Remove the Stain Act was introduced in Congress in 2021. A Pentagon and Interior Department review began in 2024. In September 2025 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the medals would not be revoked, a decision many Native groups condemned. The issue remains one of the clearest examples of how the United States still struggles to describe what happened there.

The 1973 occupation

Depp's reference to a "stand-off" was to the events of 1973. On 27 February that year, about 200 Oglala Lakota and members of the American Indian Movement, led by figures including Russell Means and Dennis Banks, occupied the town of Wounded Knee. They chose the site for its symbolic weight, protesting against the tribal government of Richard Wilson and demanding that the US honour its treaties.

The occupation lasted 71 days and drew federal marshals, FBI agents and armoured vehicles. Two Native men, Frank Clearwater and Buddy Lamont, were killed by gunfire, and civil rights activist Ray Robinson disappeared during the siege. The standoff ended in May 1973, but it put Native rights in front of a national audience and remains a defining moment for the Lakota.

How the tribes bought the land back

In the end, the land was returned not by a celebrity but by the Lakota themselves. In September 2022 the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe agreed to buy the 40 acres from Jeanette Czywczynski, James's widow, for a combined $500,000. Many of the Cheyenne River Sioux are descendants of Spotted Elk's band, which is why both nations took part.

The tribes resolved that the land should be preserved as a sacred site, not developed, and asked the Interior Department to place it in trust for both nations. Oglala Sioux President Kevin Killer called the purchase "a small step towards healing", and others hoped it could become a place where visitors learn the full history of the massacre.

The story is a useful reminder about viral news: a famous person's promise travels much further than the slow, unglamorous work of the people who actually make change happen. If you visit Wounded Knee today, you are standing on land that belongs again to the people whose relatives are buried there.

Sources: PBS NewsHour / AP: Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes buy land near Wounded Knee massacre site (September 2022); Wikipedia: Wounded Knee Massacre; Wikipedia: Wounded Knee incident (1973); Wikipedia: The Lone Ranger (2013 film). Depp's comments were first reported by the Mail on Sunday and later by True Activist. Archive photo: Corbis.