Culture

Born on the shores of Big Stone Lake in modern-day South Dakota, Gabriel Renville (1825 1892) was a Sisseton-Wahpeton leader who opposed conflict with the United States during the Dakota War of 1862. He worked tirelessly to create and maintain a space...

The last significant clash of arms in the American Indian Wars took place on December 29, 1890, on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. Of the 350 Teton Sioux Indians there, two-thirds were women and children. When the smoke cleared, 84 men...

On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Seventh Cavalry killed more than two hundred Lakota Ghost Dancers – including men, women, and children – at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.  After the work of death ceased at Wounded Knee, the work of...

Oral Teachings From Rosebud: "Our people are very lucky to be here," says Albert White Hat Sr. He lived through a time when Indians were sent to boarding schools and were not permitted to practice their own rituals. Although the Lakota people can...

For the first time, this ground-breaking book tells the forgotten story of the true genesis of the June 25, 1876 disaster along the Little Bighorn, "Custer's Last Stand." The failure of the southern column to continue to advance north after the battle of...

The history of black Elk Peak - previously known as Hinhan Kaga and more recently, as Harney Peak - remained segmented and scattered throughout the shadows of antiquity, until now.The natural landmark's namesake, Black Elk, experienced his great vision...

Make a pilgrimage into your soul... 365 DAYS OF WALKING THE RED ROAD captures the priceless ancient knowledge Native American elders have passed on from generation to generation for centuries and shows you how to move positively down your personal road...

Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird) (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was one of the best known and most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, she remained true to her indigenous heritage as a...

During the 1920s and 1930s, Josephine Waggoner (1871-1943), a Lakota woman who had been educated at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, grew increasingly concerned that the history and culture of her people were being lost as elders...

The Sioux constitute a diverse group of tribes who claimed and controlled almost a quarter of the continental U.S. from the late 1700's to the 1860's. The name Sioux was coined by the French traders and was taken from the Anishinabe word Nadoweisiw-eg,...

The Sicangu (burnt thighs) received their name when some of the Lakota peoples' legs were burned in a great prairie fire. The French later named them Brule and two large groups of the band would be settled on two reservations, Rosebud and Lower Brule in...

The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker by Bill Neeley is a compelling book of Quanah Parker who was born into both the red and white worlds. He was the son of a white captive woman named Cynthia Ann Parker and Comanche Chief Peta...

"No two people ever remember a single event in identical ways, especially with the passage of time." ~Excerpt from the book.This fascinating look into history tells the tale of the people who were directly involved in the war of 1862. There are differing...

A child, an elder and the light from an ancient sky. A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers and the "old ones" still have powers beyond...

As the year 1890 wound to a close, a band of more than three hundred Lakota Sioux Indians led by Chief Big Foot made their way toward South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to join other Lakotas seeking peace. Fearing that Big Foot's band was...

Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andres Resendez illuminates in his myth-shattering THE OTHER SLAVERY, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret.There was no abolitionist movement to...

These thirteen essays, taken from the pages of SOUTH DAKOTA HISTORY, the quarterly journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society, explore modern American Indian political and cultural life.In five themed sections, contributors examine the...

The story of Spotted Tail and his people is the story of the deadly game of resistance and subjugation. The government expected the Sioux to live on a reservation, to farm the land, raise cattle, send their children to school and adopt Christianity - all...

Red Cloud, the great Sioux warrior-statesman, was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms.At the peak of Red Cloud's powers the Sioux could claim control of...

There is a rock of incredible legend and history that stands before the Standing Rock Agency. Years ago a Dakota man took a second wife, thereby bruising the ego of his first. As camp was breaking up and the tribe was moving on, the first wife pouted and...

Originally published in 1967, this remarkable pictographic history consists of more than four hundred drawings and script notations by Amos Bad Heart Bull, and Oglala Lakota man from the Pine Ridge Reservation made between 1890 and the time of his death...

A political history. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the United States government, through its agents, superintendents and commissioners, endeavored to reshape Lakota society in accordance with American ideals.Part of this acculturation...

The religious fervor known as the Ghost Dance movement was precipitated by the prophecies and teachings of a northern Paiute named Wovoka (Jack Wilson). During a solar eclipse on New Year's day, 1889, Wovoka experienced a revelation that promised...

"I, Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta, am not a coward. I will die with you." With this statement, Little Crow reluctantly put himself at the head of the Indian forces and plunged his nation into war against the United States.At a time when Union and Confederate armies...