History & Stories

Since its founding in 1988, the Autry Museum of the American West has expanded its vision and its collections in profound ways. From its original focus on the history, art, and popular culture inspired by the West and its attendant myths, the...

On August 19, 1854, U.S. Army lieutenant John L. Grattan led a detachment of twenty-nine soldiers and one civilian interpreter to a large Lakota encampment near Fort Laramie to arrest an Indian man accused of killing a Mormon emigrant’s cow. The...

Over the course of his career, artist Paul Dyck (1917–2006) assembled more than 2,000 nineteenth-century artworks created by the buffalo-hunting peoples of the Great Plains. Only with its acquisition by the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill...

Howard Terpning is one of the most lauded painters of Western art and considered by many to be a national treasure. He is known as the "storyteller of the Native American" because of his devotion to and respect for his subject matter, almost exclusively...

More than one hundred color reproductions--accompanied by an illuminating text by Elmer Kelton--capture the rich history and culture of native Americans in artwork inspired by the traditions of the Crow, Sioux, Apache, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and other...

Although some aspects of Sioux history such as the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the Massacre at Wounded Knee are included in American history texts, along with mention of famous Sioux leaders such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, little attention is...

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...

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...

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,...

Bury My Heart of Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's classic, panoramic account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian over the second half of the nineteenth century. Using council records, autobiographies and firsthand descriptions, Brown allowed...

With surprising candor, Archie Fire Lame Deer describes the magic and power of the Native American spirit life. Archie's compelling narrative recaptures his boyhood years under the tutelage of his medicine-man grandfather on a South Dakota farm.This book...

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...

Oral traditions and myths have long been an integral part of Native American cosmology. Not only have they been - and continue to be - an essential part of handing down Native American customs, norms, beliefs and cultural histories, but they also form a...

"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...

In "The Inconvenient Indian", Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated and utterly unconventional account of Indian-White relations in North America since initial contact.Ranging freely across the centuries and the...

As it has been known throughout history, Sioux women have been the center of tribal life and the core of the tiospaye, the extended family. They have maintained the values and traditions of Sioux culture. But, the women’s stories and experiences...

With the possible exception of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of the Little Big Horn may be the most written about fight in American history. Even though it has been covered so extensively, it still might be our most misinterpreted, misconstrued...

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...

This is a collection of Lakota winter counts, which were pictorial drawings on a hide recording an important annual event in history. This represents Lakota history and art at its finest and is also a contribution to the world of the Lakota.There are...

The story of what has become popularly known as the Fetterman Fight, near Fort Kearney in present day Wyoming in 1866, is based entirely on this infamous declaration attributed to Capt. William J. Fetterman. Historical accounts cite this statement in...