"The forthcoming book about the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation dovetails beautifully with our interests," says Julie Garreau, executive director of Cheyenne River Youth Project, in the reservation's capital, Eagle Butte, South Dakota. The fine-art volume by writer Heather Steinberger, landscape photographer Richard Steinberger...

As the sun blazed crimson and gold on the western horizon and shadows lengthened, the orange tractor plied back and forth along rows of pale cornstalks. Days were getting shorter on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's South Dakota reservation, but master farmer Romey Garreau was still at work. That evening,...

"They like to be on high ground, so they can keep an eye on us," said Mike Faith, vice-chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We'd driven close to a small herd of buffalo cantering around the top of a rise north of...

Randy Vasquez has just finished shooting his second feature-length documentary, The Thick Dark Fog. Seven years in the making, with a projected release date of spring 2012, the film examines Wounded Knee resident Walter Littlemoon's fight to escape the debilitating effects of the...

The National Center for Reason and Justice, which has mounted successful campaigns to exonerate those falsely accused of sex crimes against children, has taken on the cases of four Yankton Sioux men. Brothers Jesse and Desmond Rouse and their cousins Garfield Feather and Russell Hubbeling were convicted in federal court...

The South Dakota Supreme Court will hear childhood-sexual-abuse lawsuits brought by 18 former students of St. Paul's Indian Mission, on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, in Marty, South Dakota. St. Paul's (in photos on this page) was one of a half-dozen Catholic boarding schools statewide for Native children, and the alleged...

From the late 1800s until well into the 20th century, the federal government compelled Native parents nationwide to send their children to boarding schools designed to assimilate them. Many of the institutions were run by the Catholic Church, which the government paid to "kill the Indian, save the man," in...

From the late 1800s until well into the 20th century, the federal government compelled Native parents nationwide to send their children to boarding schools designed to assimilate them. Many of the institutions were run by the Catholic Church, which the government paid to "kill the Indian, save the man," in...

The letters are casual, even chatty, from officials of St. Francis Mission, on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, in South Dakota, to Catholic Church superiors. The mission ran one of many boarding schools to which Native American parents were required to send their children...

Oglala Lakota community leader, Nick Tilsen, envisions a vibrant future for his people. He sees elements of that transformation already in place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. However, they need stitching together, like a quilt whose diverse and colorful...

"When I read my baby books, they said I should discuss my birth plan with my doctor and get a tour of the hospital," said a new mother from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, in South Dakota. "But there was nothing for me. Not even a few Lamaze classes. Just...

For those of you who emailed about my recent post of social-justice advocate Frank LaMere's Christmas meditation on Whiteclay, asking how this situation could have arisen and how it is allowed to continue, I'd like to pass along historical context provided by LaMere, who is executive director of...

Frank LaMere, human-rights advocate, executive director of Four Directions Community Center, in Sioux City, Iowa, and member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, sent me this prose poem and, with his permission, I share it with you here. -- Stephanie Woodard

"Visitors always ask, 'where's the turquoise?'" said Myrtle Cedar Face, the manager of a Pine Ridge Indian Reservation gift shop and online store. You won't find Navajo rugs or Pueblo pottery either in this small boutique -- part of a superb, but little-known, art museum, the

Here a few photographs I shot during the 2010 election on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. To find out why I was there and how the Oglala Lakotas of Pine Ridge were nearly disenfranchised, check these posts: 1 , 2, and 3.

The simple fact that Oglala Sioux Tribe members filled out ballots and slid them into slots in bright blue boxes on November 2 was a victory for equal rights. According to tribal member and South Dakota state legislator Kevin Killer, the months of continual and ever-changing efforts to repress, and...

"We don't want your 'direct payments.' We don't want your welfare. We want self-sufficiency," said Lance Morgan, CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., a 16-year-old, 1,000-employee company that's lifted his community, the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, from 65% unemployment in 1994 to full employment today and what Morgan calls...

Election-related anxiety must be heading north in South Dakota. On Oct. 14, following Democratic Party Indian-reservation rallies involving frybread, Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley warned against food at campaign events, saying it was a potential violation of state and federal law. The GOP accused Democrats of trading food...

Campaigning in the South Dakota legislature's District 28 is an extreme sport -- the political X Games of 2010. The vast expanse encompasses much of the state's northwestern quadrant, with 13,000 square miles stretching from rolling hills along the Missouri River mid-state across buttes and badlands to the western boundary...

"If you're having problems, they'll take your kids anytime they want," said Robert Wabasha, of the Santee Sioux Nation, whose granddaughter and grandniece both died after being adopted out of his family. The granddaughter died at the hands of her adoptive father while a baby, and the grandniece recently drowned...