The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee summary

In 1824, the US government created the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Although Wounded Knee Creek was a long way off, many tribes had already signed peace treaties with the government. These treaties defined the borders of their territories and promised yearly compensation. The BIA became the trustee of these payments and managed the government’s relationship with hundreds of Native American tribes. 

But the BIA seldom had the tribes’ best interests in mind. One of its worst policies were Native American boarding schools. 

Around the time the BIA developed its shameful boarding-school programs, the federal government was also interfering with ancient Native American ideas about land and territory.

Since 1758, Europeans had forcibly removed Native American tribes from their land and onto reservations, where, in theory, they could continue their ways of life and government. There was a general supposition and practice that the tribe collectively owned the land on the reservations.

One remarkable development in Native American history came in 1917. Even with the destructive allotment policy in full swing, large numbers of young Native American men began volunteering to serve in the US military. More than just “large numbers,” in fact. In World War I, Native Americans had the highest rate of service among any US minority group. 

But Native American service didn’t begin when the United States entered the war in 1917. Back in 1914, some had enlisted in the Canadian military when that country entered the war to aid its Commonwealth ally, Britain. Many from tribes in the northern United States enlisted, too, walking across the border and into Canada. The Onondaga and Oneida people from upstate New York even declared war on Germany!

The period between 1945 and 1970 saw significant urbanization in American society. African Americans and Native Americans increasingly left rural settings to live in cities and towns. But Native American urbanization had its problems. In 1970, Native American unemployment was ten times the national average, and 40 percent of them lived below the poverty line. What’s more, police harassment and brutality were rampant. 

Like the civil rights movement, the American Indian Movement (AIM) campaigned for equality and justice. However, AIM’s methods had far more in common with those of the militaristic Black Panthers. 

The rise of reservation casinos dramatically changed Native American history. So much so, that some speak of the time before tribal gaming as “BC” – before casinos. 

It all started in 1972 with a $148 tax bill. Itasca County, Minnesota, sent this bill to Helen and Russell Bryan of the Chippewa people, then living on Leech Lake Reservation. Unwilling to pay, they challenged the bill in the state courts. After losing this case, and an appeal at the Minnesota Supreme Court, they brought the appeal to the United States Supreme Court. 

After a century of forced assimilation, dispossession, wartime service and poorly distributed wealth, what is the state of Native Americans today? Well, some are doing incredibly well in contemporary American society.

One example is Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef living in Minneapolis. In 2014, Sherman founded an Indigenous food-education and catering business called The Sioux Chef. He only uses ingredients historically available to Native Americans, like sorrel, berries, squash, wild rice and corn, rejecting things produced or imported by Europeans, like sugar, pork and chicken.