Narrator: On December 29, 1890, a shot rang out at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. U.S. soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry opened fire on a band of Lakota, killing over 150 men, women, and children. The bodies were left to freeze in the snow before being buried in a mass grave. This massacre has long been portrayed as the final, tragic end of Native American life—the moment their history effectively stopped and the modern American story began. But this narrative of demise, of a people frozen in time as either noble savages or impoverished victims, is a profound and damaging misunderstanding.

In his sweeping work, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, author David Treuer challenges this story of death. He argues that the real history of Native Americans since 1890 is not one of vanishing, but of resilience, adaptation, and a vibrant, evolving life. The book is a counternarrative, revealing that the heartbeat of Native America never stopped; it only changed its rhythm.

Narrator: For decades, the dominant story of Native Americans has been one of tragedy and loss, a narrative powerfully cemented by Dee Brown's 1970 bestseller, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. While the book brought much-needed attention to the injustices of the 19th century, Treuer argues it also reinforced the idea of the "dead Indian." Brown's book ends at the 1890 massacre, and his introduction suggests that to understand the "poverty, the hopelessness, and the squalor of a modern Indian reservation," one must look to this tragic past. This framing, however well-intentioned, leaves Native life in a state of perpetual ruin.

Treuer counters that this narrative of death, while rooted in real historical trauma, obscures the story of life. He argues that Indian life did not end in 1890; it transformed. To illustrate the human cost of this era, the book recounts the story of Zintkala Nuni, or Lost Bird. She was an infant found alive in her dead mother's arms four days after the Wounded Knee massacre. Adopted by a U.S. general, she was treated as a souvenir, sent to boarding schools, and lived a life of hardship and exploitation, eventually dying in poverty. Her story is a symbol of the immense suffering of that time, but Treuer insists that it is not the only story. The book’s purpose is to tell the story of the 128 years that followed, focusing not on how Indians died, but on how they have lived.

Narrator: Following the end of the Indian Wars, the U.S. government’s strategy shifted from open warfare to cultural destruction. This was the era of assimilation, driven by the philosophy of men like Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, whose motto was "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." From the 1880s through the 1930s, Native children were forcibly taken from their families and sent to these military-style boarding schools. There, their hair was cut, their traditional clothes were replaced with uniforms, and they were forbidden from speaking their own languages under threat of brutal punishment. The goal was to systematically erase their cultural identity.

Simultaneously, the General Allotment Act of 1887, or the Dawes Act, sought to dismantle the tribal structure by breaking up communally owned reservation lands into individual plots. The government argued this would turn Indians into self-sufficient, American-style farmers. In reality, it was a disaster. The land was often unsuitable for farming, and many Native people, unfamiliar with the concept of property taxes, lost their allotments to foreclosure. The "surplus" land was then sold off to white settlers. Between 1887 and 1934, tribal landholdings plummeted from 138 million acres to just 48 million. These twin policies—boarding schools and allotment—were a systematic attempt to legislate and educate Native American identity out of existence.

Narrator: Despite the immense pressure of assimilation policies, Native people never stopped resisting. This resistance took many forms, from legal challenges to armed protest. A pivotal moment came in 1879 with the case of Ponca Chief Standing Bear. After his people were forcibly removed from their Nebraska homeland to Indian Territory, where many died from disease and starvation, Standing Bear made a harrowing journey north to bury his son in their ancestral land. He was arrested, but his plight captured public attention. In a landmark court case, Standing Bear stood before a judge and, in a powerful speech, declared his humanity. "That hand is not the color of yours," he said, "but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain... God made me, and I am a man." The judge ruled that an Indian was a "person" under the law, a stunning victory that helped spark the first Indian rights movement.

This spirit of resistance exploded in the 1960s and 1970s with the Red Power movement. Activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) staged high-profile protests, including the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island and the 71-day standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973. These events, though often confrontational, forced the nation to confront the ongoing struggles in Indian Country and marked a crucial shift away from the policies of termination and toward an era of self-determination, where tribes began to reclaim control over their own affairs.

Narrator: The activism of the 1970s led to landmark legislation, most notably the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This act empowered tribes to take control of federal programs on their reservations, from schools and healthcare to law enforcement. This shift toward sovereignty has been the single most important development in modern Native American life.

Treuer illustrates this with the story of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. Kevin Washburn, a Chickasaw who later became Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, recalls the poor service at the federally run Indian Health Service hospital of his youth. When the Chickasaw Nation took over the hospital under a self-governance compact, the change was immediate and dramatic. Wait times shrank, and the quality of care improved because the hospital was now run by the tribe and accountable to the community it served. This story is a microcosm of a larger trend. Across the country, tribes have used their sovereignty to build robust governments, manage their own resources, and create economic opportunities, most famously through gaming, which has provided the capital for widespread social and cultural revitalization.

Narrator: The book concludes by bringing the story into the 21st century, arguing that the most vibrant chapter of Native American life is happening right now. Treuer moves beyond the historical narrative to show how Native people today are actively shaping their futures by blending tradition with modernity. He introduces individuals like Sarah Agaton Howes, an Ojibwe woman who, after personal tragedy, reconnected with her culture and started a running group called the Kwe Pack to promote health and wellness among Native women.

He also tells the story of Chelsey Luger, a Lakota and Ojibwe wellness advocate who co-founded Well for Culture, an organization that uses social media to promote healthy lifestyles rooted in ancestral knowledge. For Luger, wellness and culture are inseparable. As she states, "You can’t go to a ceremony if you’re drunk... if you’re not well, there goes your culture. And it goes the other way, too... it was my culture that brought me to real fitness." These stories show that Native identity is not a relic of the past. It is a dynamic, living force, expressed through art, language, business, and a renewed commitment to community health. This, Treuer argues, is the true heartbeat of Wounded Knee—a story not of ending, but of endless continuation.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is that Native American history did not end in 1890. It is a profound mistake to view this history solely through the lens of tragedy and defeat. Instead, David Treuer reveals a powerful, complex, and ongoing story of survival, political ingenuity, and cultural persistence. The last century has been a period of immense struggle, but it has also been a time of incredible transformation, culminating in an era of self-determination and revitalization that is reshaping Native America from within.

The book challenges us to see Native history as an integral and living part of American history. By understanding this story of resilience, we not only honor the past but also gain a clearer view of the present. It leaves us with a crucial question: How can we move beyond the comfortable, tragic narratives of the past and fully recognize the vibrant, modern, and sovereign presence of Native nations today?