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 refused to move. She stayed behind with her baby. The tribe moved on and the husband repented, sending his brothers to collect her. They returned to camp to find that she and her child had turned to stone. From that point on, the stone was thought holy and was moved with the tribe, always given a place of honor at the center of camp. Now...

Established as the Pine Ridge Agency in southwestern South Dakota between Nebraska and the Black Hills in 1878, Pine Ridge became a reservation in 1889. The second-largest reservation in the country, comprised of almost 2 million acres, it is home to 38,000 residents, almost 18,000 of whom are enrolled members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The history of the Pine Ridge Reservation is laden with both an awe-inspiring cultural heritage and the tragic effects of forced settlement on the reservation.