Often well educated in white schools and comfortable in white society, the first generation of Indian leaders to emerge on the national level included persons like Charles Eastman and Gertrude Bonnin. Yet despite their acceptance of assimilationist ideals, they also contributed a new ideal of their own: a Pan-Indian identity that emphasized the commonness of Indians of all tribes. They recognized things that Indians held in common, much more than previous tribal leaders had done. While they valued a "civilized" lifestyle, they also respected their native traditions enough to recognize the injustices of the federal colonial domination.

When his mother died shortly after his birth (1858) in the woodlands of southwest Minnesota, Hadakah (The Pitiful Last) was raised in the traditional Santee Sioux ways by his paternal grandmother (Uncheedah) and his uncle. A few years later, as an honor for his band's triumph in a lacrosse game, he was...