Sioux writer and activist Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938) was born in the year of the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn--her people's last victory over the invasion forces that would soon force them onto reservations, on one of which she grew up under a regime of forced assimilation. Her writing career blossomed early, with stories published in the Atlantic Monthly when she was in her early twenties. She could have been a mere exotic, but she found a way to capture the interest of non-Indian readers, who preferred the romanticized noble savage to the often-sad reality of Indian life, and to give voice to her threatened culture.