the trail of ATONEMENT

One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.

-  STEPHEN KIESLING

What began your deep dive into your family homestead?

I have been writing about the American West and Native communities for over 20 years, starting as an intern at High Country News. Then, in 2016, I was hired by an investigative nonprofit called InvestigateWest to write a series of stories about Native American communities for The Nation and Indian Country Today. At some point, embarrassingly late in the game, I realized I’d spent all these years poking fingers at the federal government for its often brutal and dishonest policies in Indian country, and yet I have personally benefited from those policies because my family got free land—a free federal homestead—as well as grants and loans that were federally provided. That free land taken from the Lakota was the underpinning of my family’s wealth in America. It made me realize, this isn’t just a societal issue. This isn’t something out there. This story is right here in front of me.

When did you start digging into your own family history?