Beginning with the Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, this Western intertwines the unique perspectives of three characters: Charles Eastman (Adam Beach), a young, Dartmouth-educated, Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation; Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg), the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their identity, their dignity and their sacred land - the gold-laden Black Hills of the Dakotas; and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn), one of the architects of the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and patrician schoolteacher Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin) work to improve life for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant (Fred Dalton Thompson) for more humane treatment, opposing the bellicose stance of General William Tecumseh Sherman (Colm Feore).

Hope rises for the Sioux in the form of the prophet Wovoka (Wes Studi) and the Ghost Dance - a messianic movement that promises an end of their suffering under the white man.