Original subtitles

The turn of the century brought small but highly notable victories for

Indians.

After hundreds of years of oppression, disregard for Native life and culture,

and constant thievery of their lifelong territories, and still not entirely

recognized as U .S. citizens, Native Americans continued to strive for

acceptance.

from their white American counterparts.

During World War I, draft boards were held specifically for the recruitment of

Native American soldiers.

12 ,000 Native men responded and registered with the U .S. Army.

Men weren't the only ones to step up.

Native women joined the American Red Cross to serve as nurses in Europe.

While few of these soldiers became officers, they served in every major

engagement of the war, with nearly 5 % dying in combat.

In 1919, U .S. citizenship was granted to all Native American veterans.

It was another five years later before all Native Americans were granted

citizenship.

By the time American citizenship was granted to Native Americans in June

it had been 302 years after the Jamestown Massacre of 1622, and

considering that they were descendants of the continent's first peoples,

this was certainly well overdue.

It was also about this time that the Renegade Period, and the Apache Wars

ended.

The Apache campaign had begun in April 1896, when three American settlers were

killed, and the Apache Indians responsible were tracked down in the

region of Arizona.

By that time, it had already been ten years since Geronimo's surrender, ending

the Apache War, but there were some who continued to resist against the U .S.

and Mexico.

The Apache Kid and Massai were two renegades to be a part of the campaign.

Both of them former Indian scouts who had fought against Geronimo.

The official end to the renegade period came in 1924 after a lesser offense

involving the theft of horses from Arizona settlers.

During the late 1800s, while Indians were facing the same strife as in prior

centuries, others began to make a name for themselves.

Born on November 4, 1879, in Oolaga, Indian Territory, now Oklahoma,

William Penn Adair Rogers would later become known as Will Rogers, one of the

best -known celebrities in households across the nation.

Having come from a family of Cherokee descent, and as the youngest of eight

children, Will Rogers began working with cattle as a young boy and took an

interest in learning how to lasso.

He became so good at it that he made the Guinness Book of Records for

successfully using three lassos at once.

He took on the stage name, the Cherokee Kid, while performing his roping tricks.

Through the Worth Brothers Circus, Rogers was able to travel to Australia

New Zealand, following up that tour with performances in New York City and St.

Louis World's Fairs.

Between 1905 and 1915, he toured America, Canada, and Europe as a

entertainer, gradually moving his routine from lasso tricks to comedy.

His charming and humorous, likable personality helped him to win his stage

performance in The Wall Street Girl in 1916.

Shortly thereafter, he headlined in the Ziegfeld Follies.

His performance career didn't end on the stage.

In addition to his performance and entertainment career, he wrote 4 ,000

syndicated columns for the Saturday Evening Post, as well as half a dozen

This well -loved icon, known for stating that he had never met a man I didn't

like, died in a plane crash in Point Barrow, Alaska, on August 15, 1935,

at the age of 55.

His death was an event felt across the nation.

Whether it would be admitted to or not, by the time World War II began,

Americans were seeing more and more value in their Indian neighbors.

Communication during the war had become difficult to maintain between allies

because the codes being used were all too easy for the enemy to crack.

New methods were desperately needed.

In 1942, Navajo Indian Philip Johnston arrived at Louisiana's Camp

Elliott to offer suggestions to Lieutenant Colonel James E. Jones for

improvements.

Johnston was the son of a Protestant missionary and had lived on a

He had learned of the military's need for a new code system through a

and as an engineer in Los Angeles, he devised a new code.

based on his Navajo language.

Because Johnston wasn't in the military, he was not allowed to create the code

and so he enlisted and took over the training of others.

As part of the initiative to get other Navajo -speaking Indians to join, the U

.S. Marine Corps allowed an unlimited number of recruits.

By the end of World War II, 420 Navajo Code Talkers had participated in the

effort.

The last of them, Chester Nez, died on June 9, 2015, at the age of 93.

In addition to the Navajo Code Talkers, perhaps one of the most memorable

moments in World War II was at the raising of the U .S. flag over Iwo Jima.

Five Marines and a sailor created the image known so well from that battle.

One of the Marines was a Pima Indian, Ira Hamilton Hayes.

Born on January 12, 1923, in Sacaton, Arizona, Hayes left high

school after 10th grade to serve in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

In August 1942, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

Before Hayes left, the chief of his tribe advised him to be an honorable

warrior.

On February 23, 1945,

Hayes was accompanied by Sergeant Mike Strank, Harlan Bach, Frank Thousley,

Gagnon, and John Bradley, and together, They made history in the raising of

the American flag on Mount Suribachi.

While Sergeant Strank, Harlan Block, and Franklin Soosley were killed while

still in Iwo Jima, Hayes and the others returned to America and were greeted as

heroes.

Like the others, Hayes never felt that he was a hero, though it seemed that

everywhere he went, others viewed him that way.

To Hayes, the three Pacific battles he fought in were horrific.

Upon returning home, Hayes tried to return to a quiet life.

With a constant barrage of letters and passers -by asking if he was the Indian

who had been part of the Iwo Jima flag -raising, he would not let him forget

Hayes turned to alcohol to try and cope with the loss of his friends in Iwo Jima

and the bombardment of fame.

And in the end, it took his life.

Hayes died at Bapchul on the 24th of January, 1955, at age 32.

He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

A year and a half after the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi, the Indian

Claims Commission was created.

It was the act of August 13, 1946, enacted for the purpose of hearing any

all legal claims made by any person, tribe, or group identified as American

Indian with a complaint against the United States.

Judicial panels were formed to handle these issues, including the resolution

long -standing claims.

It would take three decades for most of these claims to be completed, though the

last of them would not be handled until the early 21st century.

This commission was a gesture, a thank you of sorts, in exchange for the

services that Native Americans had contributed to during World War II.

and as a way to alleviate some of the anxiety and centuries -long resentment

they had against the colonization of their lands.

In addition to allowing Native Americans to air their grievances, some monetary

compensation was granted to make up for broken federal treaties.

This was all done with the understanding that once an issue was paid for, it

could never be reissued as a new claim.

In order for these claims to be accepted, anthropologists, ethnologists,

historians, and legalists had to get involved in the research on each

Because both advocates and legal counsel were necessary when it came to

providing support for plaintiff tribes and the federal government as the

defendant, the American Society for Ethnohistory was created.

The intense amount of research and claim -related reports made in 1954 during

the historic Indian Conference set the greater part of the Indian Claims

Commission in motion. And when Indian groups in the Southeast, Northeast, and

California were neglected, the need for tribal governments was addressed and

carried out.

The commission ended in September 1978.

after nearly $900 million and judgments had been awarded and almost 550

dockets had been completed.

For the first 20 years of the 20th century, the United States government's

attitude toward Native Americans remained much the same as it had been

previous centuries.

The desire to remake Indians into white Americans.

continued, as did the government's helping itself to native lands.

By the 1920s, two major changes were made in an effort to reverse some of the

damage. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 opened voting rights to all

American Indians.

And though it was an acceptance of Indians as Americans, It was also part

Congress's plan to mainstream Indians into white American lifestyles.

Two -thirds of Native Americans had already gained citizenship by other

some having gained it through their involvement in the military, and this

ensured that all were now accepted as such.

Even as this extension of U .S. citizenship was something of an

were resistant to it because they feared it was yet another method through which

the government could deny treaty obligations.

There were just as many, however, who had been fighting for citizenship and

right to vote and were pleased with the new changes.

Four years after the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was put into place, the 1928

Miriam Report was created.

Though this report's first general study of Native American conditions began in

the 1850s, it wasn't until 1928 that the report provided extensive data

on the treatment of American Indians.

This not only included the poverty and the ill health that Indians faced, but

how the Allotment Act had all but destroyed the family base and community

Indian life.

therefore making it nearly impossible to restore their traditional economic

foundations.

These discoveries and developments would lead to a new reorganization during the

years between 1934 and 1946.

The Indian New Deal was implemented in an effort to revitalize many aspects of

Native American culture, including their languages and spiritual practices.

Even as this appeared as a genuine gesture, it was but another white

doing the right thing for indigenous peoples.

Because so many Indians had already become distrustful of the government,

attempt was regarded with the same skepticism as all attempts before it.

At the start of the 1900s, Approximately 250 ,000 Native Americans lived in the

United States.

Most lived on designated reservations, where their degree of self -governing

limited.

Throughout the century, they were repeatedly forced to move to other

reservations, or were concentrated into smaller areas of land, as reservation

lines were remapped to accommodate white settlers, and treaties were broken.

In 1831, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, declared all

as wards of the nation, making them both separate nations from the United

States, but dependent on its government.

This implication suggested that Native Americans were to be converted from

traditional lives to that of their white neighbors, so that they might be

integrated into mainstream American culture.

With the U .S. as the Native American's population guardian, this also meant

that the federal government needed to take a different sort of care with these

people.

In 1924, all Native Americans not previously granted citizenship were thus

recognized.

This was not entirely recognized, as they were still denied the right to vote

nearly all states.

Four years later, the Merriam Report reflected that most Native Americans

suffered from poverty, inadequate food, housing, and health care.

What schools were open to them were overcrowded and deficient in proper

John Collier, Commissioner for the Indian Affairs in 1933, implemented a

approach by preserving traditional Indian culture as much as possible.

Part of this meant the permanence of reservations as tribal homeland.

The Indian Reorganization Act, IRA, of 1934, made it illegal for Indian

lands to be sold or redistributed.

Any land not yet claimed would be given back and put under control of the

tribes.

Through the New Deal, Collier put funds toward the regeneration of the

reservations and encouraged respect for American Indian traditions and culture.

Even with moves as seemingly positive as these, the IRA has been considered

highly controversial, according to some historians, while others have indeed

viewed it as perhaps the only bright spot in all of Indian congressional

relations.

Another step forward for the American Indian population was the rise of Wilma

Mankiller, the first woman Cherokee chief.

She was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in November 1945, to parents of Cherokee,

Dutch, and Irish descent.

Living conditions were very poor, without electricity, indoor plumbing, or

telephone.

With hopes of leaving their struggles behind, Wilma's family moved to San

Francisco in the mid -1950s, but their financial struggles continued.

At 17, Wilma was married.

Around the same time, she became inspired when she learned that Native

activists were attempting to reclaim the land of Alcatraz.

Wilma, too, became active in this and other Native American issues.

In the mid -1970s, she returned to Oklahoma, obtained a divorce, and began

work for the Cherokee Indian Nation as a tribal planner and program developer.

It would seem that her future held great promise, but things took a turn in 1979

when she nearly died in a car accident.

Wilma faced multiple surgeries, a long recovery, and myasthenia gravis, a

neuromuscular disease known for its paralyzing effects.

She was fortunate and was able to overcome each of these devastating

circumstances.

Wilma's role in the Cherokee Nation continued.

In 1983, she ran for deputy chief.

and served for two years.

By 1985, she had become the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

In this position, she succeeded in improving the nation's health care,

education, and government.

After leaving office, she remained an activist for Native American and women's

rights, both of which were personal to her.

I've run into more discrimination as a woman than as an Indian.

In 1993, Wilma released her autobiography, Mankiller, A Chief and

People. And years later, Every Day is a Good Day, Reflections by Contemporary

Indigenous Women, in 2004.

Her leadership and activism earned her numerous honors.

including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.

In the 1960s, Native Americans went from previously being viewed as dirty

savages to living in harmony with nature.

Though the latter view had always been a mostly unrecognized part of American

Indian culture,

this national acceptance gained them popularity.

with the hippie subculture, and their connection with the earth and nature

created an environmentalist sort of attraction to others who held similar

interests.

The popular trend of the compassionate, earth -loving Native American continued

when a 1971 campaign featuring Iron Eyes Cody, also known as

the Crying Indian, spoke out against pollution.

The Keep America Beautiful campaign was a response to a notable increase in the

amount of litter found alongside of America's highways.

After this commercial aired, a related and free brochure of which more than 100

,000 copies were requested within four months was released.

Native characters showed up in other areas of white American culture.

In 1964, artist Mike Roy created comic books and comic strips of a pre

-Columbian nature named Aqua.

The strip, by the same name, ran for just short of a year, and when its

popularity began to wane, Roy gave the character superpowers and renamed him

Super Chief in an attempt to revive interest.

The 1930s Lone Ranger radio series introduced Tonto, the Lone Ranger's

sidekick, during the 11th episode.

The original purpose of Tonto was to provide the Lone Ranger with someone to

talk to during the radio show.

Tonto was identified as either a member of the Potawatomi or Comanche tribe.

In local Native American language, Tonto means wild one, though there was some

controversy over the appropriateness of this name, as in, with the Spanish

language, it also means stupid, or the equivalent of the village idiot.

In 1949, the televised version of The Lone Ranger debuted.

Tonto was played by a Mohawk Indian from the Six Nations Indian Reservation in

Ontario, Canada, named Harold John Smith, who changed his name to J.

Silver Heels.

His acting career also included the film Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart and The

Cowboy and the Indians.

Hollywood continued to jump on the cultural bandwagon as more Native

themed movies were made.

The film Northwest Passage still depicted Indians as villains but by 1950

were transformed into cinematic heroes.

with the release of the movie Broken Arrow.

In the 70s, Indian characters became sympathetic, as with Little Big Man in

1970, a man called Horse in 1970.

Native Americans were not alone in their battle to make other Americans aware of

their circumstances.

The world of music also shared in Native American talent.

In 1977, French producer Jacques Morali discovered Philippe Ortiz Rose while

Rose was working as a dancer and bartender in a Greenwich Village go -go

Rose, who is of Puerto Rican and Lakota Sioux descent, was spotted because of

the eye -catching tribal regalia he was wearing.

To wear jingling bells and alpaca skins was not uncommon for Rose and was enough

to make him stand out.

in an already diverse era.

Dance was already a big part of Rose's life.

His mother was a dancer for the Copacabana during Rose's childhood, and

teenager he was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to study with the

de Puerto Rico.

When it came to dancing, Rose was a natural, and he took his talents to the

nightclub scene.

Rose was the first member to be recruited for the famed disco group The

People.

He also started the entertainment and recording company that handled the

People's releases and songs, the Tomahawk Group, in 1996.

Rose's entertainment career has also included a solo side.

In 2000, his hit single, Trail of Tears, was nominated for three Native American

Music Awards under the categories for Best Producer, Song of the Year, and

Historical Recording.

Over the following years, Rose has, along with the village people, raised

for a variety of causes ranging from Native American college funds to AIDS

charities.

Another Native American dancer of great note and accomplishment came to her fame

through ballet.

Maria Tallchief, born Elizabeth Marie Tallchief, wasn't just the first Native

American prima ballerina.

but the first ever in America.

Tall Chief, of Osage Indian heritage, was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma, in 1925.

She first became a star in 1946.

After retiring from her dancing career, which included a world dance tour, and

being the first American ballerina to perform with Moscow's Bolshoi Theater,

Tall Chief expanded her career to television and movie appearances.

including her role in Million Dollar Mermaid.

Tallchief promoted ballet in Chicago and became a director of the dance for the

Lyric Opera of Chicago during the 1970s. She was inducted into the National

Women's Hall of Fame and received a National Medal of Arts.

She also received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1996.

As had so many other Native Americans, Tall Chief was faced with discrimination

throughout her life and especially in school as a young woman.

At age 17, she changed her name from Elizabeth Marie to Maria and merged her

last name of Tall Chief into one name.

Throughout her life, she spoke out against misconceptions and stereotypes

against her people. She became a member of America for Indian Opportunity, and

later earned the Director of Indian Council Fire Achievement Award.

The world of pop culture was not the only area to gain Native American

inclusion.

In the early 1970s, a Chippewa couple received a property tax bill from Itasca

County. They took the bill to court, but lost the case.

The couple persisted and lost again before taking it to the U .S. Supreme

What made this case noteworthy was the fact that the state did not have the

authority to tax residents living on reservations, nor could it regulate

activities conducted on these designated lands.

This opened the door to gambling across the United States.

Gambling included casinos, bingo halls, and other gambling -related operations,

all of which were under the control of tribal sovereignty.

Howard Tommy, of the Seminole tribe of Florida, built a bingo hall on an Indian

reservation.

It was open for six days a week and offered $100 jackpots, which was over

maximum limit.

Arrests were made almost as soon as the hall was open, leading to the lawsuit of

the Seminole tribe versus the city of Butterworth.

It was once again argued that Indian tribes had sovereignty rights that were

still protected by the federal government.

and the state was prohibited from enacting any legal interference.

The court ruled in favor of tribes.

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled Cabazon decision.

Back this up, and it led to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.

While this new act did not stop gambling on reservations, it did require that

participating casinos had to gain approval with the state.

before new gaming could be offered to consumers.

It was not uncommon for the state to refuse, thereby making it necessary for

Secretary of the Interior to step into the negotiations.

At that point, the deal nearly always sided with the involved Indian tribe.

Despite continued arguments for sovereignty and immunity each time

controversies had arisen, the Indian casino world had continued to grow over

years. In 2009, reservation casinos generated more earnings than Las Vegas

Atlantic City combined.

With more than 400 establishments run by over 200 tribes, that would seem like

great prospects.

As of 2011, the numbers rose to 460 gambling operations run by

240 tribes, with annual revenues reaching about $27 billion.

While the number of establishments increased, the $26 .5 billion figure in

to $27 billion within two years seems hardly substantial.

Still, several billion dollars is a lot of money.

But what happens to it all?

Even with the leeway to run their casinos more or less as they wish,

tribes are still forced to provide some taxes to state and federal governments,

depending on how earnings are distributed.

Some funding goes toward tribal government operations, charitable

and the promotion of tribal economic development.

Sadly, it is not enough to cover the needs of those living on the

From cloaked degradation by way of character names to the supposed fortunes

Reaped by reservation casinos, societal stereotyping of Native Americans has

been as ever present to American culture as baseball.

Wes Studi, a full -blooded Cherokee, known for his roles in Dances with

Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans, was not always interested in acting.

Native to northeastern Oklahoma, Studi was born in 1947.

and up until he enrolled in the mural home in preparation for attending public

school, he spoke only Cherokee.

He learned English through his scholastic years, but unlike other

attended classes with, Studi continued to speak Cherokee as well.

While attending an American Indian boarding school, Studi was often met

apprehension whenever he left the Oklahoma reservation where he lived.

As a young adult, Studi enlisted in the U .S. Army in 1967, and five years into

his six -year service, and after hearing impassioned tales from veterans of the

Vietnam War, he volunteered to serve on a tour in South Vietnam.

Like many who returned from Vietnam, Studi was compelled to put his energy

civil rights activism.

He was honorably discharged from the military and turned his focus to Native

American politics.

As a member of the American Indian Movement and a participant in the 1972

of Broken Treaties protest in Washington, Studi participated in

protests.

During the 1973 occupation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, he was among those

arrested for insurrection, but was released just a few days later.

Around the time of the Trail of Broken Treaties protest, Studi enrolled in

Junior College.

He began writing for Tulsa's Indian News, covering issues that many Native

Americans were facing.

He connected his impassioned political activism with the emotional results of

having been a part of the Vietnam crisis.

Realizing that activism of the sort that Studi was involved in was only making

him angrier, He moved to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and became involved with the

Cherokee Nation.

He began to revive the Cherokee language within the community and helped start a

bilingual newspaper called the Cherokee Phoenix.

Once finished with college, Studi ran a horse ranch, became a professional horse

trainer, and in 1983 joined the American India Theater Company.

Two years after professional stage performances, with Black Elk Speaks in

Studi moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career.

Like many aspiring actors, he was not openly accepted at first.

In 1988, he got his first movie break in an independent film called Pow Wow

Highway. It was another two years before he landed his next film, Dances with

Wolves. His bigger and more critically acclaimed moment came when he was cast

Magua in The Last of the Mohicans.

Studi may have gotten a late start when it came to his acting career, but he

found a way to incorporate the passion he has for the rights and successes of

his people through his stellar on -screen performances.

I am a Cherokee first and an American later.

While I may forgive, I will never forget, and I will pass that feeling on

own kids.

Another notable Native American.

to see combat through employment with the U .S. Army, was Quartermaster Corps

soldier Laurie Piastewa.

Piastewa was born on December 14, 1980.

Her father, a full -blooded Hopi Indian, and his father both served in the

military.

Piastewa's father in the Army in 1965 and his father during World War II.

Laurie Piastewa's family lived in Tuba City, Arizona, located on the Navajo

Indian Reservation.

She married at a young age, had a son and a daughter, and divorced shortly

thereafter.

With Tuva City having very little to offer, Piastewa enlisted in the U .S.

in the hopes of creating a better life and a future for her family.

Piastewa became part of the U .S. Army's 507th Maintenance and Repair Personnel,

and in 2003, was stationed in Iraq.

It was here that Lori's life took a turn for the worst.

She and her unit were traveling through a desert in southern Iraq on March 23rd,

and due to poor communications, the convoy became lost.

They were attacked in Nazaria, lost control of the Humvee that Lori was

and crashed.

She was one of five soldiers taken prisoner.

Video of Piestewa, was aired on Al Jazeera television, revealing that she

sustained extensive injuries to the head and that the surgery required would be

impossible to obtain.

While waiting for further news of Lori's condition, residents of Tuba City hung

out signs that read, Put your porch light on. Show Lori the way home.

She died shortly thereafter.

As the first Native American to die in combat while serving the U .S. Army, as

well as the first military woman killed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Laurie

P. Estewa was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Prisoner of War Medal.

She was also promoted from private first class to specialist.

The evidence of Native Americans contributing to America's social,

civil, military, and cultural diversity cannot be disputed.

In 1897, George Gustav Hay purchased a Navajo hide shirt and thus

began his archaeological collection of Native American history.

He traveled, joined excavations, and just short of a decade later, Hay had

accumulated over 10 ,000 Native American artifacts.

Having run out of room in his small apartment to house these treasures, Hay

contracted the University of Pennsylvania's University Museum.

offering these items if they would be willing to place them in one of their

exhibits.

While this was a viable option in the beginning, it was only temporary, and

interests of the museum began to draw away from those of Hayes.

In 1916, and with his interest leaning toward a location in New York, Hayes

secured a site in a part of the city that was already teeming with cultural

organizations.

With the help of local and affluent associates, Hay invested in and built

Museum of the American Indian.

The museum officially opened in 1922.

Even today, the Museum of the American Indian holds the largest and most

collection of objects.

Over the years, it has been criticized as just being the coveted collection of

one man who happened to like the pieces and only needed a place to put them.

But Hay backed up the museum as a place of learning through careful research and

documentation of each item and with the support of philanthropists and scholarly

productivity.

When Hay died in 1957, the museum fell on hard times, and much work was

to keep it from going under.

On November 18, 1989,

the museum was signed over to the Smithsonian Institute.

But the National Museum of the American Indian Act was introduced when it was

discovered that the Smithsonian held more than 12 ,000 to 18 ,000 Indian

most of which weren't on display but held in storage.

Naturally, this was viewed as the hoarding of pieces that many believed

have been with the tribes they originated from and not locked away to

The act demanded that human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and

cultural patrimony objects be considered for repatriation to tribal communities.

This included any and all objects that might have been acquired by illegal

means.

In 1990, collaboration with tribes and Indian communities in North America

in an effort to revive and improve the museum.

While the George Gustav Hay Center was opened in New York City in 1994 as a way

to keep the museum pieces accessible, new designs were being drawn up for the

new buildings in Maryland and D .C.

Native Americans and architectural consultants Venturi, Scott Brown, and

associates collaborated through a program called The Way of the People to

up with new designs.

On September 21, 2004, the new museum was reopened at its Washington, D .C.

location on the National Mall.

The opening documented the first and largest known gathering of Native

Americans.

National Museum on the American Indian was created to honor Native Americans

their traditions and now holds more than 800 ,000 objects and about 125 ,000

photographs.

Life, languages, literature, history, and the arts of Native Americans from

across the nation can now be appreciated and honored in a respectable

establishment.

Hundreds of years have passed since people from other parts of the world

initial contact with those living on the lands of the Americas.

While some of the less documented and less popular encounters were much

friendlier by comparison to those we inaccurately learn about in school, the

history of the American Indian has been riddled with the theft and destruction

of their people, much of it done in the name of religious dominance, greed, and

closed -mindedness. It started with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors,

who were quick to learn of the gold and riches to be had in the New World.

Even though the civilizations that the explorers discovered were complex in

their own ways, the explorers seized every possible opportunity to subjugate

Indians.

Not all destruction was straight -out killing.

The Spanish and Dutch introduced numerous destructive new species and

the indigenous people they encountered.

While slavery in one variation or another was pre -existing intertribally,

Hundreds of thousands of Native Americans were removed from their

shipped off to other places.

Because they had next to no exposure to anyone outside of their tribes, the

majority of Indian slaves died.

Entire civilizations perished in the process.

The European invasion was already off to a bad start.

Some natives were resistant, however, and thrived as their tribes grew

The push and pull for land increased as European colonists began to arrive in

droves and, as with Chief Powhatan and the English settlers of Virginia,

pleasantries waxed and waned to the point of scuffles and then larger wars.

The introduction of horses to the Plains Indians changed the game when it came

to warfare, as did the introduction of firearms to many other tribes.

These tools improved the hunting and economic aspects for Native Americans

allowed some political strength to return.

The waves of colonists did not stop, however, and in addition to constant

battles and eventual massacres over land, When the Native Americans weren't

being killed, they were still being cheated through unfair payment for their

farm goods.

The saga of Pocahontas set a new standard for negotiations between the

settlers and Indians.

Though it was more common for relations between the two parties to sour after a

short time than not, the interracial mixing in marriage continued and

with the arrival of the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock.

The Indians encountered by the Puritans were devout in their own beliefs, but

that didn't stop the overly pious newcomers from forcing religious

on their new neighbors.

Laws, though rather flimsy and often twisted for illegal means, were

to make it impossible for Indians to resist such changes.

Not all interactions with foreigners were bad, however.

Most of the French trappers and fur traders who interacted with Native

did their very best not to disrupt the Native ways of life and made earnest

efforts to integrate with the tribes they dealt with.

All too soon, the French and Indian War broke out and accomplished very little

but to rack up extraordinary debt for the government.

The series of battles and wars that followed contributed much the same with

little improvement for anyone.

Quite a number of Native Americans fought in the Revolutionary War, hedging

their bets with either the Americans or the British, whichever side would best

benefit their interests.

In the end, the colonists persisted and continued to bring more and more

settlers to the continent.

With westward expansion of white Americans came a surge of treaties

forming U .S. government and the Indians all across the country.

There were very few aspects of these treaties that were in favor of the

and when it came to land and reservations, most treaties were revised

and entire tribes were moved, and in cases such as the Trail of Tears led to

miserable demise.

Even the expedition of Lewis and Clark, while a breakthrough mission for those

involved, was of little benefit to the immediate future of Native American

tribes.

More warfare, more massacres and senseless slaughter, more stolen

oppression and more and more broken treaties, more of the balance tipping in

favor of European immigrants and less and less for those whose ancestors lived

on American soil for hundreds of thousands of years prior followed.

Some changes began to happen around the turn of the 20th century, and some of

those were finally more in favor of Native Americans.

Some, like Jim Thorpe, began to make names for themselves through great,

recognizable feats.

Thousands enlisted in the military to participate in World War I and earned

right to American citizenship.

By World War II, even more Native Americans were getting recognition by

enlisting to fight in the war. And those such as the Navajo Code Talkers, Will

Rogers, Jay Silverheels, Wilma Mankiller, and Wes Studi are just some

have not only been recognized for their incredible compassion or talents, but

they have also contributed to the causes of their people.

It has been over 500 years since Columbus made that fateful encounter

natives of the New World.

And despite all of the positive changes that have come for American Indians in

only the last half of a century, there is still so much more to be done to

the wrongs of the past and bring a change in their world again, but this

for the better.