| It came down to one thing: land. The Indians had it. The whites wanted it. The whites took it. The repercussions of that protracted and bloody transaction have become known as "the Indian problem." The "problem" has been with us since Columbus. The roots of the problem extend back thousands of years before Columbus. |
| To most whites the Indians are an interesting incident, vexing and perplexing, yes, but just one of those things. They see the Indians as vestiges of a situation that, at some distant time, was serious but that has little relevance today. |
| Most of us are scarcely aware who the Indians are. We tend to think of them as wild and savage people who were roaming the continents of the New World when the whites showed up. The significance of the presence of the many tribes escapes us. |
| To most whites an Indian is an Indian. Much of the mischief of this misconception lies in the erroneous term "Indian" itself. The term implies homogeneity. It implies the mistaken notion that the natives encountered in the New World were one people. |
| The Indians are not one people. They are many peoples, as different from each other as, say, Latins from Slavs. Many of the groups are ethnically different. Some belong to the same linguistic families, but many groups speak mutually unintelligible tongues. Many groups are strangers, if not foreigners, to each other. In the past many were blood enemies. |
| Today there are about 263 tribes, bands, and groups of Indians in the continental United States. Their aspirations are similar, but their tribal differences and their tribal loyalties are still barriers among them. This is one of the tragedies of the "problem." Tribalism is fading, but it is still a strong factor in intertribal relationships. What all Indians share is the circumstance of being defeated enemies of the whites. They have been striving against this circumstance for more than a century, but as autonomous groups they are still strangers to each other and certainly to the whites. |
| Who, then, are these strangers among us, where did they come from, and what is their status today? The "problem" has spawned many myths, many distortions, many misconceptions, and countless outrages. What most of us know about Indians is hearsay, including the way they have been depicted in the media. We have been bombarded by nonsense. This is almost a paradox, for there is a vast body of excellent literature about Indians. In fact, the literature is so formidable as to be almost overwhelming. There are many museums with fine Indian collections, and thousands of good books about Indians. But many of us are put off by the prospect of delving into such momentous studies. |
| This book is intended to be a guide into the world of the Indians. It is not intended to be a definitive study, and certainly not to be encyclopedic. It is my hope that it will be an easy and accurate reference and that it will motivate the reader to venture further into the world of the Indians. There he may learn something about the |
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