One inherent problem exists when the subject of Native Americans (indigenous people to this land) come to the writing arena. That is the lumping together of all tribes as one people. Culturally and spiritually we differ from tribe to tribe. It’s not a difficult concept. Consider that Europe is made up of several countries and cultural identities. So it is with American Indians.

I will agree that there have been outright lies and embellished stories when it comes to the American Indian history as written by non-Indians. For example, Hollywood and their version of Indian wars take place in the old west primarily with plains Indians. Before those wars ever occurred, the major wars were fought and lost in the east in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In the case of the Cherokee, we won our battle to keep our lands using the white man’s law in the white man’s court. We had Cherokee lawyers trained in the white law. We also had a written language of our own by the early 1800s and our own printing press and newspaper by 1826 or thereabouts.

Although we won our case to remain in our homeland, the die had already been cast and the plans to remove us forcibly from our homeland proceeded. The case history is more complex than I can offer in this article, but there are a few books that provide true documentation of the removal of the Cherokee from our homeland. In this case, you may read both the ‘official’ white version and the version of some of the Cherokee leaders who were trained in white law at the time of the removal to Indian Territory in 1838.

OK, that was past history you say? Unfortunately, what the US Government is doing today is current history…there is a ten year class action lawsuit against the Interior Department for 170 years of mismanagement of Indian Trust Records. The Interior has not been responsive in providing and accounting for the records for which they were responsible. The US Government owe the trust accounts billions of dollars for leased timber, oil and other resources that belong to Indian trust accounts. In fact the US Treasury destroyed trust records while this lawsuit was ongoing. These actions by the US Treasury are a matter of court record. To learn more about this case see IndianTrust.com

History of the United States will always be seen from two different perspectives. All I, or any indigenous person, can do is bring the other perspective to light whenever we are given a forum.