I actually believed at one time that "Indian Reservations" were areas where Native American people lived like they used to live. About a year after I graduated from high school, I met a man who was half Native American (I'm a small bit Native American myself) and he brought me to the Seneca Nation reservation and I met the very last Seneca Chief. He made me a special rattle with wood and bullhorn and I carved in the Native name they gave me.

I remember driving onto the reservation and really expecting to see people in tepee's or at least huts, etc. This was 22 years ago. What I actually saw looked more like a vast, sparsely-wooded, poor trailer park full of alcoholics and misery. The chief was very sad, he hated the new little building full of tiny apartments he was forced to live after he reached a certain age. He saw the misery around him and new his ways were not being passed on...he was the very last chief. He died a few months later.

The white man came here and committed a good deal of genocide and then tossed the few remaining into these camps, forgot about them and started celebrating "Thanksgiving." Now, I have trouble with people every year because I cannot stand celebrating Thanksgiving. It is supposed to be about thanking the native people for helping early Americans in a time of need...what did they do in return? Murder, rape, pillage, destroy, berate, enslave and belittle the vast majority of the natives.

There are still versions of that story happening in the world now, only we call it "war" and "politics" and the stage is much larger and the stakes much higher with far more vast resources the bigwigs are after. Thank goodness I'm not a pessimist. ;P.