. INDIANS: THE NATIVE AMERICANS

Long before the early settlers came to America, the land was inhabited by tribes and nations of people known to us today as Indians. When Columbus came to the Americas, he thought he had landed in India. For this reason the natives were called Indians although they knew themselves by a variety of other names.
Sweeping across the continent these natives set up nations and confederations as diverse in language and culture as the countries which made up Europe.
Their facial structure looked Asian indicating perhaps that centuries before the dawn of history they had come into the Americas from Asia across an ancient land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska.
Some were friendly, others were fearsome. Some belonged to the mountains, others lived across the Great Plains and still others inhabited the woodlands of the eastern forests. The Cherokee, for example, had an advanced agricultural culture and in 1827 they established themselves as the Cherokee Nation with a constitution providing for an elected government. Their leader, Sequoyah, created a written Cherokee script for writing. He taught thousands of his people how to read and write. When gold was discovered on their land, they were forced to move West and many died on the "trail of tears."
The Zuni are noted for basketry and were master craftsmen in pottery, weaving
and turquoise jewelry. They were also admired for their ceremonial dances which are still practiced today. In the Southwest the Anasazi lived as cliff dwellers and on the open prairie of the Midwest the Sioux lived in teepees made of buffalo hide. The Apache were famed as fierce fighters and the Navaho established the first Indian operated community college. They are also famed for their metalwork and silver jewelry craftsmanship.
The oral traditions of these great people gave birth to fantastic legends about the origins of the earth and the Gods which defended and protected them.
When the early European settlers came to America, there was at first an exchange of culture. The Indians gave the colonists and pioneers corn and potatoes in exchange for guns and horses. The Indians taught the settlers about traditional
medicines made from herbs and plants. Unfortunately, the exchange was not fair. The western settlers brought with them smallpox and other diseases formerly unknown to the New World.
Later, with colonial expansion, culture gave way to conflict and the Indians found themselves fighting for the land which they had always believed would be their own.
Today, the Indians live protected by law on reservations which are only dim shadows of their former glory. They may possess the land on which they live, but the boundaries of the reservations have confined them to live as tenants rather than landlords.
Of all the minorities who exist in America, they are in many ways among the poorest and most neglected and their pain is probably the deepest to bear. The land
which is now their home has been irrevocably transformed beyond what was envisioned by their forefathers ages ago.