Peter, Yes, they were put upon by the European settlers, and then by the American Cavalry, but they are getting back at the white man. There is a pipe line across the entire Navaho reservation, and the feds pay rent for every inch of it. Also, one of the tribes in Arizona, or New Mexico, ended up with a large mass of uranium on their reservation. Now, Indian casino/hotel ventures are going up everywhere, and the white man is just giving away his money to the Indians.
The area where each tribe lived, had everything to do with how they had to live to survive. Since there is so much diversity in the landscapes of America, the difference in survival was vastly different among the tribes. Some tribes lived certain ways because of federation with other tribes. For instance, there is not, and never has been, a tribe called the Iriquois
That is the name of a federation of the Seneca, Oneida, Onanandoga, Cayuga, and Mohawk, when the settlers saw them first. The Seneca on the west, and the Mohawk on the east, were the warrior tribes that allowed the central three tribes grow food for the whole federation, and they did some hunting along with the 2 warrior tribes. Later on, they let the Tuscarora join them, and adopted a few other tribes by conquest. |
