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Chronicles of Oklahoma
We should evolve a plan which will eventually lead all American
Indians down the road to independence and complete absorption into
the general citizenship. The American Indian wants first of all to
be an American citizen like other American citizens. He wants to
assume the responsibilities of citizenship and to enjoy the privileges
of citizenship. For years, many Indian tribes have been in distress,
in dire need. The extent of their suffering and their need is not
generally known. The reasons for this are many: With the re-
moval of the Indians to remote areas, most people lost sight of them
-forgot them. Few Americans know the Indians as people who
still live here in America today.9 When they are pictured at all,
they are usually pictured as renegades, or hostiles, or in terms of old-
fashioned history. Many people have forgotten the important con-
tributions of the Indians to white civilization and white culture. The
Indians taught the white man how to cope with the wilderness of this
new continent, taught him to hunt, fish, trap and canoe. The Indians
gave the white man the great gifts of cotton, corn, tomatoes, tobacco,
potatoes, peanuts, beans and squash and these have today become
multi-billion dollar American industries. Many Indians now have
bad lands and death in return. Let us help the surviving American
Indians to find a place in our American communities and right the
old wrongs.
9 Suggested Readings for the history and progress of the Indian tribes in the
state of Oklahoma: Edward Everett Dale, Oklahoma: The Story of a State (New
York, 1950) ; Grant Foreman, The Five Civilized Tribes (Norman, 1934) ; Mariel H.
Wright, A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma (Norman, 1951).-Ed.
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