Indian Dawn

The Indian people came to the treaties because these people were the first owners and citizens of the land.  Being in such a position, they had interests to protect.  The American and Canadian governments sent representatives to the treaties because of a main interest in getting Indian land.  The resulting treaties were a way of talking things over.  From these talks, the American and Canadian governments got much of the Indian lands.  The Indian people retained land bases that were centers of traditional ways of life and languages.  In return for other land, the Indian people received payments along with provisions for maintaining the traditional heritage and its homelands. 

The Native American traditions are a beginning, or founding, and continuing heritage from this land.  The Plains Indians are the first pioneers of the territory between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.  Today this region contains vast crops rippled by breezes from a big sky curling around the horizon.  Cattle graze among buttes where herds of buffalo traveled.  The buffalo are still present although there are less of them.  Horses continue to be an important part of the west.  Rolling hills of the Plains remain as intriguing and mysterious as they were to people who went there in the past.  The rivers flow with little change.  The air is scented with sage.  Antelope graze upon the hills.  Eagles soar above Indian lands where circles of tipis gather.  The first Americans, like later pioneers, survived through hardships in an heroic struggle.  The Indian traditions live today as part of the great legend of the west.