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Native Americans suffered a collective tragedy over the course of the nineteenth century. But their stories cannot be simply condensed into one master narrative of defeat and decimation. To understand what happened to "The American Indian," we need to look at the lives of the many Indians––and whites––that contributed to this multi-faceted story.

In 1783, the United States was a new nation of about 3 million people living, for the most part, along the Atlantic seaboard. Native Americans, perhaps numbering around 600,000, controlled most lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. By 1890, a bit more than a century later, the United States stretched from coast to coast and was home to some 66 million people. Only 250,000 Indians remained, most of them living on reservations holding just a fraction of the land they once controlled.

No matter how much money and sense of security we have banked, I think inside each of us there is, at some time, a barefoot and hungry vagabond, seeking shelter from the cold; someone who feels misplaced, worn to the bone, despondent. I have had many dreams about being homeless myself, forced to share a bed or sleep in a room with strangers. In one dream, I found shelter at a friend’s house. I was sitting on the couch until I realized it was her husband’s favored spot for watching T.V. and moved away. Her husband looked me in the eye and said, “It could happen to anyone.”