‘Indian Story’

Your editorial (Dec. 25), “The Indian Story,” is one of the finest and timeliest expressions regarding the current status of Native Americans I have read or heard expressed in many years.

The immigrants from Europe and England, who forcefully took the Indians’ lands, were not civilized or humane to them. All treaties by the immigrant governments, state and national, were broken.

A well known example is President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, Worcester vs. Georgia in 1832, that the Cherokee Nation was a distinct community in which the citizens of Georgia had no right to enter. Nevertheless, Jackson forced the Cherokees’ removal from Southeastern United States to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), 1838-39. Of the 18,000 removed, 4,000 died on the sad “Trail of Tears.”

I hope that all Native Americans will do what the outstanding Cherokees are doing today: retaining their rich culture, dating back several thousand years, and at the same time, become educated and compete with the heirs of the immigrants in all aspects of American life.

E.R. CAYWOOD

Lake Havasu City, Ariz.