As we move forward in this country (America), let us be careful not to make the same mistakes as those that came before us. Let us not mistaken corruption, deceit, murder, and land grabs for progress.
"Behind the "resistless" railroad were powerful corporate interests, deliberately planning the settlement of the West and the extension of the market. Railroad companies saw the tribes as obstacles to track construction and actively lobbied the government to secure rights-of-way through Indian territory. They pushed for the passage of the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, which declared that "hereafter no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power, with whom the United States may contract by treaty." Explaining the law's significance, an attorney for a railroad corporation stated: "It is not a mere prohibition of the making of future treaties with these tribes. It goes beyond this, and destroys the political existence of the tribes." Armed with the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, railroad companies rapidly there tracks across America and opened the West to new settlement. All of this was seen by white settlers as the advance of civilization."-A DIFFERENT MIRROR, BY RONALD TAKAKI
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