Unfortunately, I learned very little of Native Americans in primary and secondary school. Around my Freshman year of high school I began to read of the native peoples that once called the land that is now the ranch my family currently lives and works on in Central Texas home, after stumbling upon an arrowhead and only ever receiving “The Indians” upon asking who made it. Only after some days at the local library and the county court house did I finally receive my answer,  that it was most likely either Apache, or Comanche in origin, very different from the Cayuga and Iroquois people that called what is now Ithaca home.

Since being at Cornell, I have heard next to nothing of the natives of the area. I attempted to take an American Indian Studies course last fall, but couldn’t after scheduling conflicts, it wasn’t a priority of mine, and maybe it should have been.

Professor Eric Cheyfitz’s Café talk opened my eyes to the native peoples of the area, and certainly rekindled a flame of interest that has been in the back of my mind. Though I had previous knowledge of most of the major topics and events he discussed at the national level, I was blown away at how much my knowledge in the subject was lacking.

What I found most interesting in his talk were the Supreme Court and their bold, yet contradictory, rulings regarding the rights of native peoples in what was then an expanding country, and how blatant federal and state governments at the time were actively endorsing the extermination of native people.