I'll tell you the same thing I've told them...and believe me I am not their favorite relative to invite to gatherings, "it'd gone that way eventually anyway", show me any land still held by those who first inhibited it. If it wasn't us it'd been someone else, maybe instead of being on sovereign tribal lands now they'd be interned in prison camps under the Chinese. That's all history is, divide and conquer. Call it the way the cookie bounces, which way the coin flipped, the nasty nature of the beast, mans inhumanity to man, whatever, it is what it is and as ugly as it was they are way better off now that it had been us. I've known a lot of Indians in my life, not just by way of being related to a bunch of them and it gets pretty tiring listening to them complain about the white man.

You know the ones receiving the most amount of money just squander it, I don't know a single one of them that has done anything positive with the thousands they get beside party. The one person is grandpa's mother...who isn't even Indian. She adopted them from alcohol, drug abusing parents who her full blooded Indian husband knew. Once granted sovereign land and they developed casino's she did all the work to get the kids enrolled, that investment paid off for her as she was the legal mother of the children. With that money she made sure they were brought up on the wealthier side of town. As they grew and obtained their own money they all went off and squandered it all on drugs and alcohol, even their own childrens. When grandpa died this summer he left all of three thousand dollars in his account, barely enough to cover funeral cost, and that wouldn't have been there except he lied in a hospital unable to spend it. I can't even describe the thousands upon thousands of dollars I've watched them all squander....but I was always the pain in the ass trying to make any sense to them. Every last one of the Indians I've seen making money off casino's don't have a pot to shit in. The tribes are no better. I went years without child support before finding out he had a tribe, it got recognized, they built a casino and was sending him money. The state tried to get them to garnish his tribal money to pay his support and they told them to stick it. They have no room to talk about how anyone treats anybody because when it comes down to it they can't or won't even take care of their own. The government never had anything to do with determining blood quantum, it all went off a list called the Daw's rolls, (that might be misspelled, I am sure it is), but it came from a time period when all Indians had to be registered under the government. If you could prove lineage to the rolls (as I think there was more than one) tribes were granted sovereignty and self rule. It was under that self governance where the determinations were made as to who did and not qualify to be a member of that tribe. The state treated my kids better being Indians, at least during periods when they didn't have health insurance they got theirs free through MI child, as Indians I didn't have to pay the monthly fee. The state would have also paid for free college education. Yeah I am not the first one they think of to write down on a list for those invited to family "reunions", they probably spend more time arguing over who is getting seated next to me. Then to add a twist of ironic one of the uncle's to grandkids mother happened to marry one of the sisters to my kids dad, talk about being immediately infamous among the talkers as their can only be one of me. At least I have often been told when they made me they not only threw away the mold they beat the hell out of the mold maker. As soon as "family anything" come up they probably start sending out smoke signals to see if anyone wants to volunteer to sit next to me before they start arguing over whose going to get that honor.