When white settlers came to this vast country, which was inhabited by peaceful and prosperous Native American tribes, they decided that their way of life was better than the "Indian- way. There were many wars between the settlers and the Native Americans, mostly over who would inhabit and possess land. When these settlers became more forceful and more powerful, the Native Americans were driven into corners of the United States. There they set up, what was thought to be, some permanent places of inhabitance. However, this was not the case. The settlers determined that if Native Americans wanted to remain on their land they would have to live according the rules of the settlers' society and culture. They would have to go to the same church, wear all the same clothes, respect the government, and treat land as whites felt it should be treated. Native Americans believed that by assimilating their entire history, religion, and culture would be erased. .
Therefore, Native Americans were forced to live on reservations where poverty was widespread. All the pain and suffering that the Native Americans had gone through was more than they could handle. The way of life they had lived by for so many generations was now being taken away with force. They needed something to alleviate the pain that they were feeling deep down inside their soul. They turned to alcohol, which had been brought to them through the white man, and used it as a desperate escape from their sorrows. Native Americans are still living on reservations that are not properly funded by the government. Most of the people who live there are very poor and do not have any opportunities to money because reservations are located in such desolate places. The people of these villages have been poor for generations, and with no way out of their depression, they feel the need to drink alcohol. These people have relied on the drug so much so, that it has begun to have fatal results.
