December 5, 2008
The great spirit

The great spirit guides them through all life,
Giving, friendly loving, and honest.
Centuries of oppression hatred and thievery by the white man.
Survivors, pulling together the tribe in times of need.
Strong, lovers of nature each plant a resource to their people.
Community of a large family, taking care of all their people.
One with mother earth, only taking what they need.
Driven from the only land they have known.
Sold into slavery, used abused and stripped of all heritage,
they adapt to become what White society demands of them.
Young children grew up without knowing native language,
their rich history erased with each elder that dies.
Their heritage, pain, suffering and people forgotten,
History teaches each new generation less of the truth and more
of white man's lies. Calling them “savages” .
Yet when America needed them they came, they fought,
they used their own languages to keep America safe.
To be forced back to a reservation, if they were
to be able to claim the blood they had bled for the land
that white man stole.
With each step we all take remember the trail of tears
where so many died........
Native Americans....
By Jennifer D. Bergerson