>>2433423Reservations are depressing places in shitty areas where government and tribal rules conspire to punish ambition and industriousness. They are hotspots for drug abuse, alcoholism, theft, incest, rape, sexual exploitation, and suicide. All of the subsidies (from the government or casinos) are controlled by the tribal government, and are distributed according to the whim of that government (which is most often hereditary) which makes them corrupt as fuck. The native population of the Americas had like 5 apocalyptic level epidemics between 1350 and 1650 (starting with the Norwegian plague and ending with Smallpox), and so their societies were basically destroyed before they had all their land stolen, so it’s no wonder they live in misery sinks.
Locally, all the natives in my state fled the Norwegian plague (which they caught in north eastern Canada from the Greenlanders or perhaps some other yet to be discovered nordic settlement) and fled to the west, burning villages and spreading the disease along the way. Here, they met their rivals, who had picked up African diseases like Malaria from the Spaniards on the gulf coast and murdered their way to the northwest from their homes out of fear of epidemic, and they fought and lost a war with the plague bearers, exchanging disease and further ruining each other’s society as they did. When the whites reached our area in the mid 1700s, both native groups sought Allie’s with the whites in order to enable the destruction of the other, and the population crashed even harder due to these wars. When the Norwegian plague reached America in the mid 14th century, the continent had 10 times as many natives as it did in 1700, any culture would crumble in the face of this kind of loss.
It’s less bad in the remote north, but not “good”.
