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"Yes, we know that Indians today are only 2% of the US population but there are far more Indians about now than there were before Columbus"

    
  Yet some more twisting, turning and hiding from responsibility on display here. First off, how does anyone know? When Christopher Columbus had supposedly "discovered America" there still were quite a lot of "first contacts" with unknown tribes ahead for the Europeans in the following centuries (What did you say? The Vikings had been in North America centuries before? Does that really count if medieval Europeans had forgotten all about that and decided to call the western hemisphere the "New World"?) so who was counting? Therefore this can only be an estimation and nothing else. We also have to keep in mind how different America looked at the time. How the air and water were still clean, how buffalo were roaming the land in huge numbers without any danger of bumping into trains, how the
  traditional life style of native people was still in tact and unhindered by high ways, cities, outlawed ceremonies, mining or any other activities that are desecrating ancient sites. And even if these estimations are true, being 2% still means that you're facing 98% non-indians of whom the majority will often not understand or support your issues or what is important to you and that your vote in the ballot box will often be outnumbered by others who take a different stand on things than you do. Now it's not, as far as I know, that Indian people want to go back to the traditional life style of the 19th century and before as a lot of white people seem to believe.
 

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