Healing Grounds Chapter One

     Initially when the book opens up by telling the story of Latrice Tatsey trying to learn about their ancestors and the relationship with the native buffalo herds of the region, it appeared to be a lighthearted tale. It then elaborated into the atrocities the federal government has committed to Native Americans by corralling them into tiny plots of land, and then further dividing them up into subdivisions and forcing white culture onto them by sending off children to boarding schools and forbidding them from talking about their own culture. The shockwaves of these laws forced upon the native population can be seen as Tatsey struggles to find history or culture of their ancestors either through written documents or through word of mouth passed down through generations. The implications this has on the ecology in the region deepen when buffalo are deemed inefficient and cattle replace them. this part is interesting to me since country wide blanket laws are not typical of the United States government, shown through the fact that we primarily operate under state and regional laws rather than allowing the federal government to dictate everything however, the government believed using one or two specific breeds and species across the entire country rather than capitalizing on biodiversity would be considered "efficient". Logically speaking, using native species in regions they would thrive in like buffalo rather than pushing them out and replacing them with cattle, which struggle to thrive in hotter, drier climates seems to be contradictory to how the United States operates.