Gregory Smoak

They're not listening to Native people.

They're reading these papers, these kinds of reports.

Yeah.

There's a belief that this is going to turn into something more, but there's also a desire to

continue the colonial policies to control the West and to incorporate the West.

It's funny you mentioned the Mormons, something I've written about in my work on the ghost dance, but they are looked at in sometimes the same ways as native ghost dancers.

And they're blamed for the ghost dance directly by Nelson Miles, because he can't believe, and many white Americans can't believe that a native person could be behind this religion or have created this religion.

or Native people could have spread this religion.

He says there has to be some designing white men behind it.

And it must be the Mormons because they are un-American and they're against the government.

Right.

Yeah, I think, you know, what are the conditions in 1890 Native people faced?

That culture war is part of it.

And the fact that you have your Native religions being suppressed, there's pressure to become Christian.

And you put on top of this, you know, specifics on most reservations where there's little income source.

Tuberculosis is killing people.

Yeah, not bad.

And it becomes the real horrible disease that peaks in the 19-teens and 20s.

In Native America.

Exactly.