In 1992, Poet Sherman Alexie, wrote the poem titled. “Evolution”. “Evolution” starts with a mention of a pawn shop on the reservation across the border from the liquor store”(1-2). In the first verse of “Evolution”, “Buffalo Bill opens a pawnshop on the reservation”(1). Buffalo Bill, born as William Frederick Cody, was an American buffalo hunter, and an Indian fighter. He had a reputation for accurate marksmanship, knowledge of Indian ways, and endurance(Encyclopaedia Britannica,2017). Buffalo Bill was in high demand as a scout and guide, for the United States Fifth Cavalry, while the government was attempting to wipe out Indian resistance to settlement out in the western part of the United States. This makes the first sentence in this poem
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This image is an ironic, but vivid sentence in this poem. Buffalo Bill helped the United States Government to take land and Indian belongings, by acting as a scout for them. When Buffalo Bill served in the Army, he is believed to have participate in 16 Indian fights, including his much-publicized scalping of the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017). This is part of the further degradation of Native Americans. The Indians are already pawning items to Buffalo Bill, while taking the money and spending it on liquor, which is a severe problem on the Indian Reservations. Now Buffalo Bill is keeping and cataloging all of the items in a storage room, as if they are artifacts. This signifies that he is about to open an Indian Artifacts museum, that he will charge the Indians to enter, to view their own history, they have given …show more content…
This is Buffalo Bill’s final outcome from his master plan. He opened a pawnshop on the Indian Reservation across from a liquor store, that he knew would attract the Indians. He didn’t have to take anything from them, unlike when he helped the United States government take their land. But, “numerous historical accounts tell of white residents getting Indians drunk as a negotiation strategy to convince them to sign treaties that would yield land”(Kramer, 1972). On top of the insult of taking everything the Indians had including their skin and bones, once Buffalo Bill opened the museum,” he charges the Indians five bucks a head to
This image is an ironic, but vivid sentence in this poem. Buffalo Bill helped the United States Government to take land and Indian belongings, by acting as a scout for them. When Buffalo Bill served in the Army, he is believed to have participate in 16 Indian fights, including his much-publicized scalping of the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017). This is part of the further degradation of Native Americans. The Indians are already pawning items to Buffalo Bill, while taking the money and spending it on liquor, which is a severe problem on the Indian Reservations. Now Buffalo Bill is keeping and cataloging all of the items in a storage room, as if they are artifacts. This signifies that he is about to open an Indian Artifacts museum, that he will charge the Indians to enter, to view their own history, they have given …show more content…
This is Buffalo Bill’s final outcome from his master plan. He opened a pawnshop on the Indian Reservation across from a liquor store, that he knew would attract the Indians. He didn’t have to take anything from them, unlike when he helped the United States government take their land. But, “numerous historical accounts tell of white residents getting Indians drunk as a negotiation strategy to convince them to sign treaties that would yield land”(Kramer, 1972). On top of the insult of taking everything the Indians had including their skin and bones, once Buffalo Bill opened the museum,” he charges the Indians five bucks a head to