WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.590 align:middle line:90%


00:00:04.590 --> 00:00:09.250 align:middle line:84%
Here's a very simple
accessible poem.

00:00:09.250 --> 00:00:13.410 align:middle line:84%
It's called "The Man From
Washington" and in the poem

00:00:13.410 --> 00:00:15.390 align:middle line:84%
I try to just
imagine what it must

00:00:15.390 --> 00:00:21.330 align:middle line:84%
have been like for the
Indians in the West.

00:00:21.330 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84%
The Plains tribes and
particularly the Blackfeet,

00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:30.060 align:middle line:84%
when a man from
Washington DC, would

00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:32.610 align:middle line:84%
come to tell them
that they were going

00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:36.120 align:middle line:84%
to be put on reservations
and the promises

00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:37.890 align:middle line:90%
that he would make.

00:00:37.890 --> 00:00:40.485 align:middle line:84%
And just what must
have happened.

00:00:40.485 --> 00:00:44.480 align:middle line:90%


00:00:44.480 --> 00:00:47.360 align:middle line:84%
"The end came easy
for most of us.

00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:50.360 align:middle line:84%
Packed away in our
crude beginnings,

00:00:50.360 --> 00:00:53.990 align:middle line:84%
in some far corner
of a flat world.

00:00:53.990 --> 00:00:59.360 align:middle line:84%
We didn't expect much more
than firewood and buffalo robes

00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:01.490 align:middle line:90%
to keep us warm.

00:01:01.490 --> 00:01:07.040 align:middle line:84%
The man came down, a slouching
dwarf with rainwater eyes

00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:08.990 align:middle line:90%
and spoke to us.

00:01:08.990 --> 00:01:13.130 align:middle line:84%
He promised that life
would go on as usual.

00:01:13.130 --> 00:01:19.370 align:middle line:84%
The treaties would be signed and
everyone man, woman, and child

00:01:19.370 --> 00:01:23.270 align:middle line:84%
would be inoculated against
a world in which they

00:01:23.270 --> 00:01:24.830 align:middle line:90%
had no part.

00:01:24.830 --> 00:01:29.560 align:middle line:84%
A world of money,
promise and disease."

00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:31.000 align:middle line:90%