Entwining traditional and modern Indian life on the reservation, the 22 related stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven offer a glimpse into the complex and varied identities of modern American Indians.
The reservation system. On February 21, 1928, Lewis Meriam, a well-educated statistician, submitted The Problem of Indian Administration to Hubert Work, secretary of the interior to the United States. The report, begun in November 1926, investigated the state of Indian health, education, and economic welfare, as well as the federal government’s administration of these services when compared to those provided to non-Indians by private or public agencies. The Meriam Report, as it is commonly known, stated, “An overwhelming majority of the Indians are poor, even extremely poor, and they are not adjusted to the economic and social system of the dominant white civilization. The poverty of the Indians and their lack of adjustment to the dominant economic and social systems produce the vicious circle ordinarily found among any people under such circumstances” (Price, Problem of Indian Administration, p. 3). High infant mortality, extreme rates of disease, malnutrition, deplorable educational opportunity, and general poverty plagued American Indian reservations across the country.
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