Chapter 1 Summary

Reservation Blues is the story of a few Native Americans in the northwestern United States who start a band. In their quest to achieve fame, these Native Americans encounter a cast of colorful characters, from Big Mom who may have taught all the legendary musical greats to recording executives who may be U.S. Cavalry generals who led raids and massacres on the Native Americans of the late nineteenth century. The adventure begins one day when legendary blues performer Robert Johnson appears on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

A black man carrying a guitar arrives on the Spokane Indian reservation and walks to an intersection and waits. Thomas Builds-the-Fire arrives in his van and asks if the man is lost. The man answers that he has been lost for a long time. Thomas introduces himself and offers to shake the man's hand. The man...