The Indian and the Iron Horse go way back. America’s railroads (especially the Transcontinental Railroad) and trains in general are still intimately associated with the arrival of white people in the minds of many Native people.

These railroads, whose tracks were laid primarily in the 1800s, brought dramatic changes to tribes and their members all over the country. Tribal land shrunk as white settlements sprung up all over tribal lands, due mainly to the new travel method and the delivery of services and goods.

How many of you sit patiently at a railroad crossing on your reservation — whether you’re near Gallup or Dulce or Santo Domingo — watching the train go by? Do you wonder what you have to do at work that day, or decide what to cook for dinner on your way home? Do you ever think about how that railroad got there in the first place?