In the novel, The Lone Ranger Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (LRT), Sherman Alexie .
not only depicted the struggles of the Native American Indians on a Spokane Indian .
Reservation, but he also tried to weave in their harsh past and unpredictable future. All .
Native Americans have been treated with cruelty ever since Columbus sat foot on their .
soil. The so-called, "United States of America," has always been the Native American's .
land but why do Americans consider it theirs now? Why are the Native Americans only .
part of one percent of America's population as opposed to 100 percent before the .
European invasion (Trabich)? There is one main reason for such a large decline in .
population within four centuries: mass killing of the Native Americans. How Americans .
treated the Native Americans is no different from how the discriminating and egocentric .
Adolph Hitler treated the Jews during the Holocaust. .
Dictionary.com defines genocide as, "the systematic and planned extermination of .
an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group". The Europeans wanted all of the .
Native Indian's land so the only way to get the land was to get rid of the Native Indians, .
an ethnic group. According to The United Nations International law defines genocide as .
more than just "extermination", but more specifically, as stated in the Article II of the .
U.N.'s 1948 Convention on Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, "a) .
killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of .
the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring .
about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) imposing measures intended to .
prevent births within the group; e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another .
group."(Ward). Most of these characteristics of genocide are present in the novel LRT. .
Characters in this book all struggle to survive through this genocide, but sometimes, they .
