Joseph Bruchac's Influence On Native American History

“Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon. ” (Joseph Bruchac). Despite their relatively short and hidden modern history, the Native American story is much like the paper Joseph Bruchac is describing. The time period between the Europeans first landing in the Americas and WW2 endangered the entire Native American race. The Native americans were the “strong word” when their old America or “paper” wore away, they were able to outlast their troubles and make a better situation for themselves. The people persevered through their tough times and came out stronger. World War Two began on September 1st, 1939. Specifically, the Axis power consisted of Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan. Additionally the Allied nations consisted of the United

The war marked a time for innovation and intellectual improvement all around the world. The Japanese had broken every code used but the Allies, leading to uncertainty in the Pacific Theater section of the war. The Allies continued to fight through these hardships, but when Pearl Harbor showed that the Japanese were making direct attacks against America, the bombing sparked a reinvigorated effort to create a new way to transmit coded messages safely. Thusly the Code Talker program was created.
Philip Johnston was the white American man who created the Code Talkers initiative. For the Majority of Johnson's life he had traveled around the country with his mother and father, both of whom worked as missionaries on reservations (31). His father worked to expand the rights of the Native peoples. Johnsons time spent with the Navajo people enabled him to learn the Navajo language, which was rare because only about another 28 non natives new how to speak the language fluently at that time(15). In total there were around 180-230 tribes, with a total of 361,816 people in the native population (71). Of those tribes only 47 had between 1,000 and 10,000 Bilingual speakers, meaning that they could speak both