David R. Lewis discusses how the intentional impoverishment of Native Americans by the US government has contributed to the toxic nightmare now destroying their traditional resources. As what he calls islands in the stream of American settlement, Indian reservations and aboriginal peoples now define modern environmental debates. Unfortunately, in the name of progress, that debate has left many tribes with hard and few choices. Like all human beings, they find that [1] creating community under duress is not an achievement they always attain.