What a lovely letter appeared in The Chronicle the day before Thanksgiving ("Indians should not have special rights," Nov. 24). It really gave those of us with Native American family ties a great deal to be thankful for. According to the writer, one would think that it was the Native Americans who took over this land, not the "white man."

He went on to say that my ancestors did not have diesel powered fishing vessels or nylon fish nets nor did they enjoy fish hatcheries and stocking of fish. GASP! They must have been uneducated and primitive. With the Native American thinking hatcheries were never needed. They had enough intelligence to realize that if you remove all of the fish from a given stream or lake, you won't have any reproduction. So, they would move from one area to another, always leaving a healthy stock behind.

The letter went on to say, “Let's look at the area they lived on.” The area was just fine to sustain the native lifestyle, then the white man destroyed just about everything. If the government surveyors found the land unfit for human habitation, why did they force all the native people out? The fact that the letter writer states that the native inhabitants moved to the Straits of Mackinac during the mosquito season (and I would assume they returned after) would cause one to ponder, who was smarter, the native inhabitants or the invading white men.

I, too, have read reprints of newspaper articles from those early days and the payments that were supposedly given to the native people. Also I have read articles from much later times that investigations uncovered information that proved that many, if not all the “agents” retained just about all the money that the government sent for payments.

“The Indians ended up with far more than white settlers,” the letter says. They should have, it was their land to start with.

I would like to ask the letter writer since he stressed that he is an American born citizen, but cannot hold his property immune from taxation, why do you think that. Look at the big corporations and big money White Guys.

Since the letter writer mentioned his citizenship, where were you between 1950-53 and 1965-72. Both of my oder brothers were in Korea, fighting the white man's “police action” for 18 months, In 1969-70, I was in Vietnam doing the same. During World War II, my uncles were fighting in both Europe and the Pacific. I guess being born here and having served in combat for the United States would make us citizens.

Unlike several extremely wealthy citizens of our country, we pay taxes on our earnings. We haven't encouraged anyone to purchase a larger, more expense home than they can afford with interest rates that are, or nearly are, criminal. What we have, we worked for and did not get it by cheating someone else.

Al Leverich

Ludington