Although the US government tried to separate, contain, and Americanize western tribal nations, Native Americans shrewdly used mechanisms of colonialism, notably education and the US Post, to spread information and express their thoughts outside of white control. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Native American mailed letters to communicate across reservation boundaries. Massive networks of correspondence tied Native American together, forging intertribal bonds while spreading advantageous knowledge. Native Americans also corresponded with white Americans to push for justice and self-determination.

Justin Gage is a historian of the American West who studies Native American mobility and anticolonial activism in the early reservation years.