Indian, and they started throwing rocks at me. I tried not to throw any back, but after a while I couldn't avoid being hit. So I threw a marble-sized rock and it hit one of the boys and made him bleedâ€" (56). This story would foreshadow Leonard's future incarceration. Turtle Ridge was one of three reservations in the country on which "the government had decided to test out its new termination policyâ€" (Matthiessen, 63). The termination policy attempted to assimilate and "de-indianizeâ€" Native Americans by banning aspects of their culture such as the Sun Dance, and moderating the supposed self-governing tribal councils. The Indians on the Turtle Ridge Reservation reacted vocally, resulting in numerous protests and demonstrations against this revival of enfranchisement by the US Government. When the BIA finally noticed the demonstrations, social workers were dispatched to see if things were really as band as the Indians claimed. Leonard, with another young organizer, sprang into action. "I ran from house to house, telling the families to hide what food they had. When I came to the first house, and told them to hide their food, they looked at me and said What food'â€"(Matthiessen, 64)? The demonstrations, including one about the lack of food on the reservation, whetted Leonard's young appetite for activism on the reservation. After attending his first Sun Dance, Leonard was arrested for being under the influence. "The reservation police knew what was going on, but they wouldn't come onto private property. When we came out, they charged us all with being drunk, even though no one had been drinkingâ€"(Peltier, 41). His experience with police corruption later turned Leonard into an outspoken opponent of corrupt police. Often, trucks with Mexican immigrants would pull up to the reservation looking for workers,
             and Leonard and his father frequently joined them. F...