Back before the Second Great Depression the Indian tribes were split up between many small reservations all over the country. They had little physical power but a procession of Indian-owned casinos over the previous three quarters of a century had many of the tribes impressively wealthy and that bought them political power. When the United States government and many State governments fell to the depression, many Indian tribes took the opportunity to declare independence. The producers of Twilight worked with the local Iroquois chiefs of then New York State to show America how their new system was working. They also showed a very interesting political process where most of the western New York counties were effectively merging with the Iroquois to protect their own interests better than the State could. That was the beginning of what we now recognize as the Iroquois Nation.