COLONIZATION OF
AMERICAN INDIANS
Coercive Assimilation in the U.S. 1887-1934
What is Colonialism?
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Colonialism is the establishment, exploitation,
maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies
in one territory by people from another territory. It is
a set of unequal relationships between the colonial
power and the colony and between the colonists and
the indigenous population.
While we think of the English colonists settling in the
eastern United States, we sometimes fail to realize
that they soon colonized the Native people.
Colonialism in the US
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As the colonies grew in population, they demanded
more land and conflicts with the original inhabitants
began.
The ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” the idea that
the English colonists and their descendents have the
God –given right to control land from the East to
West Coasts became the rationalization for removal
of the indigenous people onto reservations.
Manifest Destiny
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“
“…(They) were wolves and beasts who deserved nothing from
the whites but 'total ruin’.” -George Washington“…
(The US should) “pursue [Indians] to extermination, or drive
them to new seats beyond our reach." -Thomas Jefferson"...
(US troops need) to root out from their 'dens' and kill Indian
women and their 'whelps'.” - Andrew Jackson, greatest Indian
killer of all American Presidents.
Manifest destiny
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The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with
savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible
and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drives the
savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under
a debt to him. American and Indian, Boer and Zulu,
Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori… it is
of incalculable importance that America, Australia,
and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red,
black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the
heritage of the dominant world races.” -Theodore
Roosevelt, 1894 2
Defining Coercive assimilation
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Coerce: to compel by force, intimidation, or
authority without regard to individual volition or
desire.
Assimilation: the process by which a person or a
group’s language and culture come to resemble
those of another group
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce:
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“Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop,
free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to
choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion
of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for
myself.”
 Washington, D.C. 1879
1887-1934
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U.S. Indian Policy
Force Native people to assimilate into the dominant
American culture through “Americanization.”
The creators of the policy said it was for the
protection and preservation of the Indians.
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Historian Paul Prucha (1986)writes,
“the ultimate goal was transformation: to induce the
Indians all to become cultivators of the soil, to
adopt the white man’s language, customs, and
religion, and finally to be self-supporting citizens of
the commonwealth. Agriculture, domestic and
mechanical arts, English education, Christianity, and
individual property were the elements of the
civilization program (110).
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Reformers were convinced of their Christian
superiority and saw no need to inquire about
positive values in Indian culture or ask Indians what
they would like.
Assimilation would solve “the Indian problem”
because there would be no more Indians.
Indians could be denied rations if they objected.
Coercive assimilation
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Assimilation would remove Indians from land that
white settlers wanted.
3 Main Forces of Coercive Assimilation:
 Allotment
 Christianity
 Education
1887 General Allotment (Dawes) Act
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160 acres to each man, woman, and child
Intent was for Indians to become individual land
owners and farmers, and to live among whites.
“Excess” land was sold to whites. Millions of acres of
land were taken from Tribes.
Allotment was generally disastrous for communallyoriented Tribes who did not view land as a “thing.”
http://s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photos/18
93958/Indian%20Land%20Loss.png?1320363100
Land
losses
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Christianity
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For thousands of years Indians lived in harmony with
the natural elements in a manner that supported all
other life. They took care of places and made
sacred offerings to the Creator.
By 1884, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs had begun
regulating and outlawing Indian religious practices
like the Sundance.
Christianity
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Christian missionaries flooded into reservations in the
early – mid 19th Century, the Presbyterians to the Nez
Perces in the 1830s.
Christian missionaries, government agents, teachers and
priests.
To maintain some connection to their traditional religions
Indians adapted the Christian holidays to their
traditional ceremonies and worshipped in both ways at
the same time, or they hid their traditional ways and
practiced Christianity openly.
Christianity – as coercive assimilation
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Through allotment Indians lost many of their sacred
places, some taken by force, some by presidents to
make National Parks.
Education as coercive assimilation
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Treaties first mentioned setting aside funds for the
education of Indians in 1743.
Richard Henry Pratt opened the Carlisle Indian
School in 1879 with funds from Congress. Pratt’s
motto was “Kill the Indian, save the man”.
Carlisle was an off-reservation boarding school
where children spent most of the year.
 Can’t
speak own language, couldn’t practice own
religion; harsh punishment for either.
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While children attended some classes, they spent the majority of
their time working for the school. Girls worked in the kitchens, while
boys did manual labor. Sometimes, the food was poor or spoiled.
The teachers at school taught that Indian ways were foolish and stupid.
The children were made to feel ashamed of who they were, of being
Indian. Since anything “Indian” was forbidden, many children forgot
their customs, their former way of life, and their language.
The mortality rate at many schools was high. The crowded and dirty
conditions at schools caused many students to become ill and die.
Consumption (tuberculosis) was one of the most common diseases
children died from. Often, parents were not even informed that their
child was ill until they were dead.
Indian Boarding Schools
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http://historyday.crf-usa.org/1712/culture.html
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Map of boarding schools in US
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Federal boarding school enrollments swelled from
6,200 at 60 schools in 1885 to more than 17,000 in
153 schools at the turn of the century. By 1932,
nearly one-third of Indian children were in boarding
schools, a total of about 24,000.”
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
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1917. Congress would no longer pay religious
groups to educate Indian children.
After the Meriam (Congressional) Report of 1928
found Indians living in wide spread poverty,
Congress declared allotment a failure.
1930: BIA admitted to kidnapping children to take
them to boarding schools.
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
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Policies designed to give Tribes more say in their
futures and self-determination.