Americanization (of Native Americans)

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For information on influence the United States has on the culture of other countries, see Americanization.

For information on assimilation of foreign immigrants into the United States of America, see Americanization (immigration).

For information on assimilation of foreign culture in American culture, or the superseding of foreign culture by American culture, see Americanization (foreign culture and media).

Americanization refers to the policies of the United States government and public opinion that there is a standard set of cultural values that should be held in common by all citizens. Education was and is viewed as the primary method in the acculturation process. These opinions were harshly applied when it came to Americanization of Native Americans compared to immigrant populations who arrived with their "non-American traditions".

The Americanization policies said that when indigenous people learned American customs and values they would soon merge tribal traditions with European-American culture and peacefully melt into the greater society. For example in the 1800s and early 1900s, traditional religious ceremonies were outlawed and it was mandatory for children to attend English speaking boarding schools where native languages and cultural traditions were forbidden. The Dawes Act of 1887, which allotted tribal lands to individuals and resulted in an estimated total of 93 million acres leaving Native American hands and The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 were also part of these policies.

Contents 1 European Colonial Powers and Native Americans 1.1 Early European Colonization of North America, 1513-1600 1.2 Europeans and Native Americans in North America, 1601-1776 2 The United States and Native Americans, 1776-1860 2.1 Indian Removal 2.2 Office of Indian Affairs 3 The Americanization Policy 3.1 Grant's "Peace Policy" 3.2 Suppression of Religion 3.3 Suppression of Language 4 Native American Education and Boarding Schools 4.1 Non-Reservation Boarding Schools 4.2 The Meriam Report of 1928 5 Lasting Effects of the Americanization Policy 6 References, Links and Further Info 6.1 See also 6.2 Links 6.3 Further reading 6.4 Footnotes 6.5 Additional References

[edit] European Colonial Powers and Native Americans

[edit] Early European Colonization of North America, 1513-1600

From the moment Christopher Columbus set foot in the West Indies the cultures of Europe and the Pre-Columbian Americas have struggled to coexist. Often Europeans took up the role of conquerors, most notably in South America and present day Mexico, where the expeditions of Spanish conquistadors such as Francisco Pizarro (Inca Empire) and Hernán Cortés (Aztec Empire) are known for their unambiguous belief in European superiority.

Juan Ponce de León is regarded to have been the first European to reach the lands which would become the United States, reaching present day Florida in 1513.^[1] Further expeditions by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1528), Hernando de Soto (1538-42) and others further explored Florida and southeastern North America. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's expedition (1540-1542), which began in New Spain (Mexico), reached as far north as present day Kansas. These expeditions invariably led to clashes between the Spaniards and Native Americans and many of them ended with the destruction of the explorers. Yet these expeditions had lasting results. The Europeans made a substantial foothold in Florida. Horses were introduced, which would significantly alter the mode of life of many Native American tribes. Lastly, and most significantly, small pox and other diseases, passed by both men and livestock, were introduced to the Native populations. Many of these populations were without immunity to the diseases, and by the time European settlement became extensive in the 1600s, large portions of the Native population had been destroyed.

British colonization of North America began with the settlement of St. John's, Newfoundland as early as 1497. It officially became England's first colony in 1583. The abandoned Roanoke Colony (1585/1587) was the only other official colony until the early Seventeenth Century, when a number of new colonies were founded, including Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the United States.

French colonization of North America began in c.1524 when King Francis I sent Giovanni da Verrazzano in search of a northern route to the Pacific Ocean. After failed attempts in 1564 and 1598 the first successful French colony was Acadia, established in 1604.

The Europeans as a whole seemed to view the land unoccupied by any meaningful peoples. While some came only to settle and land, others came to "conquer and govern"^[2]. Regardless, from the first meeting, the governments of Europe dealt with the Native populations as peoples to be subdued and mollified, not as existing entities such as they viewed themselves, and thus they could justify settling in the Natives' lands without permission, using the superiority of their technology to gradually push the existing cultures from any land they desired.^[3]

[edit] Europeans and Native Americans in North America, 1601-1776

In the conflicting expansions of European powers in North America, Native American tribes were often used as auxiliaries by England, France and Spain. In order secure the help of the tribes, the Europeans would offer goods and sign treaties that promised those tribes the victorious power would honor those tribes traditional lands. Various Native American tribes took part in King William's War (1689–1697), Dummer's War (c. 1721-1725), and the French and Indian War (1754–1763).

After the French and Indian War, Britain instituted the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which established a boundary separating the Native American country from that of the Anglo-American community. This line, however, moved continuously westward as the community expanded. This movement, was accomplished via treaties ensured by the threat, or use, of force.

For Further Information see European colonization of the Americas.

[edit] The United States and Native Americans, 1776-1860

The struggle for empire in North America caused the United States in its earliest years to adopt an Indian policy similar to the one devised by Great Britain in colonial times.^[3] They realized that good relations with bordering tribes were important for political and trading reasons, but as had the British, they reserved the right to abandon these good relations to absorb the lands of their enemies and allies alike as the agricultural frontier moved west. The United States continued the use of Native Americans as allies, including during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. As relations with England and Spain normalized during the early 1800s, the need for such friendly relations ended. It was no longer necessary to woo the tribes to prevent the other powers from using them against the United States. Now, instead of a buffer against other "civilized" foes, the tribes often became viewed as an obstacle in the expansion of the United States.

[edit] Indian Removal

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 characterized the US government policy of Indian Removal, which called for the relocation of Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. While it did not authorize the forced removal of the indigenous tribes, it authorized the President to negotiate land exchange treaties with tribes located in lands of the United States. The Intercourse Law of 1834 prohibited United States citizens from entering tribal lands granted by such treaties without permission, though it was often ignored.

While the Indian Removal Act made the relocation of the tribes voluntary, it was often abused by government officials. The best known example is the Treaty of New Echota. It was negotiated and signed by a small faction of Cherokee tribal members, not the tribal leadership, on December 29, 1835, resulting in the forced relocation of the tribe in 1838. ^[4] An estimated 4,000 Cherokees died in the march, now known as the Trail of Tears. The following is a quote from Charles Hicks, a Tsalagi (Cherokee) vice chief on the trail of tears, from August 4, 1838.

"We are now about to take our leave and kind farewell to our native land, the country that the Great Spirit gave our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us birth...it is with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood... we bid farewell to it and all we hold dear."^[5]

In the decades that followed white settlers pushed further into the lands set aside for Native Americans, eventually spanning the United States from Coast to Coast, leaving no tribe untouched by the overpowering influence of Anglo farmers, traders and soldiers.

[edit] Office of Indian Affairs

The Office of Indian Affairs (Bureau of Indian Affairs as of 1947) was established March 11, 1824, as an office of the United States Department of War. It became responsible for negotiating and holding fulfillment, at least on the Native American part, of treaties. In 1849 the bureau was transferred to the Department of the Interior.

In 1854 Commissioner George W. Manypenny called for a new code of regulations, noting that it was it was rapidly becoming evident that there was no place in the West where the Indians could be placed with a reasonable hope that they might escape molestation. He also called for The Intercourse Law of 1834 to be revised, as its provisions had been aimed at individual intruders rather than at organized expeditions. Succeeding Commissioner Charles Mix said in 1858 noted that the repeated removal of tribes had prevented them from acquiring a taste for civilization, while in 1862 Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith questioned the wisdom of treating tribes as quasi-independent nations. ^[3] It was in the era of this changing thought that the policy of Americanization began to grow support and begin to be put into practice.

[edit] The Americanization Policy

The movement to reform in Indian administration and assimilate the Indians originated in the pleas of people who lived in close association with the natives and were shocked by the fraudulent and in-different management of their affairs. Gradually the call for change was taken up by Eastern sentimentalists and reformers.^[3] Many of the reformers were Protestant Christians and considered assimilation necessary to the Christianizing of the Indians. In 1865 the government began to make contracts with various missionary societies for the maintenance of Indian schools for teaching agricultural and mechanical arts.

[edit] Grant's "Peace Policy"

Ulysses S. Grant

[edit] Suppression of Religion

Religion was suppressed throughout most of the native Americans. If it was practiced, most of the time it was punished. If a native American didn't convert to Christianity, he was killed, although most native Americans did convert after they saw one of their friends die.

[edit] Suppression of Language

Language throughout Native Americans was widespread. Most of the time, if Native American was heard, it was punished, or they might have been killed. However, some types of Native American was suppressed even more because of it's military importance. In their own language, they could speak it normally. But in the military dialect, it could never be spoken except for during war and training. Navajo was one of these languages that was used during the war.

[edit] Native American Education and Boarding Schools

An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were established in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century to educate Native American youths according to Euro-American standards. These schools were primarily run by missionaries. It has been documented that they were traumatic to many of children who attended them, as they were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity instead of their native religions and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Indian identity and adopt European-American culture. There are also documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses occurring at these schools.^[6]

[edit] Non-Reservation Boarding Schools

Native American children were often separated from their families and people when they were sent or taken to boarding schools off the reservations. These schools ranged from those like the federal Carlisle Industrial School, to schools sponsored by religious organizations to some created by non-profits such as the founding of an Indian school in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1769.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School founded by Richard Henry Pratt in 1879 is one example. Pratt professed "assimilation through total immersion" and contended that, as slavery had assimilated African Americans, removing students entirely from their cultural surroundings would result in their assimilation. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Carlisle curriculum constituted of vocational training for boys and domestic science for girls, including chores around at the school and producing goods for market. In the summer students were often outsourced to local farms and townspeople to continue their immersion and provide labor at low cost. Carlisle and its curriculum would become the model for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and by 1902 there were twenty-five federally funded non-reservation schools across fifteen states and territories with a total enrollment of over 6,000. Although federal legislation made education compulsory for Native Americans, removing students from reservations required parent authorization, although coercion and even violence were often used to secure the preset quota of students from any given reservation.

Once the new students arrived at the boarding schools, life altered drastically. They were given new haircuts, uniforms, and even new English names, sometimes based on their own, other times assigned at random. They could no longer speak their own languages, even between each other, and they were expected to convert to Christianity. Life was run by the strict orders of their teachers, and it often included grueling chores and stiff punishments. The following is a quote from Anna Moore of the Phoenix Indian School.

If we were not finished [scrubbing the dining room floors] when the 8 a.m. whistle sounded, the dining room matron would go around strapping us while we were still on our hands and knees.^[7]

Additionally, disease was widespread due to insufficient funding for meals, overcrowding and overworked students. Death rates for Native American students were subject to a death rate six and a half times higher than other ethnic groups.^[7]

[edit] The Meriam Report of 1928

The Meriam Report, officially titled "The Problem of Indian Administration", was requested by and submitted February 21, 1928 to Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work. It recommended the abolition of "The Uniform Course of Study", which taught only white cultural values, that younger children should attend community schools near home, though older children should be able to attend non-reservation schools, and that the Indian Service should provide Native Americans the tools to adapt both in their own traditional communities and American society.

[edit] Lasting Effects of the Americanization Policy

While the concerted effort to assimilate Native Americans into American culture was abandoned officially, integration of Native American tribes and individuals continues to the present day. Often Native Americans are perceived as having been assimilated. In many studies and statistics they are considered as simply another minority of the general American populace, not as the individual semi-sovereign entities they remain according to the treaties that were signed between tribes and the US government. The following quote from the May 1957 issue of Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, shows this change in attitude.

"The place of Indians in American society may be seen as one aspect of the question of the integration of minority groups into the social system."^[8]

While a single quote cannot answer for a nation's perception, after centuries of adapting to Euro-American culture, through wars, treaties, acceptance, and mostly time, Native Americans, for better or worse, have become part of the American culture.

[edit] References, Links and Further Info

[edit] See also

• Native Americans in the United States
• Indian Removal
• European colonization of the Americas
• Bureau of Indian Affairs

[edit] Links

• Endangered Native American Languages: What Is to Be Done, and Why?
• Bureau of Indian Affairs website
• World History Archives: History of Native Americans in the U.S
• Marr, Carolyn, "Assimilation through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest"

[edit] Further reading

• Tatum, Laurie. Our Red Brothers and the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant. University of Nebraska Press (1970).
• Senier, Siobhan. Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance: Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemucca, and Victoria Howard. University of Oklahoma Press (2003).

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Ponce de Leon, Juan. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. 2005. Columbia University Press.
2. ^ De Vaca, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza, and Fanny Bandelier, trans.(1905). The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca(1542). From PBS website. [1]
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Fritz, Henry E. (1963). The Movement for Indian Assimilation, 1860-1890. University of Pennsylvania Press.
4. ^ Hoxie, Frederick (1984). A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
5. ^ Hicks, Charles (1838). From website http://www.indians.org/welker/cherokee.htm
6. ^ Smith, Andrea. Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools. Amnesty Magazine, from Amnesty International website, [2]
7. ^ ^{a b} Unlisted (2001). The Challenges and Limitations of Assimilation. The Brown Quarterly 4(3), from website [3].
8. ^ Dozier, Edward, et all. "The Integration of Americans of Indian Descent." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science., Vol. 311, American Indians and American Life. (May, 1957), pp. 158-165.

[edit] Additional References

• Adams, David Wallace (1995). Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875 – 1928. University Press of Kansas.
• Ahren, Wilbert H. (1994). An Experiment Aborted: Graduates in the Indian School Service, 1881-1908. Ethnohistory 39(2), 246-267.
• Borhek, J. T. (1995). Ethnic Group Cohesion. American Journal of Sociology 9(40), 1-16.
• Ellis, Clyde (1996). To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School, 1893-1920. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Hill, Howard C. (1919). The Americanization Movement. American Journal of Sociology, 24 (6), 609-642.
• Hoxie, Frederick (1984). A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• McKenzie, Fayette Avery (1914). "The Assimilation of the American Indian". The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 19, No. 6. (May), pp. 761-772.
• Peshkin, Alan (1997). Places of Memory: Whiteman’s Schools and Native American Communities. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
• Spring, Joel (1994). Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States. McGraw-Hill Inc.
• Steger, Manfred B (2003. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Wright, Robin K. (1991). A Time of Gathering: Native Heritage in Washington State. University of Washington Press and the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum.