No group of American citizens has experienced more policies designed to help "them" become part of the "melting pot" more intensely than the Native Americans. From the first days of contact with Europeans, Native Americans have been subjected to an impressive array of policies and programs designed specifically to eradicate all traces of their resident culture and existence. While such explicit assaults are no longer a sanctioned part of the national agenda, they have left deep scars that have crossed generations and continue to impact Native Americans today. Some Native American people refer to this trauma as the soul wound, a profoundly spiritual trauma that has been visited upon them. Also referred to as historical trauma, the soul wound reflects a multitude of actions and policies of both the U.S. government and individuals that contributed to the massive decline in the number of Native Americans and the extreme contraction of native lands.
Some of these policies and/or legislations that have caused these soul wounds are the Indian Removal Act of 1830, mandatory boarding schools from the late 1800's to the middle 1900's, the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the Relocation Act of 1952, and the House Concurrent Resolution 108, besides the hundreds of treaties that were broken by the white christian male. Recently, there have been some policies enacted to help Native Americans and those are the Indian Education Act of 1972, Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975, and Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.
Beginning with the Indian Removal act that was passed in 1830 to force approximately all 100,000 eastern Native Americans to be moved to the west of the Mississippi, started the supposedly legal and just civilizing on the indigenous people of North America . The five civilized tribes, the Cherokee, Chippawa, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole were moved to the Indian Territory which is now known as Oklahoma. The Cherokee resisted for almost 6 years, and their move is one of the most notable tragedies, and is called "The Trail of Tears". The Trail of Tears, in 1838, was the journey of the Cherokees, who were removed from their ancestral home in the North Carolina region to resettle in Oklahoma. Because of disease, exposure, inadequate medical care and food supplies, approximately 8,000 of 17,000 Cherokee died during the forced relocation. Both the Creek and Seminole nations suffered approximately 50% mortality in their relocations as well. Many other Eastern tribes did not face relocation because they had already been nearly eradicated by the mid-1800's, and remain now primarily in the history books.
Settlers, in their quest for security, continued to pressure the government to do something about the Native Americans. The settlers began moving westward and wanted the Native Americans to continue to be moved westward. The Army rid the country of numerous Native Americans by forcing them to move, exposing them to disease, and putting them in isolated areas where they could not survive.
As part of a multidimensional approach to the forced assimilation of Native Americans into European American culture, the U.S. government established a policy of mandatory boarding schools for Native American youth. American boarding schools had a serious negative impact on two of the most important aspects of Native American culture: language and spirituality. Boarding schools challenged the very make-up of Indian culture by forcing the tribal languages and the customs they practiced from Native American children by forcibly separating those children from their families, and by severely punishing those children who deviated from the cultural norms imposed upon them. Second, these schools force the spiritual beliefs, that are centuries old, from these children and compelled reliance on the Christian religious paradigm. This legislation represented an absence of the traditional opportunity for transmission of Native American values and cultural knowledge, which led to an inability to parent in traditional ways, thereby encouraging the intergenerational perpetuation of problems foreign to traditional Native American communities, such as alcoholism.
Another attempt to get the Native Americans to assimilate to European American culture was the Dawes Allotment Act which congress passed in 1887. The Act called for breaking up the reservations into allotments or parcels of land and make the Native Americans farmers. It was thought if the Native Americans were given their individual piece of land to farm, they would then be more like society and assimilate. The first problem with this Act was the assumption that Native Americans wanted to be farmers and wanted to assimilate. The second problem was if Native Americans wanted to keep any land at all, they were forced to accept American citizenship; many refused, and were left completely landless. Finally, by dividing up the reservation and giving allotments of land to Native Americans and non Native Americans so they would live side by side in a checker board configuration, affectly resulted in families and tribes being broken up. On top of all this, after each family received their allotment of land, the rest of the land was regarded as surplus and could be sold. Native Americans lost 88 million acres of land as a result of this Act.
The Europeans did not understand the Native American culture and did not understand that Native Americans did not want to change or assimilate. Because of the poverty and exploitation resulting from the Dawes Act, the passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act was implemented. This legislation was an attempt to secure new rights for Native Americans on reservations. Its main provisions were to restore to Native Americans management of their assets (mostly land); to prevent further depletion of reservation resources; to build a sound economic foundation for the people of the reservations; and to return to the Native Americans local self-government on a tribal basis.
The Relocation Act of 1952 encouraged Native-Americans to move off of the reservations in to urban areas. They were told they would be given transportation to the cities, given funds when they got to the cities, and given vocational training. Many Native Americans were excited about the program, but when they entered the big cities, they were totally unprepared and experienced culture shock. Many individuals had biases toward Native Americans and constantly harassed them, thus making them feel unwelcome in their own native land. On top of that, with the minimal skills they obtained, they were only qualified for jobs with the lowest wages. Thus, they could only afford low income housing and lived in ghettos. Several turned to alcohol or drug abuse, became mentally ill, or returned to the reservations.
The House Concurrent Resolution 108, also known as the Indian termination policy, was a policy that the the United States Congress implemented in the 1950's and 60's to assimilate the Native Americans with mainstream American society. The reservations were to be terminated or dissolved and the Native Americans would no longer fall under federal supervision. The government thought that if they terminated the tribes they could save money, since they no longer had to provide services to the Native Americans. However, the government ended up spending millions of dollars on welfare, since the Native Americans had little skills needed to earn a living in the cities. During 1953-1964, 109 tribes were terminated, approximately 1,366,000 acres of trust land were removed from protected status, and 13,000 Native Americans lost tribal affiliation. As a result of the indian termination policy, the special federal trustee relationship of Native Americans with the federal government ended, they were subjected to state laws, and their lands were converted to private ownership.
It was with some relief and hope that the Native American people received the news that an Act had been signed into law in 1972, creating new educational opportunities for Native American children and their elders. The Indian Education Act of 1972 (IEA) provides federal assistance in education over and above the limited funds appropriated annually for Indian education programs in the office of education, department of health, education and welfare, and the bureau of indian affairs, department of the interior, to help close the gap which now exists between Native American education and the general educational level of the united states. By guaranteeing future generations of Native Americans tools necessary to compete in modern society without necessitating the abandonment of native culture and practices, the Act represented a major initiative towards rectifying the cataclysmic effects from centuries of mistreatment and abuse. Although the Indian Education Act dramatically altered the nature of Native American education, much work remains to be accomplished. One generation on the right of repair cannot undo the effects from centuries of exploitation and injustice.
The Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance act of 1975 completed a fifteen year period of policy reform with regard to Native Americans. Passage of this law made self determination, rather than termination, the focus of government action, reversing a thirty year effort to sever treaty relationships with and obligations to Native American tribes. The disastrous consequences of the termination policy, combined with aggressive Indian activism, has encouraged a reexamination of government policy.
Finally, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 gave Native Americans more control over what was happening to their children. Until this time, children could and would be abruptly taken from their parents, by declaring their parents unfit.
As more and more of the Native American culture and heritage became lost in the modernizing effects of European colonization through policies and legislation, many Native Americans found themselves caught in limbo between two worlds. The cultural way of life of the past was gone, but the Native Americans were not accepted as equal members of the new white society. Native Americans were forced to totally assimilate into the culture that was new, foreign and intolerable for them. If they failed to do so, they were considered as little more than objects to be placed somewhere "out of sight" so that the rest of the world could go on its modernizing journey. With little to do, and no place to call home but reservations mandated by the government, many Native Americans turned to alcohol to numb the devastating effects of losing their identity.
As generation followed generation, and more of the culture and identity of the past was lost because of the policies established by the United States government, these newer generations of the Native American population eventually found alcohol to be their only salvation. With no strong cultural heritage to lead them, and a continued lack of acceptance out in the world at large, there has been little else left for them to do. Even if they could go back to the days of hunting buffalo and living off the land, where are the buffalo today, and what's become of the vast land that was once their cherished home?
While the consequences of past government policy are being recognized today, past history remains to be reconciled. Legal concessions have not alleviated racist attitudes. Ethnic and racial identity connoting inferiority is a continuing problem in the United States. For generations, Native Americans have endured the dominant culture's perception of the inferiority of their lifeways, traditions, languages, cultural and spiritual values. This historical fact is not without present consequences. The number of federal policies impacting Native Americans have had a devastating effect on the preservation of the Native American families. It took Europeans, disease, guns and alcohol less than 300 years to destroy a way of life that had been going on for at least 20,000 years. Although many Native American groups are tying to regain their cultural identity, it will never be the same.
