L'assimilation des amérindiens

U.S Civilisation: commentary

«Kill the Indian, save the man». Here was the dominant ideology of the period known as forced assimilation of native Americans which lasted from the end of the 19th century until the 1930s, a view promoted in particular by Richard Pratt, an American military general founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and flagship of boarding schools which were places dedicated to the annihilation of Native cultures. Indeed, following the outbursts of violence between Native tribes and the US Government until the mid 1840s, the American government decided to make Native culture disappear by a total and forced assimilation to the American one. Thus, young children were torn away from their families, forced to abandon their language, their beliefs, their identity, even their own names in order to fit in with what was expected of them in these infamous boarding schools, as suggested by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Hiram Price in 1885 who explained that “it is cheaper to give them education than to fight them.” It is in this context that the dossier studied, part of the notion 'diversity and inclusion' of the academic curriculum, fits.

Indeed, the document A Native American Testimony, edited by Peter Nabokov in 1991 suggests the respective point of view of two young natives interned in boarding schools during assimilation policy. Two testimonies crying out with lucidity when looking at the clash of culture they had to face and about their view on “Indian and white relations” (A,2-3). This singular point of view of the native community is also shared within document B, extract from the memoir of Darryl Babe Wilson, poet, scholar, political and cultural activist part of the Native American community.  Here there’s a focus on the religious aspect of assimilation that provides a critical and distant view of the Catholic religion that contrasts drastically with the objectives of the assimilation policy to convert native populations at a large scale. Thus and to contrast these two views, Document C offers a photograph that was promoted in the 1900s to promote the merits of Indian boarding schools. It shows a group of native children in front of a church overlooking them, a symbol of this new, all-powerful culture trying to destroy their own.

Thus, this set of documents offers new perceptions on the question of the treatment of the Natives during the different phases of assimilation established by the American government, in particular, the sending of tens of thousands of native children to boarding schools, which was akin to a real cultural genocide. This set of documents offers a reflection on the notion of identity and culture in opposition to another and can lead to the question of how the violence exercised on the native people appears as an ideal example of imperialism in American history?

To do so, we will first focus on the process of domination exercised by the US government in such a policy before laying on the will to universalize values, especially when it comes to the place of religion in these civilizing missions to finally ponder over the emphasis on the emergence of a shared identity by the different Native tribes.

First of all, this set of document focuses on the notion of assimilation, which emerged in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century, to describe the willingness of the American government to transform the religious, moral and cultural values of the native civilization as well as their way of life in order to make them adhere to the model of the dominant European society.

Each of the documents allow to emphasize the will of domination exerted by the American government on the Native community as advanced in the document A through the testimony of a young Hopi girl of thirteen when saying “We are nothing to the white people”.

At first, this notion of domination of one culture over another is thus put forward by a numerical argument. “We are a few Hopis, but they are Americans, millions of them” (A, 43-44).   Then quickly, within the same document, is made a reference to the military power exercised by the American government. There are several references to weapons "they show us their guns and submarines and tanks" (A,11) as well as to the arbitrary military operations exercised on the native territories "In case we have any objections, they have soldiers, they have planes" (A,55) Because in fact, behind the policy of cultural assimilation hides above all a will of domination from a political and economic point of view, also suggested in the document A  “This law says… another law says… and soon there will be a new law.” (A53-54). This can be seen as a direct reference to the various treaties signed between the federal government and the native tribes that are now considered as expropriation. Among them is the Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia in 1831 for example, which recognized the native tribes as a domestic dependent nation that lead them to have a right to their land. This court decision was bypassed by the President Jackson himself who expel the Cherokees, held them in detention camps and sent them to the ‘Indian territory’ Oklahoma.

This idea of domination is also shared within Document B through an emphasis on religion. This text discusses the perception of Catholicism by a native. Once again, we see that religion was used as a tool for assimilation as well as a means of imposing a form of domination “Assuming that their God was the only power in the world that needed to be recognized, spoken with, and acknowledge(...)”” (B,28-30). One can note the contempt suffered by the native community regarding its cultural identity throughout this period "They never cared enough about the old Indian Stories to consider them seriously(…) Nobody cared about our lessons and legends, not even the preacher” (B24-27).

The preponderant aspect of religion in the policy of assimilation of the natives is also represented through document C, a true propaganda tool of the time, showing a group of native children in a boarding school in front of a church. The church occupies the entire space of the photograph which conveys a sense of oppression due to its size. It is the ultimate symbol of the work of assimilation carried out. The symbol of a universalization of Christian values, and therefore a symbol of the success of the diffusion of American values on the native peoples.

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