American Indians: From Conquest to Tribal Survival in Postindustrial Society

1
American Indians From Conquest to Tribal
Survival in Postindustrial Society
Chapter Six Lesson 9
2
Tribal Survival?

• The contact period for American Indians lasted
  nearly 300 years, ending with the Indian Wars of
  the late 1800s.
• At the dawn of the 20th century, American Indians
  were a conquered and colonized minority group
  living on paternalistic government controlled
  reservations on the fringes of development and
  change, marginalized, relatively powerless, and
  isolated.
• At the dawn of the 21st century, American Indians
  remain among the most disadvantaged, poorest, and
  most isolated of minority groups, however, the
  group is not without resources and strategies for
  improving their situation.

3
Size of the Group

• There were 5 million people who claimed at least
  some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry
  but only about 2.5 million if we confine the
  group to people who select one race only.
• By either count, the group is a tiny minority
  (about 1) of the total population of the United
  States.

4
American Indian and Alaska Native Population
1900-2010
5
American Indian Cultures

• The dynamics of American Indian and
  Anglo-American relationships have been shaped by
  the vast differences in culture, values, and
  norms between the two groups.
• There were (and are) hundreds of different tribes
  each with its own language and heritage.
• However, some patterns and cultural
  characteristics are widely shared across the
  tribes, and we will concentrate on these
  similarities.

6
American Indian Cultures

• The goal of many American Indian tribes was to
  live in harmony with the natural world, not
  improve it or use it for their own selfish
  purposes.
• The concept of private property, or the ownership
  of things, was not prominent in American Indian
  cultures.
• American Indian cultures and societies also
  tended to be more oriented toward groups than
  toward individuals.
• Many American Indian tribes were organized around
  egalitarian values that stressed the dignity and
  worth of every man, woman, and child.
• These differences in values, compounded by the
  power differentials that emerged, often placed
  American Indians at a disadvantage when dealing
  with the dominant group.

7
Relations with the Federal Government after the
1890s

• Reservations were paternalistically controlled
  and corrupted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
  (BIA) of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
• American Indians on the reservations were
  subjected to coercive acculturation or forced
  Americanization.
• Dawes Allotment Act of 1887
• Boarding Schools
• American Indians were virtually powerless to
  change the reservation system or avoid the
  campaign of acculturation, nonetheless, they
  resented and resisted and many languages and
  cultural elements survived the early reservation
  period.

8
Relations with the Federal Government after the
1890s
9
Relations with the Federal Government after the
1890s

• American Indian women also migrated to the city
  in considerable numbers, and often carried the
  burden of supporting the family as urban
  discrimination, unemployment, and poverty made it
  difficult for the men to fulfill the role of
  breadwinner.
• American Indian women in the city continue to
  practice their traditional cultures and maintain
  the tribal identity of their children despite
  difficulties inherent in combining child rearing
  and a job outside the home (Joe Miller, 1994,
  p. 186).

10
Protest and Resistance

• The modern protest movement has focused on
  several complementary goals
• protecting American Indian resources and treaty
  rights,
• striking a balance between assimilation and
  pluralism,
• and finding a relationship with the dominant
  group that would permit a broader array of life
  chances without sacrificing tribal identity and
  heritage.

11
Protest and Resistance

• As the pan-tribal protest movement forged ties
  between members of diverse tribes, the successes
  of the movement and changing federal policy and
  public opinion encouraged a rebirth of commitment
  to tribalism and Indian-ness.
• American Indians were simultaneously stimulated
  to assimilate (by stressing their common
  characteristics and creating organizational forms
  that united the tribes) and to retain a
  pluralistic relationship with the larger society
  (by working for self-determination and enhanced
  tribal power and authority).
• Thus, part of the significance of the Red Power
  movement was that it encouraged both pan-tribal
  unity and a continuation of tribal diversity
  (Olson Wilson, 1984, p. 206).

12
The Continuing Struggle for Development in
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• Many efforts to develop the reservations have
  focused on creating jobs by attracting industry
  through such incentives as low taxes, low rents,
  and a low-wage pool of labor
• The jobs that have materialized are typically low
  wage and have few benefits usually, non-Indians
  fill the more lucrative managerial positions.
• These new jobs may transform the welfare poor
  into the working poor (Snipp, 1996, p. 398), but
  their potential for raising economic vitality is
  low.

13
The Continuing Struggle for Development in
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• Another potential resource for American Indians
  is the gambling industry, which was made possible
  by 1988 federal legislation.
• Various tribes have sought other ways to
  capitalize on their freedom from state regulation
  and taxesselling cigarettes tax-free and
  exploring the possibility of housing nuclear
  waste and other refuse of industrialization.
• Without denying the success stories, the lives of
  most American Indians continue to be limited by
  poverty and powerlessness, prejudice, and
  discrimination.

14
Poverty and Education for Non-Hispanic Whites
15
Median Household Income
16
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• Anti-Indian prejudice has been a part of American
  society from the beginning.
• One stereotype, especially strong during periods
  of conflict, depicts Indians as bloodthirsty,
  ferocious, and inhumanly cruel savages capable of
  any atrocity.
• The other image of American Indians is that of
  the noble redman who lives in complete harmony
  with nature and symbolizes goodwill and pristine
  simplicity (Bordewich, 1996, p. 34).

17
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• A variety of studies have documented continued
  stereotyping of Native Indians in the popular
  press, textbooks, the media, cartoons, and
  various other places (for example, see Bird,
  1999 Rouse Hanson, 1991).
• The persistence of stereotypes is illustrated by
  continuing controversies surrounding nicknames
  for athletic teams and the use of American Indian
  mascots, tomahawk chops, and other practices
  offensive to many American Indians.

18
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• The very limited evidence available from social
  distance scales suggests that overt anti-Indian
  prejudice has declined.
• The situation of American Indian women is also
  under-researched, but like their counterparts in
  other minority groups and the dominant group,
  they are systematically paid less than their
  male counterparts in similar circumstances
  (Snipp, 1992 p. 363).
• Research is unclear about the severity or extent
  of discrimination against American Indians, but
  institutional discrimination is a major barrier
  for American Indians.

19
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• The huge majority (75) of American Indians in
  the continental U.S. speaks only English but a
  sizeable minority (18) speaks a tribal language
  as well.
• For most of the ten largest tribes, less than 10
  speak their tribal language in addition to
  English.
• In some tribes, however, the picture is
  dramatically different.

20
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• American Indians have been considerably more
  successful than African Americans in preserving
  their traditional cultures, due to the
  differences in their relationships to the
  dominant group.
• However, a number of social forces are working
  against pluralism and the survival of tribal
  cultures.
• Pan-tribalism may threaten the integrity of
  individual tribal cultures.
• Opportunities for jobs, education, and higher
  incomes draw American Indians to more developed
  urban areas and will continue to do so as long as
  the reservations are underdeveloped.

21
Residential Segregation of American Indians
1980-200
22
Educational Attainment 2009
23
School Integration 1993-1994 and 2005-2006
24
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• One positive development for the education of
  American Indians is the rapid increase in
  tribally controlled colleges, over 30 of which
  have been built since the 1960s.
• These institutions are mostly 2-year community
  colleges located on or near reservations, and
  some have been constructed with funds generated
  in the gaming industry.
• They are designed to be more sensitive to the
  educational and cultural needs of the group, and
  tribal college graduates who transfer to 4-year
  colleges are more likely to graduate than other
  American Indian students (Pego, 1998).

25
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• The ability of American Indians to exert power as
  a voting bloc very limited by group size, lower
  average levels of education, language
  differences, lack of economic resources, and
  factional differences within and between tribes
  and reservations.
• The number of American Indians holding elected
  office is minuscule, far less than 1 (Pollard
  OHare, 1999, p. 41).
• In 1992, Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado
  became the first American Indian to be elected to
  the U.S. Senate. He served in Congress until
  2005.

26
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• As in the case of African Americans, the overall
  unemployment rate for all American Indians is
  about double the rate for whites.
• For Indians living on or near reservations,
  however, the rate is much higher
• Unemployment is as high as 70 to 80 on some
  reservations.

27
Median Household Income 2009
28
Distribution of Household Income
29
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• There is considerable variation from tribe to
  tribe but, as a whole, American Indians earn only
  about 75 of the national median income.
• Although the magnitude varies from tribe to
  tribe, about 22 of all American Indians and 27
  of all American Indian children live below the
  poverty line.
• However, levels of poverty has fallen in recent
  decades and poverty tends to be much more
  prevalent in the reservation.

30
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• Rates of intermarriage for American Indians are
  quite high compared with other groups.
• The higher rate of marriage outside the group for
  American Indians is partly the result of the
  small size of the group.
• Marriages with non-Indians are much more common
  in metropolitan areas, away from the
  reservations.
• They are also associated with higher levels of
  education, greater participation in the labor
  force, higher income levels, and lower rates of
  poverty (Snipp, 1989, pp. 160164).

31
Contemporary American Indian-White Relations

• In comparing American Indians with African
  Americans
• The differences in the stereotypes attached to
  the two groups are consistent with the outcomes
  of the contact period.
• Their contact situations were governed by very
  different dynamics and a very different dominant
  group agenda, which shaped subsequent
  relationships with the dominant group and the
  place of the groups in the larger society.
• While African Americans spent much of the 20th
  century struggling for inclusion and equality,
  American Indians were fighting to maintain or
  recover their traditional cultures and social
  structures.

32
Progress and Challenges

• American Indians are growing rapidly in numbers
  and are increasingly diversified by residence,
  education, and degree of assimilation.
• Some tribes have made dramatic progress over the
  past several decades, but enormous problems
  remain, both on and off the reservations.
• The challenge for the future, as it was in the
  past, is to find a course between pluralism and
  assimilation and pan-tribalism and traditional
  lifestyles that will balance the issues of
  quality of life against the importance of
  retaining an Indian identity.