Describes the high cultural level of native American Indian populations at the time of conquest. Illustrates how cultural breakdown and demographic decimation have resulted from systematic policies that focused on exploiting natural resources at the expense of native peoples. (GC)

J.D.C. Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1885-88, asserted, "No unity or community of feeling can be established among different peoples unless they are brought to speak the same language, and thus become imbued with like ideas of duty." Educators at government-operated Native American boarding schools embraced this assumption…

This book provides an overview of the history of Native residential schools in Canada as one facet of the more general history of relations between that country's indigenous and immigrant peoples. It surveys the origins and evolution of residential schooling from the first forays in early 17th-century New France, through the colonial period, to…

This book develops an alternative account of Canada's operation of Indian residential schools and provides recommendations for undoing what has been done. Derived from a report on residential schooling submitted to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in October 1994, the book discusses the language and rhetoric surrounding residential…

This essay provides teachers and others with an awareness of the social and political implications of words used to designate indigenous peoples of North America. How a group is seen by others and how it sees itself in many ways define the conditions under which the group will live, and the options it can exercise to affect these conditions. The…

For many years federal government policy sought to break up Indian communal land holdings, destroy tribal communities, and absorb Indians into the mainstream of American Society. This policy changed dramatically in the 1920's and 30's, and John Collier stands at the forefront of those responsible. Collier questioned the wisdom of a policy which…

This book documents and comments on what is known about the Indian residential school era in Canada. The aftermath of this era has exacted a huge toll, both in the human suffering of First Nations and on Canadian society in general, but understanding the impact of residential schools can aid the healing process. Chapters are: (1) "Examining…

Traces the history of institutionalized violence--both physical and symbolic--within American Indian education; the legacy of shame and guilt from the boarding school era, when oppression was internalized; and the relationship of such "mis-education" to the decline of Tlingit language and culture in southwestern Alaska. Discusses…