Talk:Cultural assimilation of Native Americans

Non-reservation schools
This section needs lots of work, Carlisle Indian School is only one small example. Historically (even currently) there are all kinds of non-reservation boarding schools. There is that hardly obscure Ivy League college which started as an "indian school" around 1770. There are all kinds of what I would call christian missionary schools (as diverse as Roman Catholic and Church of Latter Day Saints), and "do-gooder" projects. All had their own notions on the whys and hows to "educate" children away from their parents or orginal culture.


 * Bennet Law in WI
 * Tomah Indian Industrial School WI
 * The Phoenix Indian School
 * Short personal experiences boarding schools
 * Nance OK boarding school Federal
 * daily schedule and sad picture gallery This site alone lists:
 * Tulalip Indian School, ca. 1912. WA
 * Chemawa Indian School aka Forest Grove, Oregon. 1901.

C**arson/Stewart Indian School Nevada, 1890-1962. Above from a brief search on line. --Rcollman 14:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * St. Mary's Mission School in Omak, Washington. (maybe reservation school)
 * Phoenix Indian School AZ
 * Carlisle Indian School PA
 * More pictures of boarding schools
 * Albuquerque Indian School NM
 * Mission School in Sitka AK
 * Sherman School CA now Indian Cultural Museum
 * Perris Indian School was established in 1892 CA
 * ASU.edu's Boarding School links
 * Santa Fe Indian School, 1890-1918
 * Ft. Lewis Boarding School, Colorado 1891-1911
 * Has Catholic microfilm index of Indian Schools records

To be added
SINCE 1,000 ACRES ARE 4 KM2, the area lost (93 million acres) is 373,000 km2, not 6,100! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.114.93 (talk) 02:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Rather amazingly that more than one year after you noted this mistake nobody had corrected it! I've done so.  Smallchief (talk) 21:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Also to be added:
 * Official relocation programs to get Native Americans off reservations and into cities such as Denver, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and others.
 * Americanization in Native American music (i.e. in 49 songs, which often have lyrics in English). Badagnani 08:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Child adoption policies in the 20th century (until the 1960s) that forcibly took 100,000 Native American children from their birth families into adoption by white European foster parents, in order to "civilize" young Native Americans if they were raised by white Europeans instead of their own tribal customs and traditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.53.48 (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Culture Genocide?
Does this qualify to be culture genocide? Speaker1978 (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not up to editors to decide. If the topic is discussed in valid third-party sources, then it can be introduced, but look for scholarly articles.  Material needs to be better sourced than in this article so far.--Parkwells (talk) 21:46, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Needs narrower focus
This article starts with discussing Americanization of the late 19th and 20th c., but goes back to beginning European contact in both the Americas. I don't think so much history is relevant or useful; it's covered better elsewhere. That is just confusing. You need to keep discussion to the US, as South America and Mexico followed different paths. Editors really need to watch for POV - yes, there were abuses, but sometimes people's intentions were good. This reads more like a polemical essay than encyclopedia entry. It also jumps around too much in time, without always identifying which period it is discussing, mixing up late 20th-21st century material with actions before WWII.--Parkwells (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

ward churchill- convicted plagiariast- should his work be listed for further reading?
please remove ward churchills books from the further reading section. he is a convicted plagiarist and should not be included in Wikipedia as a valid source. It insults the integrity of this encyclopedia. Please refer to the website Inside Higher Ed and also to the report published by his university which found numerous intentional stealing of other people's material, specifically from the book that this article is listing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.254.183.171 (talk) 01:00, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The charges against the discredited Indian rights activist Ward Churchill were rather worse than mere plagiarism - he also made many things up, not least that he was an Indian. See his wikipage Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.116.194 (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Title formatting
Are the parentheses really necessary? I think Americanization of Native Americans would look better. --Магьосник (talk) 00:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I will move the page accordingly. Neelix (talk) 00:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Use of "Americanization"
Is the term really appropriate? It may be that this was the official terminology of the United States government at the time, but I did not see that explained on the page. As Native Americans are indiginous the the United States the term Americanization to refer to changes that were introduced to Native Americans by another group seems misleading. I believe it implies that the person who is being Americanized is foreign and makes it seem as if Native Americans were not living in the Americas. It denotes that Native Americans are somehow less "American". Also I believe this page takes a narrow view of Native Americans and doesn't take into account the differences between tribes and the very diverse relations the tribes had with the United States government, with some tribes being very supportive of certain attempts that are referenced here as "Americanization" and some being very much against it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.210.232 (talk) 05:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Suppression of religion - lack of references - reference cites Canada not US
Reference 43 discusses Canadian (not US) government policies. While this policy may apply to US government actions, the only reference cited which applies to US as opposed to Canadian government action (AIFR) has the opposite effect of the paragraph's thesis -- that the US government attempted to convert Native Americans to Christianity. The paragraph should be deleted, the section headline amended to reflect North American governments, or the paragraph should be referenced appropriately.Gaas99 (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Suppression of religion - Removing peyote example
Deleting a paragraph referencing "Peyote Indians." There is no tribe named "Peyote" nor any tribe that used peyote exclusively. The example does not clearly demonstrate the actual suppression of religious beliefs. Wholesale deletion of paragraphs is something I try to avoid, except in cases of vandalism, etc. Nonetheless, I'm removing the example until someone can cite sources conclusively demonstrating the connection. Srwalden (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

No Proof of Suppression
I should have put a quote of what I was moving and then clearly explain why it does not demonstrate the connection. The proof is simply not present. The text said:"Different traditions continued to cause problems. For instance, the government included peyote among strong drugs that were illegal on the open market because of its hallucinogenic properties and general problems with drug abuse. But, the Peyote Indians traditionally had used peyote cactus as central to their religious rituals and practices, where use took place within orderly structures. It was not until the Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993 was passed that the Peyote Indians could lawfully again use the peyote cactus in their religious celebrations." While S.1021 Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993 and S.2269 Native American Cultural Protection and Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1994 were both introduced in the Senate by Sen. Daniel Inouye, neither bill was passed. Therefore, the last sentence of the quotation was a bald-faced lie. Even if there were such a law, it does not cite a documented suppression of religion by the Federal government in using peyote. If proof can be found, then by all means, add it to the article. Srwalden (talk) 17:15, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

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Anglicisation or "Americanisation"
Given that the Native Americans are the original inhabitants, is it really appropriate to describe the process of cultural subversion cast against them as "Americanisation". The Anglo-Americans, people of English descent, who promoted this policy wanted the Native Americans to dress like Anglo-Americans, speak English, adhere to Protestant sects, be socially engineered in Anglo-American schools. Surely "Anglicisation" is a better word to describe this cultural fowling process? Claíomh Solais (talk) 09:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)