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Native American Assimilation
This image was taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston, a female photographer who documented images of Native Americans and African Americans among other subjects around the turn of the 20th century. The image seems to convey a sense of normalcy, ease, and leisure to the audience. The students seem well dressed and kept, the grounds of the school seem well ordered and peaceful. This image strikes me as aspirational in tone. Though a women, and therefore part of a subjugated class herself at the time, Johnston was also white. The problem with this topic is that it is very difficult to get first hand native accounts. We do know that while some schools like Carlisle were held up up as exemplary, many such schools had squalid conditions
Follow up: Frances Benjamin Johnston's thematic concerns
-Chief Bacon Rind Removed OIl over oil and gas lease
Summary
The Merriam Report was commissioned by the Institute for Government Research and was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. It's purpose was ostensibly to 'check in' on the efficacy of oversight and management, specifically as it related to the Dawes Act, of the US Government for Native American peoples. The report was thorough (847 pages), reflective of the bigoted and myopic Western world view, and at the same time honest and accurate. It noted, among other things, that the impoverished state of the American Indian was in large part due to policy failures, subjugation, and disenfranchisement. The following passage notes this, and also captures the assumptions that many white people held about Native Americans and the natural world at the time - chiefly that maximum exploitation of a piece of land was it's highest and best use.
"In justice to the Indians it should be said that many of them are living on lands from which a trained and experienced white man could scarcely wrest a reasonable living. In some instances the land orginally set apart for the Indians was of little value for agricultural operations other than grazing. In other instances part of the land was excellent but the Indians did not appreciate its value."
-In many respects I find the language of the report to be the most interesting aspect of it. It is, on the one hand, factual, detached, objective, and honest. On the other hand, these elements are interwoven into a narrative that creates an emotional resonance with the subjects of the study.
- I also found a brief passage on pg. 16 of the study to be quite compelling. Merriam notes, "Much of the best word done by the Indian Service has been in the protection and conservation of Indian property, yet this program has emphasized the property, and not the Indian." In many ways, this seems to get at the heart of what might the single, intrinsic flaw to the United States: chiefly that we have an outlook and a system of laws that are designed to protect property and capital first, and people second.
After a prolonged campaign of subjugation and eradication, what remained of the Indigenous tribes had to be 'dealt' with in a long term capacity. The US Government, through several documents and acts, essentially saw the natives as 'wards' of the state. This point of view guided much of their interactions with the various tribes beginning in the late 1800s to the present. It also allowed them to treat the disparate groups as a single, conquered entity.
"We Are Still Here" Photo Essay
https://www.globalonenessproject.org/library/photo-essays/we-are-still-here#sm=slideshow.slideshow&photo=13
This photo essay captures a range of portraits of native americans from various tribes.
This primary source is compelling in that it shows a modern perspective on native american and reservation life that feels more complete than many of the others I've come across. Many other photo essays focus on what some have called 'reservation porn', and only really highlight the drugs, the violence, the gangs, and the poverty. While these are certainly powerful and terrible forces (rates of diabetes are 800% higher on some reservations than national averages), there is also good work being done by individuals and organizations alike.