Native History of Dispossession
The history of Native Nations in North America is one of displacement and dispossession. Early European contact with North America introduced diseases that wiped out many entire communities in eastern North America. Early Spanish colonization for the purposes of exporting natural resources entailed slavery, violence, and subjugation. Some areas of the very early British colonial period in continental North America actually experienced reciprocal and respectful relationships, but as settlement increased and the need for land also increased, Native peoples in the East were systematically displaced and relocated to reservations in the West. As the newly formed U.S. moved ever westward, more Native peoples were encountered and their lands were reduced to smaller and smaller areas.
In addition to experiencing dispossession of land, Native peoples also endured centuries of official policies aimed at dispossessing them of their languages and cultures. The U.S. government’s official position from the late 19th through late 20th century was to encourage assimilation. This was accomplished through policies including forced attendance at boarding schools where youths were removed from home and community, trained in domestic arts and farming, and often punished for speaking their languages, sterilization (often without knowledge or consent), and relocation to urban areas. In the 1950s, the U.S. government attempted to terminate the sovereign political status of Native Nations to reduce their responsibility to provide educational and health services, as established under the Marshall Trilogy and the Trust Responsibility.
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first government-run, off-reservation boarding school for Native Americans in the U.S. With the goal to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into white American culture, Carlisle opened in Pennsylvania in 1879 and was run out of Army barracks that were transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Past, 2020).
Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt led the effort to create an off-reservation boarding school based on his military experience and ‘philosophy’: “Kill the Indian, save the man” (Past, 2020). The school was presented as an opportunity for Native children to learn English, however students were used as a way to ‘encourage’ Tribal Nations to ‘behave’ and work with the U.S. government. At Carlisle and other boarding schools, students were abused and stripped of their cultural connections. They were forced to cut their hair, forced to stop speaking their languages, forced to convert to Christianity, given christian names, and endured corporal punishment and solitary confinement if they didn’t adhere (Past, 2020). Hundreds of children died at Carlisle due to the abuse, harsh conditions, and disease. Many were returned to their families, however over 150 children are still buried on the site of the Carlisle site to this day. The process of repatriation has been ongoing since 2016, and several repatriations have occurred since then (Carlisle Repatriation, n.d.).
From 1819-1969 the U.S. ran and/or supported boarding schools (Newland, 2022). Many more were run/supported by churches. Carlisle was the model for government-run boarding schools. The boarding school era was detrimental to many Native peoples, their cultures, languages and knowledges. The lasting effects of these policies and attempts to forcibly assimilate and eradicate Native peoples still impacts Tribal Nations and their citizens today. Native peoples deal with intergenerational trauma related to the collective emotional and psychological trauma of their relatives and peoples throughout the history of genocide, and including the boarding school era (Newland, 2022). In 2022, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a report on Federal boarding schools with the goal of acknowledging the experiences of Native peoples and cataloging the institutions.
Brief Timeline of Federal U.S. Policies Aimed at Dispossessing Native Americans
| 1778 -1871 | Treaty Era | U.S. government made treaties with Native Nations as sovereign |
| 1819 | Indian Civilization Act Fund | Authorized spending $10K/yr to improve Natives’ “habits”; paved way for boarding schools |
| 1823 | Johnson v. M’Intosh | Supreme Court Decisions ruled only the ‘discovering’ Nation could sell lands, not Native peoples. Established the ‘doctrine of discovery |
| 1830 | Indian Removal Act | Authorized Jackson to trade ‘unsettled lands’ in West for Native lands within Mississippi. |
| 1863, 1868 | Fort Bridger Treaty | Established boundaries of Wind River to create railway route; Established Fort Hall boundaries for Shoshone-Bannock Tribes |
| 1869 | Peace Policy | Replaced Indian agents who oversaw reservations with Christian missionaries |
| 1879 | Carlisle Indian School founded | Founded in old Army base |
| 1887 | Allotment Act | Broke up reservation lands held in trust so they could be sold individually |
| 1907 | Lemhi-Shoshoni stripped of recognition | |
| 1924 | Indian Citizenship Act | Granted citizenship, but not automatic suffrage, to Natives |
| 1928 | Meriam Report | Documented Native Boarding School conditions |
| 1934 | Indian Reorganization Act | Meant to end Native assimilation policies, short lived |
| 1945 | Indian Claims Commission Act | Intended to end “Indian-identity” |
| 1953 | Public Law 280 | Gave state governments jurisdiction over reservations (in violation of U.S. Constitution) |
| 1956 | Indian Relocation Act | Relocated over 750,000 Natives to cities in support of assimilation |
| 1970 | Family Planning Services and Population Research Act | Funded research that condoned sterilization of Native women receiving Medicaid or Indian Health Service treatment |
| 1978 | Indian Child Welfare Act | Reversed ‘adopting out’ of community norms and gave Native parents the right to refuse boarding school placement |
The result of these laws and policies as a whole was the systematic dispossession of Native Americans of their land bases and, for many, their languages, cultures, and identities (Tsosie-Paddock 2018).
This video dramatically shows the land loss experienced by Native Americans due to U.S. Policies from the founding of the country to 2010.
Video Description: Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America’s Indigenous peoples by treaty and executive order. The Invasion of America video shows this by mapping every treaty and executive order during that period. It concludes with a map of present-day federal Indian reservations. The video dramatically shows the decrease in Native lands. By 2020, the Acres seized totaled 1,510,677,343. Please visit the interactive map at https://invasionofamerica.ehistory.org/