Chapter 2: Self-Determination Versus Settler Colonial Assimilationist Policies in Indian Education

The pervasiveness of ethnocentrism and racism in the United States permeates settler colonial policies that forced many American Indians from their homelands (Anderson, 2014). As this ethnic cleansing became a less viable policy as lands west of the Mississippi filled with immigrants, the government switched in 1879 to a policy of allotment of Indian lands that further reduced their land holdings and was accompanied with a policy of providing Indian youth with an industrial/vocational training designed to teach them how to survive on the small allotments of land left for them (Reyhner, 2016). The ethnocentrism and racism embodied in these policies can be found in seminal American documents, including the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Despite its list of “unalienable Rights” that “included Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (“Declaration of Independence,” para. 2), it went on to demonize indigenous people as “merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions” (“Declaration of Independence,” para. 2). After the American Revolution, the new U.S. government set about undermining indigenous lives, liberty, and happiness by expropriating Indian lands.