American history is not as long as the history of many other civilizations. However, it has its special issues: one of them is racism and its terrible diversity in the United States, almost from its very foundation. The most ancient and cruel direction of racism on the part of the Americans can be considered the oppression of the Indian peoples who lived on the continent before the colonists from Europe. In the centuries of inhuman destruction of the indigenous people of the New World, the Americans drove them to the reservations. Nevertheless, even there, they did not give the long-suffering people a quiet life.
In the 19th century, Indian boarding schools became widespread in the United States. Christian missionaries tried to brutally and violently assimilate Indian children—starting by taking away jewelry, and tribal attributes and forcing the making of haircuts in European style in children and ending with their renaming into Christian Western style. Investigations, most of which took place at the end of the 20th century, have identified numerous cases of sexual, physical, and mental abuse of children in these schools that caused severe harm to their health and wellbeing.
Indian boarding schools and the “stolen generation” phenomenon prevalent in the former English colonies are the clearest examples of racism. Many children were taken from their families in America, Australia, and Africa and sent to foster families or boarding schools. This was done with the aim of further assimilation of youth into the European environment. The very essence of this phenomenon comes from racism, from its extreme side.
Cultural assimilation and racial supremacism are related concepts, a system of oppression and destruction by Europeans of peoples and cultures considered barbaric and indigenous. Native American boarding schools in the United States resulted in broken health among physically abused children and permanently crippled the psyche of sexually abused children. The result of violence, as a rule, only becomes more violent, and many children subjected to violence by whites in boarding schools later resorted to it themselves.
Several authors comment on the boarding schools’ historical development rather negatively. There is an opinion that this was a highly destructive state of affairs expressed, for example, in English only policy of these schools (Reyhner). In turn, Renick from The Imprint affirms, “The government-sanctioned removals were a wound for Native families and tribes that would be torn raw with each new generation” (Renick, par. 6).
There are three reasons why these programs harmed people. The first argument is that indigenous tribes are being subjected to long-term and aggressive suppression and oppression by white Americans. The second is that the oppression results in beatings and rape and thousands of broken lives. The third reason comes from the first two: generations subjected to oppression, aggression, and violence are largely marginalized and become only more alienated from society.
The long-term oppression of the indigenous people of the continent where the United States is now located is historical. It all began with the first colonists who arrived in North America: blankets with smallpox donated to the natives, then constant extermination while expanding the colonists’ possessions, and later the policies of the United States. Then there was the actual genocide, with the practical destruction of bison, the main food base for many tribes, and the massive resettlement of Indians on the reservation. These events were just the beginning of further intensifying violence against the affected people (Renick). Later, the whites began to take away, beat, teach and rape the children of the Indians.
The oppression shown by whites towards Indians began with religious statements that Indians were animals without a soul and that they were barbarians or pagans in later centuries. In its coarse ignorance and outrageous racism, such a terrible attitude leads only to physical, sexual, and cultural violence. Replacing the Indian culture with the culture of whites, an attempt to force the indigenous people to assimilate and forget their culture and faith, is only a continuation of the racist policy of causing harm to the already affected people (Renick). Thousands and millions of severe destinies across the continent on behalf of foreigners from overseas continue in modern times in boarding schools, where children are raped, beaten, and forced to hate their people and relatives.
The mentioned above information leads to the fact that all the peoples that suffered from the European invaders suffered only more from decade to decade. The pressure intensifies, as does oppression, and with it comes increased marginalization, violence, and crime, which only further alienates Indians from their tribal culture. Thus, the boarding schools that still exist for the Indians are the effect, cause, and reflection of all the most terrible things the whites have done to the Indian people.
They try to destroy the other nation just as before and select young people, distancing them from their relatives, and forcing them to forget about their roots. It has inflicted pain and suffering on generations of modern time, made up of those beaten, oppressed, and subjected to pressure and sexual abuse (Renick). People are alienated from family and tribal culture without someone who can give them peace and understanding of their past and future.
It is believed that such a policy helps Indians integrate into society and have access to education and public and civilizational benefits of American culture. However, I absolutely cannot agree with such a statement, and there is an important reason for that. It consists in the fact that such a view, perhaps even a sincere desire of people with a similar intention to help the indigenous people of the continent that their ancestors captured, brings only harm.
The very idea that all peoples with whom white people contact need their Western civilization and institutions is highly racist. People do not realize that if the cost of civilization is the suffering of thousands of people and the rape and beating of kidnapped children, then many other than whites do not need this civilization. Most want to keep their traditions, raise children, create families, and live in peace and tranquility. In turn, the supporters of integration are talking about the assimilation and destruction of many original cultures of the continent for the sake of the values of one people. I consider this naive racism of white Americans to be politically incorrect and no less terrible than the deliberate and brutal racism of the past invaders.
Summing up, it must be said that the problem of orphanages for Indian children has existed for almost two hundred years, and its essence lies in the separation of families and violence against children by native people by the invaders. There is oppression and destruction of Indians and their culture, which originates in the distant past, with the appearance of Europeans on the American continent. It is accompanied by rape, beatings, and the destruction of the tribal identity of Indian youth, their cultural heritage, and traditions. The consequence of this is broken lives, aggression, and the lack of a distinctive culture for the self-awareness of adolescents.
Despite the opinion about the benefits of such measures, when looking at the general historical interaction between native Americans, even this term is a continuation of the assimilation of peoples living in their native land by the invaders. I believe that in the future, we will be able to find an opportunity for dialogue and mutual understanding, ending centuries of struggle and destruction and coming to redemption and prosperity.
Works Cited
Renick, Christie. “The Nation’s First Family Separation Policy.” The Imprint, 2018. Web.
Reyhner, Jon. Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a New Century. Northern Arizona University, 2018.