The stated objective of the national assimilation policy was to "kill the Indian to save the man."
When the treaty-making era came to an
end in the 1870s, the federal government decided to renew an old
approach to solving its ongoing 'Indian problem.' Much
encouraged by the fervor of Methodists and Congregationalist
missionaries, lawmakers in Washington allowed religious groups to
co-opt federal Indian policy with a new policy of 'assimilation.'
This approach was based on the theory that one could
'kill the Indian and save the man,' and by so doing, at long last
assimilate the Indians into mainstream society.
abducted from their parents homes on their reservations, were
brought to the Carlisle Indian School, in Pennsylvania, in hopes of
'killing the Indian to save the man,' the phrase used to explain
the policy of 'assimilation.' Thousands of children died at
these school, or ran away never to be heard from again. The
federal government has never apologized to Native American tribes,
or families, for abducting and incarcerating their children against
their will - a particularly odious form of racisim which is still a
source of deeply held bitterness in Native American tribes.
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But killing the
Indian, even by forcibly sending Indian children to Christian
schools thousands of miles from their families, failed to
accomplish its desired end of assimilation. Nevertheless,
assimilation (Click here for more) would be the
hallmark of federal Indian policy until the Nixon administration
denounced it as barbaric and sponsored the Indian
Self-Determination Act in 1972.