Round 'em up!
I am currently reading The Medicine Woman of Galveston by Amanda Skenandore.
Though it is fiction, parts of this book are all too real and chilling. I will publish my rating and the book's description when I finish reading this book, but for now, I would like to focus on a part of United States history portrayed in its pages, and that is the rounding up of children of indigenous peoples, most often without parental consent, and shipping them off to boarding schools to "teach" them. Teach them what? To teach them the ways of white folks, and to forcibly convert them to Christian beliefs. Never mind that these children already had their own framework of community, culture and deep spiritual values. Never mind that these children were already loved and cared for by their families and extended families. Oh no! White folks despaired of children living their lives with different customs and ways, as if the only acceptable way to live was the "white" way.
Christian missionaries of the day referred to indigenous people as "savages." Sound familiar? It should. Colonists and landowners, especially in the South, did exactly the same thing to Black folks, forcing them to work in the fields and homes of wealthy white planters, and buying and selling them like livestock, and in many cases, treating them worse than they treated their livestock. Not only that, Black folks were kidnapped, chained and forced to come to the colonies. They didn't choose it. They too were forced to adopt "white" ways and to exchange their own spirituality for Christianity. So we, as a country, have a long and terrible history of this kind of oppression and enslavement. It's no wonder it took a Civil War to supposedly end the buying and selling of human beings. But even after the Civil War, the rounding up of indigenous people was legal. Oh yes, it was sanctioned by the United States government. Why? What was the purpose? The purpose was so that white folks could take the land indigenous people had occupied for hundreds of years and make it their own.
Some US history books glorify this rounding up as a great gift to indigenous people because they had land and were fed, clothed and housed by the government. What a distortion of the truth, and worse, what a cruel joke on indigenous people. Much of Reservation land is poor in quality, and even today, is not suitable for agriculture. Thankfully, some Tribes have discovered oil and other natural resources on their land that white folks covet, so indigenous people can improve their economic status, but that was not intended or planned by white people, it was a quirk of fate, and in my opinion, a little bit of justice, not nearly enough justice, but a little bitt of reparation for white folks taking land that never belonged to them in the first place.
But, I digressed from the main topic, the forcible rounding up of children of indigenous people and sending them off to boarding schools, often hundreds of miles from their homes and families. How awful this must have been for these children and their families. Taken away, not knowing when they would return, or if they would return at all. Forced to learn English. Forced to dress as white people did. Forced to eat food totally foreign to them. Forced to sleep in beds and buildings not familiar. That is all horrendous, but add to this, not understanding much, if anything, going on around them. They were often forbidden to communicate with one another in their native language, and punishment, if they violated any one of enumerable rules, was often severe, and usually included deprivation of basic human needs. I cannot imagine. Also, many of these youngsters were preyed upon, sexually, by some in authority.
Even worse, the consequences of these actions is still being felt today. We see it in expressions such as "Indian giver" and "Indian time." You know what? If you want a literal application of the phrase "Indian giver," the thought being to give something and than snatch it back, white folks have done and continue to do this. We did this with treaty after treaty broken. We did this by marching indigenous people on to land, and forcing them to move again, if we discovered we could make use of the land they occupied. It is sickening.
Even today, the standard of living for indigenous people on Reservation land is generally lower than elsewhere. Many Reservation schools are not equipped with up-to-date textbooks and other educational tools. I can't speak for all areas of the country, but I live near the Standing Rock Reservation, and my work often took me there. The first time I visited there, I came home totally in tears. Conditions there are often substandard. I visited homes with no running water, homes with broken windows and no central heating. It was appalling. Healthcare also is often substandard, but, of course, it is in much of the United States, and will remain so until such time as we have universal healthcare.
Something else that white people sanction is depriving indigenous people of the right to vote. They are United States citizens, yet, in the state in which I live, many are deprived of the right to vote, due to restrictive voter ID laws. Because Reservation land is predominately rural, homes generally do not have street addresses, and that is what is required by voter ID laws. So many of these folks, through no fault or inaction on their part, are disenfranchised as a blanket policy because they have only a Post Office box as their mailing address. These restrictive voter ID laws are sometimes declared unconstitutional, but proponents of voter disenfranchisement simply change the phrasing of these laws, and the process begins anew. It is a vicious cycle, and appears never ending. Until that is permanently changed, indigenous people continue to be underrepresented in State Legislatures, Congress and elsewhere, leaving white folks empowered and in control.