Colonialism in Native America

The concept of colonialism has made a considerable influence on the indigenous peoples of the Americas. This expansionist idea has allowed for systematic violence to develop, not only removing people from their lands, but leaving a trail of physical and cultural death as it swept through the country that has come to be known as the United States. This “five centuries old dilemma” that began in the beginning of the fifteenth century is still perpetuated in the modern era (Stannard 257).

When Christopher Columbus first made his “discovery” of the New World, the popular idea was that the Native inhabitants were savages, whose God-prescribed role according to Spanish scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlvida was “to be placed under the authority of civilized and virtuous princes or nations, so that they may learn, from the might, wisdom, and law of their conquerors, to practice better morals, worthier customs and a more civilized way of life” (Stannard 64). This more civilized life included giving up their lands for European use, which was a task accomplished by Columbus: “and of them all [the lands] I have taken possession for Their Highnesses, by proclamation and with the royal standard displayed, and nobody objected” (Stannard 65). There was great opportunity for the Europeans when “nobody objected”. Columbus knew that “the people of these lands do not understand me nor I them” (Stannard 65), and he took advantage of this by reciting the Requerimiento. This doctrine blatantly laid out that if the Native Americans did not acknowledge the Church as their ruler, their country and goods would be taken, wives and children would be made slaves, and they would wage war against them; all of which would be the fault of the Natives for not objecting (Washburn7-8).

Stannard has made the modern comparison the choice to “surrender all hope of continued cultural integrity and effectively cease to exist as autonomous peoples, or endure as independent peoples the torment and deprivation we select as your fate” (Stannard 258). An example of this more modern colonialism can be found in the boarding school institutions. These establishments were designed to “Kill the Indian…save the man,” as dictated by the first school’s founder Richard Pratt (Hoerig 642). The schools were exceptionally detrimental to the psychology of Native Americans. Children were transported far from their families, and forced to live in cramped housing, which promoted the spread of disease (Hoerig 642). The schools were unnecessarily strict with pressures of assimilation, and children were often punished for speaking their native language (Pommersheim 21). This brought about a confusion of identity as explained by Harry Saslow, a clinical psychologist of the Albuquerque Boarding School: “…His education deprives him of an understanding of his own culture so that he has no comprehension of a tradition which might sustain him as an alternative. He is caught between two cultures and knows not enough about either” (Washburn 221). This confusion of culture is a form of ethno-stress that has been transmitted through generations in a cybernetic fashion, which has spread from individuals who attended boarding schools through their descendants exponentially. Elise Allen, a Pomo Indian wrote of her boarding school experience: “They took me and strapped the heck out of me with a big leather strap... it was for talking the Indian language on the grounds which I’m not supposed to do… I’ll never teach my children the language or other Indian things I know…I don’t want my children to be treated like they treated me…I was the only one who had my language” (Margolin 182).

Margolin, Malcolm. The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs & Reminiscences. Berkeley, Ca. Heyday, 1993.

Pommersheim, Frank. Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 

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Stannard, David. American Holocaust:The Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1992. 

Washburn, Wilcomb. Red Man's Land/White Man's Law. 2nd. University Of Oklahoma Press, 1995.