Legal scholar Raphael Lemkin first coined the term “genocide” in his 1944 book, from the ancient Greeks. It originally meant “extermination of a nation or ethnic group”. In 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized genocide as a crime under international law. This states that genocide is the denial of the existence of entire groups of people, just as murder is the denial of justice. According to historical records and media, since its inception, the United States has systematically deprived indigenous people of their right to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through murder, assimilation, and relocation. The agonizing catastrophe of indigenous cultures should never be forgotten and instead be a historical …show more content…
These policies were often implemented with the intention of erasing indigenous cultures, languages, and traditions. Many indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities and placed in boarding schools, where they were forbidden from speaking their native languages and practicing their cultural traditions. This resulted in the loss of their cultural identity. Intergenerational trauma and a disconnection from their ancestral heritage. The long-term effects on indigenous communities of boarding schools and forced assimilation continue to impact generations. The policies have contributed to the loss of indigenous language, practices, and traditional knowledge. These traumatic experiences have disrupted cultural values and teachings. Additionally, the forced assimilation has created a sense of disconnection from ancestral lands and …show more content…
In fact, many reservations live below the poverty line, and some reservations don’t even have access to clean water or electricity. The life expectancy for most native Americans averages 50 years old or even younger in some reservations. Although the reservation system allowed indigenous people to govern themselves, it was not easy. They destroyed it by implementing the Dawes Act of 1887. This divided tribal land into subdivisions and made the land. Moreover, the food relief program that the federal government set up was mostly processed and sugary foods. Although it was meant to help, the average diabetes rate is eight times higher than the national average. Poor economic status and a declining population are leading younger people towards gang activity in search of kinship and identity. This enhances violence and criminal activity, which leads to further destruction on the reservation. Alcoholism and drug abuse are common occurrences on most reservations due to fighting, living situations, and unemployment. The U.S. government has also been known for using reservations as nuclear waste dumps, giving people long-term exposure to uranium and other radioactive materials. As a result, cancer has been at an all-time high, with fatality rates higher than in most parts of the country. Therefore, many incidents caused by the government or people have affected indigenous communities. Health
This again shows the traumatic effects of residential schools and of cultural, psychological, and emotional upheaval caused by the intolerance and mistreatment of Aboriginals in Canada. Settlers not only displaced Aboriginal people from their land and their homes, but they also experienced emotional trauma and cultural displacement.
They could not speak their native languages, in addition, they could not communicate with their parents. Joanna Rice describes that these "schools were designed and operated by the church and state with the purpose of destroying Native cultures(Rice 1)". This loss of culture affects core beliefs and values, These beliefs and values are important as it dictates how moral behavior is passed on from generation to generation. It is no wonder that "every Aboriginal community in Canada today is affected by the experience of residential schooling (Rice
Across North America, the scattering of Aboriginal children contributed to damaged identifications with traditional First Nations culture (Alston-O’Connor 2010). Consequently, the Sixties Scoop caused irreversible psychological, emotional and spiritual damage to not only the individual, but to the families and the community too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government began abolishing the compulsory residential school education among Aboriginal people. The government believed that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were integrated into the public school system (Hanson). However, residential schools were later deemed inappropriate because not only were the children taken away from their culture, their families and their people, but the majority of students were abused and neglected....
The Indian Boarding School Experience sanctioned by the U.S government decultralized Native Americans through Anglo Conformity which has led to a cultural smudging of the Native American mores generations later, disrupting centuries of cultural constructions and the norms and values of the Native American people.
The word “genocide” is a general term. It is vague and could be used to group together and refer to a number of very unique events in history. Defined as the systematic murder of a specific group of people, genocides have occurred since ancient times. America’s most famous genocide, and the longest genocide in history, was the Native American Genocide. Considered to have begun the day the Mayflower hit the shore of Massachusetts, and ended in 1924 when the Indian Citizenship Act was past, the Native American Genocide lasted for over four centuries. In the 15th century, over 10 million Native Americans lived on the land that is part of the modern day United States. By 1900, that number was a mere 300,000. Most Americans, however, hardly know
2. Compare and contrast the segregation and assimilation policies in relation to the impact they had on the Aboriginal family life.
In the 1870s, the U.S. government enacted a policy of assimilation of Native Americans, to Americanize them. Their goal was to turn them into white men. Schools were an important part of facilitating their goal. In 1879, Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School. It was the first school in which Native American children were culturally exposed to American ideology. The idea for the boarding school first came through treatment of Cheyenne warriors. In the 1860s, Americans were in the midst of a major western migration. Settlers were moving into the western region, pushing natives off lands, and in some cases, killing livestock. Warriors then took revenge on settlers and soldiers. General Sherman called for “the extermination of the natives.” Groups of warriors were captured, arrested, and charged without a trial.
In the late 1800s, the United States proposed an educational experiment that the government hoped would change the traditions and customs of Native Americans. Special schools were created all over the United States with the intention of "civilizing" Native youth. This paper will explore the history and conditions of Native American boarding schools and why they were ultimately unsuccessful.
American Indians have had health disparities as result of unmet needs and historical traumatic experiences that have lasted over 500 hundred years.1(p99) Since first contact American Indians have been exposed to infectious disease and death2(p19), more importantly, a legacy of genocide, legislated forcible removal, reservation, termination, allotment, and assimilation3. This catastrophic history had led to generational historical traumas and contributes to the worst health in the United States.2 American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) represent 0.9 percent of the United States population4(p3) or 1.9 million AI/AN of 566 federally recognized tribes/nations.5 American Indians/Alaska Natives have significantly higher mortality rates of intentional and unintentional injuries, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease than other American.6
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
The Canadian and American governments designed a residential school system to assimilate Indigenous children into Western society by stripping them of their language, cultural practices as well as their traditions. By breaking these children’s ties to their families and communities, as well as forcing them to assimilate into Western society; residential schools were a root cause of many social problems, which even persist within Aboriginal communities today.
The creation of the Residential Schools is now looked upon to be a regretful part of Canada’s past. The objective: to assimilate and to isolate First Nations and Aboriginal children so that they could be educated and integrated into Canadian society. However, under the image of morality, present day society views this assimilation as a deliberate form of cultural genocide. From the first school built in 1830 to the last one closed in 1996, Residential Schools were mandatory for First Nations or Aboriginal children and it was illegal for such children to attend any other educational institution. If there was any disobedience on the part of the parents, there would be monetary fines or in the worst case scenario, trouble with Indian Affairs.
Many people today know the story of the Indians that were native to this land, before “white men” came to live on this continent. Few people may know that white men pushed them to the west while many immigrants took over the east and moved westward. White men made “reservations” that were basically land that Indians were promised they could live on and run. What many Americans don’t know is what the Indians struggled though and continue to struggle through on the reservations.
In an effort to Christianize and Americanize Native Americans boarding schools were created. Reformist hoped that by sending Native American children to these schools they would turn them into citizens that society would accept. The schools were intended to teach children to speak English, dress and wear their hair like Americans, convert them into Christian and to think like Americans. However, children that were sent away for many years would come home to only be complete strangers around their families (Townsend, 375). There were several critics during this time that made an impact on society regarding their views about boarding schools.
The development of cultural genocide, and its definition, within international law can be seen from its origin, Raphael Lemkin, to the subsequent debate by the United Nations’ Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide, to its omission from the Genocide Convention, and now to its reintroduction in the international arena by Indigenous peoples’ mobilization. Furthermore, the various components in the United Nations’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNGC), specifically article 2, have many particulars that work against addressing ‘cultural’ genocide, which results in the inability to appropriately and legally acknowledge the brutalities inflicted upon groups, which do not fit in the restrictive category of ‘physical' genocide