The plot against native America The fateful story of Native American boarding schools and the theft of tribal lands

Bill Vaughn, 1948-

Book - 2024

"Between 1859 and the 1960's missionaries and the U.S. government operated more than five hundred assimilation centers. Their ostensible goal was to solve the "Indian problem" by transforming Indigenous children into English-speaking Christians who could hold down a job or run a farm or manage a household. But as the government finally admitted, the real objective was to steal tribal land. Most of these boys and girls were taken forcibly from their families and sent far away in order to alienate them from their tribes and erase their languages, spirituality, and cultures. Despite the plot against Native America, Indigenous cultures have endured. With inspiring efforts, tribal councils are now building their own bison he...rds, teaching their children indigenous languages, as well as striving to build self-sufficient economies in this new era that is upon us."--Dust jacket.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Pegasus Books 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Bill Vaughn, 1948- (author)
Edition
First Pegasus Books cloth edition
Physical Description
xvii, 236 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781639367467
  • Maps
  • Preface
  • Chapter 1. Childhood's End
  • Chapter 2. The Interpreters
  • Chapter 3. Under the Bird Tail
  • Chapter 4. The World's Wealthiest Nun
  • Chapter 5. The Hostages
  • Chapter 6. Custer Had It Coming
  • Chapter 7. The Lord's Vineyard
  • Chapter 8. The Long Walk
  • Chapter 9. Blackfeet Warrior
  • Chapter 10. The Vanishing Indian and Other Myths
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

How North American schools committed cultural genocide. Vaughn's narrative history charts the growth and impact of Indigenous residential boarding schools in North America, offering insights into their pedagogical rationale, day-to-day operations, and enduring consequences. In illuminating detail, he covers the collaboration between government and church powers in creating the schools as well as their efforts over two centuries to evade responsibility for the myriad abuses that took place across the continent. As Vaughn notes, the sometimes high-minded rhetoric of those who designed and managed these institutions was belied by the more cynical intentions guiding official policies: "Indian boarding and residential schools were used by the government to steal Native land by degrading indigenous cultures and reducing their communal will to resist the plunder." Vaughn's sensitive accounts of those who attended the schools vividly convey the realities of individual suffering and the cultural losses incurred by institutionalized attempts at cultural assimilation. It is now beyond question, he demonstrates in detailed summations of recent historical scholarship, that physical and sexual abuse, along with staggeringly high mortality rates, were common at the schools. Vaughn perceptively delineates the significance of figures such as Richard Henry Pratt, the founder and superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, whose ideas about Indigenous education became hugely influential. The concluding sections emphasize the failure of American and Canadian schools to carry out their ultimate aim: the complete eradication of Indigenous cultures. Vaughn rightly emphasizes the resilience of Indigenous peoples in the face of attempted annihilation: "Although these forces attempted and sometimes succeeded in suppressing Indigenous languages, customs, economies and spirituality, Native people resisted." An informed, astute, and often harrowing account of institutionalized assaults on Indigenous peoples. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.