The 10 chapters cover: the nature of Indian policy; the Indian and the European; treaties and Indian trade; tribal removal and concentration westward; reservations for Indian tribes; allotments to individual Indians; tribal reorganization; Indian relocation and tribal termination; Indian policy and American life in the 1960's; self determination through Indian leadership, 1968 to 1972; and Indian policy goals for the early 1970's. The bibliography includes general reference works, unpublished materials, government documents, BIA publications, books, newspapers, and periodical literature. The appendix gives dates significant in the development of Indian policy and administrators of U.S. Federal Indian policy from 1789 to the present. (KM).

Offers eleven essays on federal Indian policy.

In this book a distinguished authority in the field presents an account of United States Indian policy in the years 1865 to 1900, one of the most critical periods in Indian-white relations. Francis Paul Prucha discusses in detail the major developments of those years—Grant's Peace Policy, the reservation system, the agitation for transfer of Indian affairs to military control, the General Allotment Act (the Dawes Act), Indian citizenship, Indian education, Civil Service reform of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the dissolution of the Indian nations of the Indian Territory. American Indian Policy in Crisis focuses on the Christian humanitarians and philanthropists who were the ultimate driving force in the "reform" of Indian affairs. The programs of these men and women to individualize and Americanize the Indians and turn them into patriotic American citizens indistinguishable from their white neighbors are examined at length. The story is not a pretty one, for reformers' changes were often disastrous for the Indians, and yet it is a tremendously important work for understanding the Indians’ situation and their place in American society today. Prucha does not treat Indian policy in isolation but relates it to the dominant cultural and intellectual currents of the age. This book furnishes a view of the evangelical Christian influence on American policy and the reforming spirit it engendered, both of which have a significance extending beyond Indian policy alone. Thorough documentation and an excellent bibliography enhance its value.

In 1906 when the Creek Indian Chitto Harjo was protesting the United States government's liquidation of his tribe's lands, he began his argument with an account of Indian history from the time of Columbus, "for, of course, a thing has to have a root before it can grow." Yet even today most intelligent non-Indian Americans have little knowledge of Indian history and affairs those lessons have not taken root. This book is an in-depth historical survey of the Indians of the United States, including the Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska, which isolates and analyzes the problems which have beset these people since their first contacts with Europeans. Only in the light of this knowledge, the author points out, can an intelligent Indian policy be formulated. In the book are described the first meetings of Indians with explorers, the dispossession of the Indians by colonial expansion, their involvement in imperial rivalries, their beginning relations with the new American republic, and the ensuing century of war and encroachment. The most recent aspects of government Indian policy are also detailed the good and bad administrative practices and measures to which the Indians have been subjected and their present situation. Miss Debo's style is objective, and throughout the book the distinct social environment of the Indians is emphasized—an environment that is foreign to the experience of most white men. Through ignorance of that culture and life style the results of non-Indian policy toward Indians have been centuries of blundering and tragedy. In response to Indian history, an enlightened policy must be formulated: protection of Indian land, vocational and educational training, voluntary relocation, encouragement of tribal organization, recognition of Indians' social groupings, and reliance on Indians' abilities to direct their own lives. The result of this new policy would be a chance for Indians to live now, whether on their own land or as adjusted members of white society. Indian history is usually highly specialized and is never recorded in books of general history. This book unifies the many specialized volumes which have been written about their history and culture. It has been written not only for persons who work with Indians or for students of Indian culture, but for all Americans of good will.

Ten original essays focus on the rise, change, and persistence of the Native American reservation system. Contributors drawn from history, anthropology, sociology, and political science offer divergent points of view buttressed by historical and ethnographic case studies. Together, these articles suggest that the time has come—or is long overdue—to rethink the basic assumptions underlying Federal Indian policy. CONTENTS Introduction, George Pierre Castile & Robert L. Bee Part I—Historical Foundations of the Reservation System An Elusive Institution: The Meanings of Indian Reservations in Gold Rush California, John M. Findlay Crow Leadership Amidst Reservation Oppression, Frederick E. Hoxie Part II—The Nonreservation Experience Utah Indians and the Homestead Laws, Martha C. Knack The Enduring Reservations of Oklahoma, John H. Moore Without Reservation: Federal Indian Policy and the Landless Tribes of Washington, Frank W. Porter, III Part III—Power and Symbols Riding the Paper Tiger, Robert L. Bee Indian Sign: Hegemony and Symbolism in Federal Indian Policy, George P. Castile Part IV—The Resource Base Primitive Accumulation, Reservations, and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Lawrence Weiss & David C.Maas Shortcomings of the Indian Self-Determination Policy, George S. Esber, Jr. Getting to Yes in the New West: The Negotiation of Policy, Thomas R. McGuire

The Jacksonian period has long been recognized as a watershed era in American Indian policy. Ronald N. Satz’s American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era uses the perspectives of both ethnohistory and public administration to analyze the formulation, execution, and results of government policies of the 1830s and 1840s. In doing so, he examines the differences between the rhetoric and the realities of those policies and furnishes a much-needed corrective to many simplistic stereo-types about Jacksonian Indian policy.