With their deep tradition of tribal and kinship ties, Native
Americans had lived for centuries with little use for the concept
of an unwanted child. But besieged by reservation life and boarding
school acculturation, many tribes--with the encouragement of
whites--came to accept the need for orphanages.
The first book to focus exclusively on this subject, Marilyn
Holt's study interweaves Indian history, educational history,
family history, and child welfare policy to tell the story of
Indian orphanages within the larger context of the orphan asylum in
America. She relates the history of these orphanages and the
cultural factors that produced and sustained them, shows how
orphans became a part of native experience after Euro-American
contact, and explores the manner in which Indian societies have
addressed the issue of child dependency.
Holt examines in depth a number of orphanages from the 1850s
to1940s--particularly among the "Five Civilized Tribes" in
Oklahoma, as well as among the Seneca in New York and the Ojibway
and Sioux in South Dakota. She shows how such factors as disease,
federal policies during the Civil War, and economic depression
contributed to their establishment and tells how white social
workers and educational reformers helped undermine native culture
by supporting such institutions. She also explains how orphanages
differed from boarding schools by being either tribally supported
or funded by religious groups, and how they fit into social welfare
programs established by federal and state policies.
The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 overturned years of
acculturation policy by allowing Native Americans to finally
reclaim their children, and Holt helps readers to better understand
the importance of that legislation in the wake of one of the more
unfortunate episodes in the clash of white and Indian cultures.
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