Decentering of Culture in Native American Groups Essay

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Decentering of Culture in Native American Groups in the Later Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

While Westernization has created tremendous problems for a wide variety of indigenous cultural traditions, there is little question that the introduction of Westerners to the Americas resulted in some of the most massive destruction of an indigenous culture ever seen in history. The vast majority of this destruction occurred prior to the 19th century. When Europeans first came to the Americas, they decimated native populations with disease and violence. Later, Native Americans were forced off of their land. The infamous Trail of Tears in which many Native American groups were forced from their traditional lands and onto reservations occurred in the early 19th century. Therefore, by the end of the 19th century, it is fair to say that Native American culture had already been indelibly impacted by the Western expansion. However, it is important to note that Western expansion continued to impact the cultural identity of Native American groups. Moreover, rather than a recentering of culture, as one would imagine would occur in a reservation-system, there was a decentering of cultures, as Native Americans were expected to abandon their native traditions and assimilate to the white, Western world.

Beginning in the late 1850s, many whites began lobbying for the intentional Americanization of Native American tribes. While some Americanization, such as intermarriage had previously occurred due to contact between Native American groups and European-Americans, the general emphasis had been separation between Native Americans and Europeans. However, beginning in the 1850s, many European settlers began to question how Native Americas were being treated and sought to Americanize them. The goal was to teach Native Americans tenets of U.S.

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citizenship, English, "life skills" and Christianity. By 1871, many of these goals had been realized. On December 4, 1971, Ulysses Grant's state of the union address talked about the successful attempts to get Native Americans to accept civilization, along with the threat that failing to become Americanized would result in their extermination (Grant, 1871). This is a decentering, rather than a recentering, because, while Native Americans were expected to assimilate into white society, there were still several barriers to full participation in white society. For example, Native Americans were not considered American citizens and could not fully participate in the American society in which they were being pressured to assimilate.

Moreover, by 1900, "the Native American population in the United States had dwindled to approximately 250,000" (The Library of Congress, 2003). Therefore, Native Americans had in many ways been reduced to a novelty act for the amusement of white Americans. For example, the World's Fair featured several traditional performances by Native American groups, however, this interest in tradition contrasted with the actual treatment of Native Americans during that time (The Library of Congress, 2003). Although asked to perform for white groups, in daily life, Native Americans were being asked to give up traditional means. For example, the irony of asking a group to perform traditional dances when the context of those dances, like open hunts, was being denied to them, was such a complete stripping of culture that it could not be considered a recentering. Instead, by denying Native Americans the context for their culture and asking them to continue to act out….....

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