How the US stole thousands of Native American children

Summary

The video script recounts the painful history of Native American children's forced assimilation through boarding schools and adoptions, aiming to eradicate their cultural identity. It details the U.S. government's brutal tactics, including the Indian Adoption Project, which tore families apart and led to abuse and neglect. Despite the Indian Child Welfare Act's efforts to protect Native children, the legacy of separation persists, with ICWA facing legal challenges that threaten the very existence of Native communities.

Takeaways

• 👩‍👦 I was adopted by a white missionary couple and placed for adoption immediately, spending 18 years in foster care with a white family.
• 💔 My parents loved us but believed they were saving us from ourselves, taking us from our Native American heritage.
• 🏠 Thousands of Native American children were forcibly taken from their homes by the US government as a way to eradicate Native American culture.
• 💔 The US has a long history of attempting to eradicate Native Americans through colonization, murder, and forced relocation.
• 🏫 Richard Henry Pratt's experiment in 1879 led to the creation of the first off-reservation boarding school for Native American children, aiming to assimilate them.
• ✂️ Children in these schools were stripped of their traditional clothing, had their hair cut, given new names, and forbidden from speaking their Native languages.
• 😔 These boarding schools were sites of mental, physical, and sexual abuse, forced labor, neglect, starvation, and death.
• 📸 Pratt used propaganda to show that his assimilation experiment was working, leading to the creation of over 350 similar boarding schools by 1925.
• 👶 Adoption became the new method of assimilation in the 1960s, with many Native American children placed in white homes, often taken from families that wanted to keep them.
• 🛡 The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed to protect Native American children and their families, requiring efforts to keep children within their communities.

Q & A

What was the primary motivation behind the adoption of Native American children by white families?

The primary motivation was to assimilate Native American children into Western society, erasing their cultural identities and continuing the legacy of colonization and eradication of Native American culture.

How did the US government's approach to Native American assimilation evolve from colonization to boarding schools?

After centuries of colonization, murder, and forced relocation, the US government shifted to a policy of 'absorption' and 'assimilation', starting with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which aimed to 'kill the Indian and save the man' through forced education and cultural erasure.

What was the motto of Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the first off-reservation boarding school for Native American children?

Richard Henry Pratt's motto was 'kill the Indian and save the man', reflecting the school's aim to eradicate Native American identities and assimilate the children into white society.

What were some of the practices at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School that contributed to the assimilation of Native American children?

The school stripped children of their traditional clothing, cut their hair short, gave them new names, and forbade them from speaking their Native languages, all in an effort to erase their cultural identities.

How did the boarding school system impact the Native American population and their connection to their lands?

The boarding school system led to the disconnection of Native American children from their lands by stripping them of their cultural identities, which in turn facilitated the US government's strategy to infringe on tribal lands.

What were some of the abuses that occurred in the boarding schools, as mentioned in the script?

There were accounts of mental, physical, and sexual abuse, forced manual labor, neglect, starvation, and death in the boarding schools.

How did the Indian Adoption Project differ from the boarding school system in its approach to assimilation?

The Indian Adoption Project aimed to place Native American children in primarily non-Indian adoptive homes, continuing the assimilation tactics but in a more direct and personal manner, and it was also more cost-effective for the government.

What was the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and why was it enacted?

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was enacted to address the high rates of Native American children being removed from their families and placed in non-Native homes. It aimed to keep Native American children within their extended families or other Native American families if removal was necessary.

Why has the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) been under attack and by whom?

ICWA has been under attack by white adoptive families and conservative organizations who argue that the act's preferences for Native American families are unconstitutional and racially discriminatory.

What is the significance of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) for Native American communities today?

ICWA is significant as it provides legal protection for Native American children in foster care situations, helping to prevent unnecessary removals and ensuring that tribal connections are maintained.

How does the legacy of family separation in Native American communities continue to impact them today?

The legacy of family separation has resulted in Native American children being four times more likely to be placed in foster care than white children, even when their families have similar issues, indicating ongoing systemic biases and challenges.

Outlines

00:00

🏠 Native American Assimilation and Boarding Schools

This paragraph discusses the history of Native American children being forcibly assimilated into Western society through boarding schools, which aimed to eradicate their cultural identity. It details the government's role in removing children from their families and tribes, the establishment of off-reservation boarding schools like Carlisle, and the harsh conditions they endured, including cultural erasure, abuse, and neglect. The narrative also touches on the broader context of colonization and land dispossession, as well as the resistance and resilience of Native Americans.

05:02

📚 Impact of Assimilation on Native American Families

The second paragraph delves into the personal and communal effects of the boarding school era and the subsequent adoption project. It describes the struggle of Native American children to preserve their languages and cultures, the government's strategy to disconnect them from their lands, and the significant loss of tribal lands. The paragraph also highlights the intentional erasure of these events from history, the comparison with similar tactics in other countries, and the eventual acknowledgment and closure of boarding schools, leading to the rise of indigenous activism and the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

10:12

👶 The Indian Adoption Project and Its Aftermath

This paragraph focuses on the Indian Adoption Project, which continued the government's efforts to assimilate Native American children by placing them in non-Indian homes. It reveals the coercive tactics used to remove children from their families, the false narratives propagated to justify adoptions, and the emotional and psychological trauma experienced by the adoptees. The summary also addresses the ongoing challenges faced by Native American children in the foster care system, the importance of ICWA, and the threats to its existence, emphasizing the ongoing struggle for Native American identity and family preservation.

Keywords

💡Adoption

Adoption in this context refers to the process by which a child is taken into a family other than their own, often through legal means. In the video's theme, it is depicted as a tool of assimilation and cultural erasure, where Native American children were removed from their families and communities, and placed into predominantly white families. The script mentions, 'They claimed it was to promote the adoption of the 'forgotten child' but it was essentially, a continuation of the boarding school assimilation tactics.'

💡Assimilation

Assimilation is the process of integrating a minority group into the dominant culture, often at the expense of the minority's own cultural identity. The video discusses the forced assimilation of Native American children through boarding schools and adoption programs, where they were stripped of their cultural practices and identities. The term is exemplified in the script with the phrase, 'to 'absorb' and 'assimilate' them.'

💡Boarding Schools

Boarding schools, as used in the script, refer to institutions established by the U.S. government to educate and assimilate Native American children, often forcibly removing them from their families and communities. The video describes these institutions as...

Highlights

Adoption by white missionary couple and the sense of being 'saved' from the reservation life.

The historical context of the US's brutal legacy in attempting to eradicate Native Americans.

Richard Henry Pratt's assimilation experiment and the establishment of the first off-reservation boarding school.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School's motto 'kill the Indian and save the man' and its genocidal practices.

Forced assimilation through boarding schools, including the prohibition of Native languages and cultural practices.

Mental, physical, and sexual abuse within the boarding schools and the propaganda used to justify them.

The exponential growth of boarding schools for Native American children and the consequences faced by resistant families.

The government's strategy to disconnect Native American children from their lands through boarding schools.

The intentional burying of the boarding school history and its comparison to similar tactics in other countries.

The rise of indigenous activism in the 1960s and 1970s leading to the closure of boarding schools.

The transition from boarding schools to adoption as a new assimilation project.

Marketing Native American children for adoption to white families and the financial incentives for the government.

The false portrayal of Native children as 'unwanted' and the reality of families forcibly separated.

The Indian Adoption Project's impact and the personal stories of those affected by it.

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and its role in protecting Native American children and families.

The ongoing challenges and attacks on ICWA, reflecting a broader struggle for Native American identity and rights.

The disproportionate rate of Native American children in foster care and the significance of ICWA as legal protection.

The inherent resilience and determination of Native American communities in the face of historical and ongoing challenges.

Transcripts

I was adopted by a white missionary couple.

I was adopted...

immediately placed for adoption.

I was in foster care with one family for 18 years. They were white.

My parents loved us and I understand that. But at the same time...

They took the idea that they were saving me.

Saving us from ourselves.

Being saved and I should be grateful for the life that I've been given because any child

on the reservation would give anything to live as I was living.

They took us away from our mom. They came marching right in and literally took us and

thousands of other children from their home.

It's a way to eradicate us. And to go to our nation's children is one of the sure ways

to do that.

The US has a long and brutal legacy of attempting to eradicate Native Americans.

For centuries, they colonized Native American lands and murdered their populations.

They forced them west and pushed them into small, confined patches of land.

But, Native Americans resisted.

A Board of Indian Commissioners report said: "instead of dying out under the light and

contact of civilization" the Indian population "is steadily increasing."

And that was an obstacle to total American expansion. So the US found a new solution:

to "absorb" and "assimilate" them.

It all started with an experiment, and a man named Richard Henry Pratt.

He had in his charge some prisoners of war and he taught these men how to speak English,

how to read and write, and how to do labor. He dressed them in military uniforms and basically

ran an assimilation experiment. And then he took his results to the federal government

and said they're capable of being civilized. So he was able to get this project funded.

In 1879,  the government funded Pratt’s project, the first ever off-reservation boarding

school for Native American children.

His motto was to "kill the Indian and save the man."

What started there, at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was nothing short of genocide

disguised as American education.

Children were forcibly taken from reservations, and placed into the school, hundreds — even

thousands — of miles away from their families.

They were stripped of their traditional clothing.

Their hair was cut short.

They were given new names, and forbidden from speaking their Native languages.

To take our children and to indoctrinate them into Western society to take away their identity

as indigenous peoples, their tribal identity, I think it's one of the most effective and

insidious ways that the US did do harm to indigenous peoples here because it targeted

our children, our most vulnerable.

And they tried to make us ashamed for being Indian and they tried to make us something

other than Indian.

There are also accounts of mental, physical, and sexual abuse.

Of forced manual labor, neglect, starvation, and death.

My great grandfather went to Carlisle and nobody in my family ever talked about it.

So if you google Indian boarding schools, the majority of the pictures that you will

see will be actually from Carlisle. Colonel Pratt created propaganda. He hired a photographer

to create those before and after photos to show that his experiment was working.

So it was intentional propaganda.

And it worked. The Carlisle model of education swept the country — and led to the creation

of over 350 boarding schools to assimilate Native American children.

In 1900, there were about 20,000 Native American children in these schools. By 1925, that number

more than tripled.

Families that refused to send their kids to these schools faced consequences like incarceration

at Alcatraz, or the withholding of food rations.

Some parents, who did lose their children to these schools, even camped outside to be close to them.

Many students ran away.

Some found ways to hold on to their languages and cultures.

Others, though, could no longer communicate with family members.

And some never returned home at all.

By stripping the children of their Native American identities — the US government

had found a way to disconnect them from their lands.

And that was part of the US strategy. During the same era in which thousands of children

were sent away to boarding schools, a number of US policies infringed on their tribal lands back home.

In less than five decades, two thirds of Native American lands had been taken away.

The whole thing was purposeful.  And the fact that it has been buried in the

history books and not acknowledged is also intentional.

And in fact the same tactics were used in New Zealand, Australia, Canada.

All of these countries have acknowledged, apologized,

or reconciled in some way except for the United States.

Over time, the brutality of boarding schools started to surface.

And after a 1928 report detailed the horrific conditions at the schools — many began to close.

In the 1960s, indigenous activism rose alongside the Civil Rights Movement.

And by the 1970s, that activism forced more schools to shut down. The government handed

over control of the remaining boarding schools to tribes, to be run in partnership with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But just as the boarding school era started fading, another assimilation project took shape.

Adoption.

The main goal of this pilot project was to “stimulate the adoption of American Indian

children,” to “primarily non-Indian adoptive homes.”

They claimed it was to promote the adoption of the "forgotten child" but it was essentially

a continuation of the boarding school assimilation tactics.

And the strategy came with a financial advantage for the government too. Adoption was cheaper

than running boarding schools.

But first, adoption officials had to sell white America on the idea of adopting Native American children.

Feature stories, like this one in Good Housekeeping, marketed them to white families.

They were described as “unwanted,” and adoption gave them a chance at “new lives.”

In the end, their media campaign worked. White families “wanted Indian Adoption.”

But the problem was, many of these children, were not “orphans that nobody wanted.”

They were kids, often ripped apart from families that wanted to keep them.

You still will hear stories today of people my age, older, saying I remember as a child

the social worker was coming. And people would hide their children.

On reservations, social workers used catchall phrases like “child neglect” or “unfit

parenting” as evidence for removal. But their criteria was often questionable.

Some accounts describe children being taken away for living with too many family members in the same household.

Extended family is a big thing for Native people. That means being judged for a house

that’s overcrowded. So it's always that whiteness is the standard for success.

And everything else is judged by that standard.

By the 1960s, about one in four Native children were living apart from their families.

The official Indian Adoption Project placed 395 Native children into mostly white homes.

But it was just one of many in an era of Native American adoptions.

Other state agencies and private religious organizations began increasingly making placements for Native American children, too.

My mother giving me up was a white person telling her if she didn't, she would never see her other kids again.

In one of the documents I have, it's addressed to my biological father Victor Fox.

That he was trying to look us up to get ahold of us. But Hennepin County wrote, “Daniel and Douglas

are adapting very well in their new family.”

This was totally, it was a false statement.

When you’re adopted, you know you're missing something. I think I've likened it to having

like, when someone has a 500 piece puzzle and they have all the pieces to make this

pretty picture except one.

My adoptive mother was not well. Verbally, physically, and sexually and spiritually abusive.

By the time I was 14 I started drinking. 15, drugs were added and I became an addict to numb. I didn’t realize I was numbing pain.

I tried suicide. I tried slicing my wrists one time.

Children were taken. And believed like I believed for a long time, that there was something

wrong with me, versus something wrong with the system

The Indian Adoption Project was considered a success by the people who set it in motion.

Officials claimed, “generally speaking, we believe the Indian people have accepted

the adoption of their children by Caucasian families and have been pleased to learn the

protection afforded these children.”

But, the truth was unsettling.

“These hearings on Indian children’s welfare are now in session.”

“I was pregnant with Bobby and the welfare woman kept asking if I’d give him up for adoption.

“Before he was even born?”

“Yeah”

“They picked up my children, and placed them in a foster home.

And I think they were abused in the foster home.”

Four years after Native people organized in this Senate hearing — Congress passed the

Indian Child Welfare Act — known as ICWA.

It gives tribes a place at the table in court.

States would be required to provide services to families to prevent removal of an Indian child.

And in case removal was necessary, they would have to try to keep the child with

extended family, or another Native American family.

Without our relatives we cease to exist. So with native people, part of our wealth, is in our family.

It's in who we’re connected to.

But the legacy of family separation in Native communities has been difficult to fully undo.

Today, Native American children are four times more likely to be placed in foster care than

white children —  even when their families have similar presenting problems.

In these cases, ICWA is often the best legal protection they have.

And it’s been under attack, repeatedly.

“A young girl ripped from her foster family,

because of the Indian Children Welfare Act."

White adoptive families intent on keeping Native American children have tried to do

away with the act, and they’re often backed by conservative organizations.

“The Indian Child Welfare Act was dealt a blow earlier this month.”

“The subject of a lawsuit issued on Tuesday by the Goldwater Institute arguing that preferences

given to American Indian families to adopt Indian children is unconstitutional and discriminates

based on race.”

“It’s a way for these industries, these very powerful industries, to try to attack

what Indian identity is.”

Wanting to overturn ICWA is connected to everything about who we are as a nation.

So if we don't have any protections for our families, and if we don't have protections for our treaties,

then we have no more Indians.

We've been under attack. We're going to continue to be under attack and we have to keep just keep fighting.

It's in our DNA to survive.

We are nations that pre-existed European contact and we are still here.