by Dr. Michael Smith

Created on: February 24, 2010

When the first Europeans made contact with Native Americans in the New World, their first opinions were crouched in religious terms. Because the Indian culture and actions were very different from Europeans, they conveniently classed the natives as “uncivilized” and their treatment took on the aspect of paternalism with the Indians suffering from that point. When French priests arrived in New Canada their view was that Indians “had no religion.” Because of the lack of civilization in the eyes of the Europeans, Native Americans were not just uncivilized, but considered heathen or outside the Christian religion, hence their very clearly held religious beliefs were summarily dismissed by Europeans.

The initial British view of Native Americans was that they could be brought into a civilized state, or Christianized, through slow and incremental actions ending with Indians living on the same terms as the settlers. Unfortunately for the Indians, they sided with the British during the American war for independence and when once the war was ended, the Indians were left in a precarious position. The freedom documents which came out of the founding of the new country, while reflecting high ideas of freedom and self-determination, unfortunately did not apply to minorities like the African Americans and Native Americans. Initially after the war’s end, the leaders of the new country, such as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, continued the British idea of civilizing the Indians, but most of the idealism of assimilating the Indian was more a way to gain Indian land than for the benefit of Native Americans.

The most reprehensible act in American history clearly shows the lack of concern for the personal welfare of Native Americans. The Cherokees met every benchmark for civilization, including the development of a representative government and the acceptance of Christianity, and yet no matter what they did, they were removed on order of President Andrew Jackson west to Oklahoma, losing most of their holding and their land in Eastern United States. In the Mid-1800s the Federal Indian policy turned to assimilation with a plan to break up reservations and tribal structure by assigning individual land grants to Indians and bring an end to the old ways of tribal ownership. Indian children were taken from parents and forced into Eastern boarding schools designed to “kill the Indian while saving the man.” Native religious practices were forbidden and their languages not allowed. The church actively participating in this destroying of Indian culture and stories from the schools show the horrific treatment as many of the students died. The boarding schools all had cemeteries where Indian students died at an alarming rate.

Throughout the period, Indians were forbidden to hold religious observances reflecting their ancient heritage. The Lakota Indians were denied the right to host their famous Sundance for years, as in some sense it became the center of the Lakota culture. The removal of Eastern Indians to the west dislodged them from their sacred grounds which were incremental to their religious practice as well.

The oppression of Indians had a counter effect on Native Americans. It served to forge a national identity after the 1950s and, while it expressed itself during the 1970s in social unrest and passive resistance, resulted in emergence of tribal leadership exerting itself. Since the 1970s Native religion reasserted itself with a re-establishment of culture and religion as the Indians originally practiced it. The Sun Dance and many other native religious expressions have since re-emerged.

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