The Dynamics of U.S. “Indian Policy”: 1830-Today

The Dynamics of U.S. “Indian Policy”: 1830-Today

U.S. Indian Policy after 1830 is characterized by the strengthening of governmental paternalism primarily demonstrated by U.S. ideals of expansion and prosperity, and is only checked within the explosive political era of the American Indian movement. As a national ideology that still endures in some states to this day, paternalism assumes that native peoples are uncivilized, backward, and in need of foreign leadership and guidance. Often termed ‘cultural imperialism’, this system is inherent to promoting the economic development of a nation state despite the rights and existence of native peoples. As several paternalistic acts of the late 1800s demonstrate, the U.S. government actively sought to destroy traditional Indian values and life styles in favor of more ‘competent’, European systems of society and economic development. However, in the last 50 years, radical Indian opposition and growing political awareness has transformed U.S. Indian Policy a more equitable relationship between veritable governments. Today, U.S. Indian policy must account for Indian rights and sovereignty over their own lands, and maintains a growing record of Indian victories in the struggle for justice and racial equality.

The purported ideology of the Removal period, as championed by Jackson and his contemporaries, was the salvation of Indian culture and lifestyle. Indeed, under the approval of the newly formed Bureau of Indian Affairs, aptly subservient to the U.S. Dept. of War, removal was advocated for the recovery of Indian heritage in the face of white culture and demands. Yet the Removal period was not the end all be all of U.S. dominance over Indian land and culture. Rather, this tearful time was merely a government tool used to further break up traditional tribal bonds and sow discord between families through co-optation and favoritism to half-whites. This underlying national intention was revealed in the 1840s period of expansion following the Removals of the 1830s. In subsequent decades, U.S. Indian relations were a product of governmental needs for stability and peace, in the midst of war and organization of this new country. Western expansion saw the conquest of the Sioux in the “fever” for California and Oregon, and more guns and cattle poured into the west. With the Election of Polk in 1844 and his victory in the Spanish American War of 1848, the South West became US land. While the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 established more territory for Indian life and preservation, and more land was granted both in Kansas and Nebraska, U.