Native American Studies - History

History

The Native historical experience in the Americas was marked by forcible and sometimes willing attempts at assimilation into mainstream European American culture (Americanization (of Native Americans)). Beginning with missionaries and leading up to federally controlled schools the aim was to educate American Indians so that they could go back to their communities and facilitate the assimilation process. As cited by David Beck in his article "American Indian Higher Education before 1974: From Colonization to Self-Determination," the schools were used as a tool for assimilation. Their main focus was not intellectual but to give training for industrial jobs or domestic jobs.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-1960s contested mainstream methods of assimilationist indoctrination and the substance of what was being taught in K-12 schools and universities throughout the United States. American Indian students, coupled with sympathetic professors, assisted in creating new programs with new aims. Rather than being focused on Indians going back to their communities to educate along the lines of assimilation there was a move to educate for empowerment. Programs that did community outreach and focused on student retention in campuses have risen out of that movement. Furthermore, the programs in schools created a new interpretation for American Indian history, sociology, and politics.

During the First Convocation of American Indian Scholars in March 1970 at Princeton University, indigenous scholars drafted a plan to develop "Native American Studies as an Academic Disclipine," which would defend indigenous control of their lands and indigenous rights and would ultimately reform US Indian Policy. This discipline would be informed by traditional indigenous knowledge, especially oral history, and would "defend indigenous nationhood in America."

In direct opposition to Western anthropology, the knowledge base of Native American studies is endogenous, or emerging from within the indigenous communities. Developers of Native American studies widely dismissed the notion of scientific objectivity, since Western cultural biases have historically informed anthropology and other disciplines.