Initial European perceptions of Native Americans viewed them as uncivilized savages who, with time and effort, could be educated and assimilated into European culture. Christopher Columbus reported his opinion of the Indians as follows:
They must be good servants and of quick intelligence, since I see that very soon they say everything that is said to them, and I think they would easily become Christians, because it seems to me that they had no creed. If the Lord wants, at the time of my departure, I will bring six of them to His Highness, so that they can learn to speak (Hurtado 46).
This passage shows that Columbus believed that Indians were intelligent and would easily convert to European customs, but he did not consider them equal to Europeans. Columbus demonstrates his ethnocentricity by ignoring the religious beliefs of Native Americans and assuming that because they did not speak a European language, they could not “speak.”
Europeans considered Indians to have inferior cultural practices, such as their laws, government, economy, way of life, religion, property, and education / writing. However, Europeans believed that these Native American cultural traits could be changed with little difficulty to resemble European cultures. In 1620, the first college for Native Americans was established to educate Indians in European ways, and in 1640, Harvard opened a college for Indians. This proves that the main goal of Europeans was to assimilate Native Americans into European culture through education. The Europeans justified their conquest of the Indians because they believed they had a divine purpose to convert them to Christianity. Europeans, too, believed that they could “redeem the savages” in the same way that the Roman Empire had conquered and civilized the rest of Europe.
Indians did not come to be seen as inherently different in color until the mid-18th century, and the label “red” was not used until the mid-19th century. Some of the causes of the change in perception were an increase in Europeans, bloody conflicts and atrocities, codification of laws designed to control native peoples, and the vision of Europeans began to unify as “white.”
The changing perception of Indians also caused a change in the way Europeans treated them. At first, Europeans married them and used teachers and missionaries to convert them to European culture and religion. Later, education ceased and Europeans moved to subjugate the Indians through displacement on reservations and war / genocide.
The Dawes Act of 1877 returned to the assimilation of Indians through education and the practice of agriculture. The reserve lands were divided into individual sections for private ownership. Furthermore, the federal government came to believe that educating Indian children would be the fastest and most effective way to destroy Indian lifestyles. Boarding schools for Indian children were established in order to teach them American values and customs, while eroding their Native American beliefs.
At first contact, Europeans believed that Indians could assimilate into European culture. Then they switched to the move-in and reservation policy. In the late 19th century, Americans returned to assimilationist policies, and in the 20th century, Indians struggled to resist full assimilation by striving to maintain their cultural and religious beliefs.
Bibliography
Hurtado, Albert, Peter Iverson, and Thomas Paterson, editors. Major Problems in American Indian History: Papers and Essays. Houghton Mifflin Company Collegiate Division, 2000.