Assimilation And Non-Native American History

From the 1700-1938, the public arena for the debate of assimilation helped get information out into the public eye. Whether the debates were formed through non-Native Americans or Native, the final outcomes were put into essays, letters, pamphlets, speeches, drawings, and other forms of media, pertaining to the different time periods. Without the different public communications platforms, there wouldn’t have been any room for debating assimilation, and the outcome of history would have been drastically changed. With that being said, different people realized the potential of this power, and used it to their advantage. With documents taken from “The Cherokee Removal” and “Talking Back to Civilization”, it is shown that the methods used to …show more content…
Many magazine writers were educated and “assimilated” Indians, who, like progressive reformers, sought to humanize and democratize life for the benefit of their community. Writers during this time period, versus the earlier, tended to focus more on policy issues, as well as cultural concerns, such as education, religion, and racial stereotypes. Many educated Indians didn’t know if wearing traditional clothing would provoke the wrong “savage” response from non-Native …show more content…
Most of the cartoons from the Quarter Journal were drawn by non-Indians and published in popular newspapers. This form of public arena demonstrates how assimilation was debated among people who didn’t really know much about the Indian change, and stereotyped the typical “Indian” as to what they believed, instead of what was true. These cartoons were, if not “Indian” cartoons, were nonetheless “Indian-endorsed” drawings placed in the Journal to make a specific point (Quarterly Journal). Since “there is no way to identify the artists who drew these reprinted cartoons or to locate the publications where they first appeared”, many of the cartoons could have been drawn by Indians portraying hardships, such as “Lo, the Poor Indian!” These cartoons poke fun at the American public’s ignorance of the Indians culture and affairs, and shed light into a stereotypical world. The public arena of debating assimilation with cartoons was a new way for Native Americans to publicly argue views put upon their culture, such as the cartoon “Expectation and Reality”, which depicts a view of Natives after the Society of American Indians’ annual conference. An Indian commentator on the cartoon states that the man who has a set belief that the Indian is incapable of civilization, is always