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The Movement To Assimilate The American Indians: Jurisprudential Study, John W. Ragsdale Jr
The Movement To Assimilate The American Indians: Jurisprudential Study, John W. Ragsdale Jr
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In 1934, the United States made a revolutionary shift in Indian policy. Laws were passed that ended most assimilation measures and began, instead, a preservation and promotion of tribalism. Why did this happen? What changes in American thought, politics and economy could precipitate such a reversal? Felix Cohen, a former special assistant to the Attorney General, and known as the "Blackstone of American Indian Law," noted: "Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shifts from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the …