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Assimilation, Removal, Discipline, And Confinement: Native Girls And Government Intervention, Addie C. Rolnick

Scholarly Works

A full understanding of the roots of child separation must begin with Native children. This Article demonstrates how modern child welfare, delinquency, and education systems are rooted in the social control of indigenous children. It examines the experiences of Native girls in federal and state systems from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s to show that, despite their ostensibly benevolent and separate purposes, these institutions were indistinguishable and interchangeable. They were simply differently styled mechanisms of forced assimilation, removal, discipline, and confinement. As the repeating nature of government intervention into the lives of Native children makes clear, renaming a system …