Compare And Contrast Allotment And Assimilation Era

The Allotment and Assimilation Era brought about many policies to make Native Americans act “americanized.” Two extremely impactful policies were boarding schools and the allotting of American Indian land. These both affected Native Americans and their culture by splitting up families and tribes and forcing them to assimilate into American culture. Although both policies are extremely devastating for their culture, allotment and boarding schools had slightly different impacts and legacies on the culture. Allotment had a bigger impact on Native American communities at the time, whereas boarding schools had a more significant lasting legacy.

As discussed in lecture, the General Allotment Act of 1887, or the Dawes Act, was put in place in order

However, boarding schools specifically targeted the younger generation creating a more impactful lasting effect. As talked about in lecture, these children were taken from their homes and forced to completely disassociate themselves from tribal life. At these boarding schools, children were taught in and forced to speak English, which led them to forget their own language. Once done with school, if the children decided to go back home, they would often times not be able to communicate with their parents and grandparents because many Native Americans living on reservations didn’t know English. This ruined relationships and the transferring of culture through generations as children had no way of communicating and were never home to learn from their peers and environment about culture. This greatly impacted Native Americans in the long run because the children creating the new generation were unable to pass down the culture as they lost it themselves. As the older generation started to disappear, the Native American culture was quickly vanishing. Although some children kept some culture and values from their Native American life, their way of life still was greatly impacted by their time in boarding school. Most children even were taught to be ashamed of their own culture, which led them less likely to go back to that way of life. Through removing children at a young age, giving them new Anglo names, cutting their hair, and teaching the ways of Christianity these children were forced to completely forget about the culture they once possessed. Even though boarding schools affected families and culture at the time, the older generations still were able to keep their culture active. Whereas with allotment, all generations were affected at once by their movement to individual land plots. The younger generation has the most power over future generations, so