The Changes Of American Indian's Policy Since 1850 And Their Impacts On American Indians

On the basis of the contradictive phenomena that American Indians were driven into the reservations by force in 1850s and they returned to the reservations on their initiatives between 1970s and 1980s,the thesis narrates the changes of American Indian policies from Reservation System policy (1850s-1880), Assimilation policy (1880-1920), American New Deal (1920-1945), Relocation (1945-1970s) to Self-Determination Policy (after 1970), analyzes their impacts on American Indians. By analyzing the history of this period (since 1850), the thesis, on one hand, points out the defects of American democracy, on the other hand, explores the discipline one nation should follow while establishing ethnic groups' policy.The history has demonstrated that the attempt doomed to its failure that American government wanted to assimilate American Indians into the mainstream society by cultural advantages. The conclusion of this thesis is that the solely practical way for American government is to abandon the discriminative policy against American Indians and enact the policy of self-determination for American Indians and that American Indians will have to go on long-term and painful struggle before they achieve real self-determination.