Legislating Indian Country ─ Significant Milestones in Transforming Tribalism

French (psychology emeritus, Western New Mexico U.), who has served over 30 years as faculty advisor to Indian student organizations, describes eras of US Indian policy and the resulting legislation. The first, at the beginning of white contact in the sixteenth century, defined Native Americans as sub-human. The next eras attempted to destroy tribalism through war, established concentration camps, reduced or took away lands, shifted from physical to cultural genocide, controlled tribal administration federally, attempted to dissolve tribes and turn members into little more than stockholders, and more recently attempted to find a middle ground between federal oversight and policies of termination and relocation. He asserts that signs remain of pernicious policies and actions such as the mismanagement of the Individual Indian trust Fund and the exploitation by politicians and profit-takers of gaming tribes. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)