Synthesis and Response to Indigenous Resistance

This essay begins by giving a brief introduction of the Coast Salish People of British Columbia and Washington State. These people are a group of Aboriginal individuals who pride themselves on not assimilating with the American culture and maintaining a place-based consciousness. However, first the USA, and then a decade later Canada, began assimilating this group’s children by forcing them to leave the land and attend public schools. The essay continues to talk about the decolonization of this group as a whole in the nineteenth century. The group was forced to be confined to borders of the empire, and were told to shake off their darkness of their pre-modern life-ways. Children in public schools were even punished for speaking their native languages. Boarding schools were created for the children, and somewhat became a safe haven for them even though the objective was to break them from their culture. The essay continues on to speak about the steps America and Canada took to cruelly assimilate this group.

This essay was very upsetting to me. I believe that no one should be forced to leave their culture because a government told them to. As long as they are not a threat, I see nothing wrong with letting the tribe maintain their ways of life.