Sterlization of Indian Women

The United States did attempt to destroy future generations of American Indians using their own agency Indian Health Services, who successfully sterilized 35% of Indian women without their knowledge and consent.

In his report "A History of Governmentally Coerced Sterilization: The Plight of the Native American Woman," published on May 1, 1997 by Michael Sullivan DeFine, University of Maine School of Law, writes:

The United States General Accounting Office Investigation of the Indian Health Service (HIS) Procedures and the Meaning behind Statistics of Population Growth: Complaints of these unethical sterilization practices continued, but little was done until the matter was brought to the attention of Senator James Abourezk (D-SD). Finally, affirmative steps were taken - specifically the commissioning of the General Accounting Office - to investigate the affair and to determine if the complaints of Indian women were true - that they were undergoing sterilization as a means of birth control, without consent. The problem with the investigation was that it was initially limited to only four area Indian Health Service hospitals (later twelve); therefore, the total number of Indian women sterilized remains unknown.

The General Accounting Office came up with a figure of 3,400 women who had been sterilized; but others speculate that at least that many had been sterilized each year from 1972 through 1976.

The General Accounting Office confined its investigation to Indian Health Service records and failed to probe case histories, to observe patient-doctor relationships, or to interview women who had been sterilized. This deplorable lack of thorough investigation only served as an attempt to placate the concerns of Indian people.

The General Accounting Office investigators concluded that Indian Health Service consent procedures lacked the basic elements of informed consent, particularly in informing a patient orally of the advantages and disadvantages of sterilization. Furthermore, the consent form had only a summary of the oral presentation, and the form lacked the information usually located at the top of the page notifying the patient that no federal benefits would be taken away if she did not accept sterilization. The General Accounting Office notified the Indian Health Service that it should implement better consent procedures. Some Indian Health Service Area Directors were pressured by local Indians and by Indian physicians and staff to suspend certain nurses and to move the hospital administrators to another post. Other than that, however, there was little else done by government officials.

Outraged by the level of governmental inaction, Indian people accused the Indian Health Service of making genocide a part of its policy. For the Indian Health Service, this was a serious accusation, as the purpose of this agency was to somehow alleviate the terrible health conditions in Indian communities. The Indian Health Service defended itself by relying on the inaccurate sterilization figures provided by the General Accounting Office. In reality, however, the accusation of genocide was not far off base.

As Thomas Littlewood stated in his book on the politics of population control, “non-white Americans are not unaware of how the American Indian came to be called the vanishing American . . . [t]his country’s starkest example of genocide in practice.”

From a statistical point of view, the reality of the devastation of Native American women victimized by sterilization can be observed through the comments of Senator Abourezk himself:  “...given the small American Indian population, the 3,400 Indian sterilization figure [out of 55,000 Indian women of childbearing age] would be compared to sterilizing 452,000 non-Indian women.”

Conclusion:  Science has provided a means of categorizing and victimizing those in society deemed unworthy of continued existence. Its influence in academic and political circles has created a pervasive social bigotry that rewards extermination over reform. The failure to embrace the racial and cultural diversity of this country has left a wake of destruction and oppression in minority populations. It is time for the pundits of social change to rearrange their thinking and give back to the people the power to choose what is right for themselves. [Footnotes removed]

Child Slavery, the precursor of adoption

The actual number of Native American adoptees is very hard to determine. The numbers are staggering if you begin 500+ years ago, when colonists were taking land, at war with or displacing tribes they needed to conquer and colonize.

Child slavery was the precursor of adoption. I found hidden records, very old files from colonial New England that state Native children were indentured (as servant or chattel slave) for their entire life, during the 17 to 19th centuries. The archives at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum in Connecticut have copies of such  “child slavery” indenture contracts.

The Schaghticoke Tribe in Kent, Connecticut, tell a story of a white couple who in colonial days stole an Indian couple’s two children, needing them for farm and domestic work. The farmers couldn’t do it legally so they got the Indian parents drunk. The Schaghticoke did everything they could to get their children back but were not successful. I heard their story at a history conference for Eastern tribes at the Pequot Museum.

Pequot and other tribal children in the East lived in poverty, a condition they didn’t create. State-appointed overseers controlled their land and what money families had, just like a slave owner. If you needed fabric or medicine, you had to ask the overseer. If a Pequot couple moved off their reservation to find work, they were never allowed to return. More than one Pequot family came home from work to find their children were taken, gone.

When non-Indian children were captured in wars, they were often intended for adoption into tribes, to replace lost or dead children. Captive white children were not forcibly assimilated.  In many instances, the captives chose to remain, marrying into the tribe, described in various narratives. The narrative I am reading now is about Mary Jemison who lived with the Seneca in the 1700s.

“Ritually adopted into an Indian family …time and the wealth of kinship relations they found in Indian society healed many wounds,” author Colin Calloway writes in New Worlds for All.

Conflicting goals of “civilization,” assimilation, and protecting Native people changed rapidly throughout the history of America’s “federal” Indian legislation, with origins in (primarily British) colonialism.

After slavery was abolished by the Brits, Canada and America no longer needed Indian people as fighting allies, so they decided it was better to civilize them and Christianize them. Isolating them on reservations was viewed by some as simply a protective measure, until the red Indian and his people should become extinct.

The following is a real document.

From a sales document of a child: “Know all men by these presents that I Zachariah Thomlinson, of Stratford in the County of Fairfield and Colony of Connecticut in New England, for the Consideration of eight barrels of good merchantable pork already in hand Recd of Joseph Woodruff of Milford which is to my full satisfaction and contentment, Do relinquish, release and pass over to him the said Joseph Woodruff and to his heirs and assigns forever, all my right, title and interest in, and unto the Servitude of one Certain malatto boy named Job, aged nine years, born of an Indian woman named Nab, to have and to hold said Malatto by free and clear from all claims and Demands made by me or my heirs and further I the said Zachariah Thomlinson Do for my Self and my heirs Covenant with the said Joseph Woodruff and his heirs that he and they Shall Quietly and peaceably possess and enjoy Said Malatto boy Job without the Least Interruption or molestation from or by me or under me or my heirs forever. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this 21st Day of May 1765.  The collection of the Fairfield Historical Society, Connecticut Colonial Records, Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Volume 1 [Source: http://www.cslib.org/earlygr.htm]

It was not that long ago when it was actually better not to be an Indian, if you could somehow pass as White, to “blend in, be invisible,” to find work. For African Americans, some were called High Yeller or Yellow, for a lighter skin pigment, when they could pass for white.


Africans Americans, more than a few in Harlem, have told me they have American Indian ancestry from their southeastern ancestors. No doubt they do. It’s just hard to prove when census takers were color-blind about Native ancestry. If your skin was dark, you were Negro, or mulatto, even if you were a full-blood Indian.

New England Indians, especially the Pequot, were called black. They have their horror stories, fighting census takers over identity. Census takers would see black, write black and erase on paper any trace of Indian ancestry after generations of Pequot blood and ancestry.

The Pequot in southern Connecticut are an excellent example of diversity in skin pigment. People still question the validity of their ancestry, spouting, “Those are black people masquerading as Indians just to get rich.” Every single Pequot enrolled now traces back to someone on the 1900, 1905 or 1910 census. Those with Pequot ancestors before that census are not enrolled, at least not yet.

Our American government defines us, using census reports that are highly suspicious and definitely untrustworthy to define our sovereign status.

Remember this entire continent was colonized. America will never be totally white. There will always be black and white Indians.

The Colonizer

The lesson (is) to realize the value of an alternative perspective. And that is why we are here. That is why the Creator allowed some of us to remain, in spite of all the attempts to destroy us.
- Tall Oak (Everett Weeden), Absentee Pequot/Narragansett, 500 Nations documentary

Not all tribes are alike, mind you, but many share beliefs and bloody conflicts. America is clearly in denial about its conquest of Turtle Island. It’s easier not to know.

But long ago the colonizer used bad medicine to hasten treaties, to subdue warriors, to ensure internal conflict within tribes. Alcohol, the bad medicine, killed many prisoners, men, women, even children, on and off the reservation.

To add insult to injury, high-sugar, high-fat commodities and processed foods are boxed and delivered by truckloads to each reservation, compliments of the American government. This treaty diet causes obesity, bad skin, bad health and slow starvation.

For more than 100 years, Indian Country has been dealing with weakened immune systems, sugar diabetes, amputations and heart disease. Genes do remain a factor as an adult. Without medical records, every lost child-adoptee is like a time bomb. If we don’t know our medical history, we are at greater risk.

Tribal leaders do struggle to make things right or better, but it’s not easy in this “conquered” Third World, fighting for the scraps we call food, sovereignty and dignity.

After an avalanche of alcohol, then an ever-increasing supply of new (sometimes) illegal drugs, reservations are facing new epidemics: fetal-alcohol syndrome, high suicide rates, drug addictions, crack cocaine, arrests, high prison populations and more than their fair share of domestic violence.

This “image” tarnishes reservations when typically these stories and photographs fill American newspapers.

Despite all this, there is hope. Each child brings renewed hope.

I make no claim to be an expert on any culture but I have lived on and near reservations most of my adult life. I cover Indian Country as a journalist. I’m part of a world community, a part of this tribalism, no matter where I live.

Being a Native person means everything to me but my birthfather Earl did not live in ancestral territory or on the Cherokee reservations in Oklahoma or the Carolinas. He was assimilated into American culture, lived in Pana and Chicago, Illinois, and died an alcoholic.

In any tribal culture, my relatives would need to invite adoptees to ceremonies, to teach and offer friendship. I have not lived on the Cherokee reservation. To live there, I’d need to be invited by my relatives. I sent one Cherokee newspaper a letter looking for my relatives but no one wrote me or emailed.

It felt funny knowing that many people claim some Cherokee ancestry. I needed to be certain so I asked my father when we first met. He and my aunts are proud of our ancestors and explained after Cherokee removals, people scattered all over the Midwest and south, when my paternal great-grandmother Mary Francis Morris got married and moved from Missouri to Illinois.
Mary and her daughter Lona Dell Harlow lived our culture. Until relatives assimilate me back into my culture, I remain Tsalgi, Cherokee.  It doesn’t take an ID card for me to be Indian.

It’s just as important to understand what these removals and adoptions accomplished in America and Canada as it is to see where Indians stand today.

Some American Indians say if we keep our languages strong and return to our ceremonies, our tribal nations and people will grow strong again. Reservations did change dramatically after treaties, when Indians were forced to buy food or rely heavily on Indian agents for rations and treaty commodities. For those living on their rez, they too have experienced upset and turmoil in ever-changing traditions, living in their two worlds.

Oppression creates new victims every day.

In contrast to the biblical book of Genesis, in which God creates man in his own image and gives him dominion over all other creatures, the Native American legends reflect the view that human beings are no more important than any other thing, whether alive or inanimate. In the eye of the Creator, they believe, man and woman, plant and animal, water and stone, are all equal, and they share the earth as partners — even as family. Recurring themes include the idea of Mother Earth as life host, the relationship of reciprocity that exists between human beings and animals, and the Indians' dependence on animals as teachers. The plots are often complex, take numerous twists and turns, and commonly include humor. But any comic elements never detract from the story's sacred purpose. 
-The Spirit World, Time-Life Books

The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian

Every Indian I’ve met has heard, “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man,” or “the Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian.” Both were uttered by Capt. Richard C. Pratt, the head master and founder of Carlisle Boarding School.
Beginning in 1887, the federal government attempted to “Americanize” Native Americans, largely through educating young Native boys and girls. By 1900, thousands of Native Americans were studying at almost 150 boarding schools around the United States. Schools called Carlisle, Flandreau, Hampton, Haskell Institute and others were built. The U.S. Training and Industrial School founded in 1879 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, was the model for most of these schools. Carlisle provided vocational and manual training and sought to systematically strip away tribal culture.
Schools insisted students drop their Indian names, forbade the speaking of their languages, and cut off long hair. Cutting off the hair was done in many tribes when a relative died, otherwise you wore it long. For these children, cutting hair meant cutting off contact.
Not surprising, some schools met fierce resistance from Native parents and youth. But some young people like athlete Jim Thorpe, responded positively, or at least ambivalently, to the boarding schools. Some students said the schools fostered a sense of shared Indian identity that transcended tribal boundaries.
Carlisle’s founder Captain Pratt, said the following to an 1892 convention, and spotlights his pragmatic, frequently brutal methods for “civilizing” the “savages.” A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man. Again, Pratt implies Native traditions are wrong. Using God to defend the willful destruction of families in any culture is reprehensible to me, as I’m sure it is to God. Didn’t God create all nations and all skin colors?
Tribes strongly disagreed with the American/Canadian government’s system of boarding schools, removals and adoptions. The tribes felt their placement and enforcement are always best for their children. Tribal leaders took action and fought for the Indian Welfare Act which was passed in 1978. (It seems so recent.)
Our culture is our tribal family.
Yet in the past 100 years, tribes lost two or three generations to the government’s system of removals and adoption.

Just so you know...

This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of any employer or business or industry. Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry.

This is my friend Desi (Anishinabe) and me in a photobooth (circa 1972)

HANAI: Why all adoptions should be open

Since I was writing a memoir about being adopted, in 2005 I started to intensely study adoption and read blogs by adoptees, birthparents and adopting families - the triad. I looked for examples of good, even great, adoption experiences.
In 2010, finally, more and more adoptive families are becoming more sensitive to the children of "mixed race" they adopt. This example of HANAI was particularly striking to me, since I was in a closed adoption and knew nothing about my birthfamily or their names or tribal origins. I wish I had known something and had been given respect for my Cherokee-Shawnee-Delaware ancestry.
It took me many years to know my own name and the names of my grandparents and their parents...

One blogger wrote this review of The Family of Adoption* by Joyce Maguire Pavao


This book is a bit more academic than Birthmother, but still an important read. It examines the adoption experience from all three perspectives, giving special attention to the children. It devotes a chapter to each important developmental stage in the adopted child’s life – exploring common issues and conversations they will have as they grow up. Pavao’s years of psychological training and experience have given her some powerful insights into what makes adoption a successful, enriching experience. Once particular passage in the Epilogue really stuck with me – it was upon reading this that I really became convinced of the beauty of adoption:

Many years ago in Hawaii, I was one of two keynote speakers at a conference, both of us adopted. The gentleman went first. He was native Hawaiian, and in Hawaii there is an ancient custom of adoption called hanai. In a Hawaiian marriage, when you become “related” to the in-law family, you are then considered one family, and you would not “war” against each other. The same is true in hanai — if you place your child with another family, the two families become connected, and are considered one large extended family. This Hawaiian adopted person opened the conference with loud drums and chanting. It was beautiful—stunning—and it went on for quite a while. The entire audience sat very still and listened, mesmerized.


When he had finished, he stated that he had just recited the names of his ancestors. He had chanted the lineage of both his family by birth and his family by adoption. He said that it is a great honor to be a hanai person, as you are the reservoir that holds the lineage of two great families; you are the place and the person where they connect and become one extended family. It is a prestigious position to be the connector of two families.

~~ If adoptive parents read this, please show this respect to the blood and origin of your adopted child. Give them all the information you can to spare them the trauma of not knowing....
AHO!
Trace, author of ONE SMALL SACRIFICE: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects (2009)
(birthdaughter of Earl Bland and Helen Thrall)
(adopted by Sev and Edie DeMeyer)