Synopses & Reviews
Established in 1824, the United States Indian Service (USIS), now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was the agency responsible for carrying out U.S. treaty and trust obligations to American Indians, but it also sought to "civilize" and assimilate them. In Federal Fathers and Mothers, Cathleen Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the agency during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cahill shows how the USIS pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government.
Review
"Cathleen Cahill's extraordinary book examines the functioning of the Indian Service unlike any previous book. Her superb research makes important contributions not only to the history of American Indians but also to the history of U.S. development, understandings of internal colonialism, and the complex gendered and racial dimensions of Indian-white relations."--Linda Gordon, New York University
Review
"With fresh, insightful analysis, Cathleen Cahill reveals how ideas about gender, masculinity, and the family influenced and defined nineteenth-century policies about assimilation.
Federal Fathers and Mothers is a major and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Indian Service, its workforce, and their influence on tribes, communities, and individual Native lives in the United States."--Brenda Child, University of Minnesota, author of
Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940
Review
"[A] careful analysis of federal Indian policy. . . . [Cahill] achieves a rare balance between a broad policy narrative and social history from the 'bottom up.'"
-Journal of Arizona History
Review
"An in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service.... Well-researched, interesting, even inspirational, Cathleen Cahill's
Federal Fathers and Mothers highlights Indian history and the American historical context and brings the term 'intimate colonialism' solidly into the lexicon."
-Southwestern American Literature
Review
"An outstanding investigation of the Indian Service and its employees. Cahill's work bolsters scholarship, challenging the unidirectional impact of empire and colonialism by demonstrating the domestic consequences of imperialism."
-Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
Synopsis
Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The USIS pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government.
Synopsis
Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The USIS pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government.
About the Author
Cathleen D. Cahill is assistant professor of history at the University of New Mexico.