American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Over the past two decades, ethnohistorians have expended considerable time and effort examining various facets of cultural change among many Native American communities. Much of this investigation focuses upon the process of forced acculturation: cultural change championed by the federal government and impressed upon the tribes through the implementation of federal Indian policy. The Indian response to these programs has been as diverse as the broad spectrum of tribal groups to whom the programs have been applied. Some tribes have adamantly opposed the government’s programs, even resorting to armed conflict when other avenues of resistance have seemed unfeasible. Others have adopted certain tenets of the federal programs, but have skillfully interwoven these new cultural patterns with time-honored tribal traditions to create a model of acculturation that incorporates their own goals and aspirations. In contrast, several tribal groups have, upon occasion, welcomed change and have embraced the government’s policies, at least for relatively short periods. And yet even members of those tribal communities who have subscribed to the government’s programs have found that the programs often have been so plagued with intra-agency quarrels and mismanagement that they have produced a bureaucratic quagmire.