Waging the contest between “savagery” and “civilization”: An examination of the tension between acculturation and removal at the Brazos Reservation, 1855-1859

Abstract

The development of the reservation system between 1849and the Civil War represents a transition in US Indian policy from removal to acculturation. This case study examines the two conflicting and basically incompatible underpinnings of the reservation system: removal (isolation)from the dominant group coupled with a program designed to acculturate Indians to the norms and values of the dominant group. Despite the efforts made by Indians on the Brazos Reservation in Texas to cooperate with the United States government's acculturation program, the reservation was destroyed by white settlers who refused to allow the Indians to live in their midst. The settlers destroyed the reservation even though it was to their economic benefit to keep it open. Thus, the article increases our understanding of the poorly-known formative years of the reservation system as well as the contradictions inherent in an institution that was designed both to isolate a minority group and acculturate it to the norms and values of the majority group.