Review of The Way to Independence: Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920 and A Coloring Book of Hidatsa Indian Stories: Based on the Life and Drawings of Edward Goodbird

Authors

Joseph C. Porter, Joslyn Art Museum

Date of this Version

1989

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly SUMMER 1989 .Copyright 1989 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.

Abstract

The Way to Independence exhibition and catalog appeared in 1987 to mark the centennial of the passage of the Dawes Indian Severalty Act of 1887, legislation intended to "civilize" American Indians by abolishing tribes as legal entities and allotting reservation lands to individuals. With the disappearance of the tribal land base, proponents of the Dawes Act assumed that Indians would be compelled to "assimilate" into the mainstream of American life.