Demographic, Cultural and Political Renewal::

Demographic Explosion

The following table shows a remarkable recovery of the American Indian population during the second half of this century - a population that has increased eightfold since 1900:

Cultural Renewal

Paralleling this population explosion has been a dramatic reversal in American Indian social and cultural decline since the 1920s and 1930s. Think back to a previous article on federal Indian law. I wrote a little about the Meriam Report, which launched the major federal Indian legislation of the 1930s reform era (such as the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, the so-called 'Indian New Deal'). If you remember, the Meriam Report reported that virtually all American Indian communities were languishing in poverty, social disorganisation, cultural disintegration and despair, and it directly pointed the finger of blame on, "the encroachment of white civilization". If you look at the population figures reported by the 1920 US census, for example, you will see a significant decline of 13% on the previous decade. So it is all the more remarkable that during the decades since the 1960s, there has been a renaissance in both American Indian population figures and cultures. In other words, since the 1960s, Indian communities and cultures have experienced a period of growth and renewal.

Today, Indian Country abounds with instances of political reorganisation, linguistic and cultural revitalisation and membership growth. Despite the fact that in many, though not all cases, poverty and economic stagnation persists, Native American communities are working to preserve, protect, recover and revitalise cultural traditions, religious and ceremonial practices, sacred or traditional roles, kinship structures, languages, and the normative bases of community cohesion. So, for example, in recent years traditional institutions such as sweatlodges, Sun Dances, powwows and giveaways have been increasingly held and these serve social as well as cultural and spiritual functions. In other words, such institutions have been brought into the service of personal and collective healing and solidarity building; they serve to deal with such social problems as depression, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, substance dependency and addiction, crime and delinquency, and so on. Moreover, a number of tribes have enforced the teaching of indigenous languages in school curricula; and tribal museums have sought to recover and preserve material culture: teaching traditional crafts, encouraging the development of indigenous artists or artisans, reacquiring artefacts, burial items and human remains from non-Indian museums and repositories.

Political Resurgence

Accompanying this American Indian demographic and cultural renascence has been a proliferation of Indian organisations and political activism. Since the 1960s there has been explosive growth in the number of Indian organisations and associations, newspapers, tribal colleges, and American Indian Studies programmes at universities.

There has also been a dramatically increased level of political action, including lobbying, litigation, and activism marked by the so-called Red Power protest movement, eg the American Indian Movement. These three aspects - demographic, cultural and political resurgence - reflect a general renewal and reaffirmation of American Indian ethnicity.