Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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The Indians, as obstacles to development, had to be removed. By mid-century the US government had already developed the concept of the reservation. Derived from English Indian policies, this treatment of segregating tribes in separate communities differed sharply from the Spanish and Mexican ideas of assimilation and incorporation of the Indian as a national citizen. In 1858, the commissioner of Indian Affairs described the reservation system this way: “concentrating the Indians on small reservations of land, and … sustaining them there for a limited period of time, until they can be induced to make the necessary exertions to support themselves.”10

As noted earlier, the geographical area under study is called the Greater Southwest, territory that is often referred to by geographers and ethnohistorians as the Gran Chichimeca. Anthropologist Charles Di Peso defined the Gran Chichimeca as comprehending all of that part of Mexico that is situated north of the Tropic of Cancer to 38 degrees north latitude, including Baja and Alta California, New Mexico, southern Utah, southern Colorado, and western Texas (see map, Figure 0.2). This writer would extend the line north to 42 degrees north latitude or the northern boundaries of California, Nevada, and Utah (including the Great Basin area) with the northern boundary extending from California to 97 degrees west longitude near Wichita, Kansas (see maps, Figures 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5).


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