essay

Beauchamp, Sandra. “Mandan and Hidasta Families and Children.” Healing and Mental Health

for Native Americans. Ed. Ethan Nebelkopf and Mary Phillips. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2004. 65-73. Print.

Sandra Beauchamp’s chapter focuses on the importance of a healthy family within the Native American community. According to Beauchamp, the family unit was put at high risk during the assimilation period particularly in the early Twentieth Century when many children were removed from their homes because of perceived neglect. Her research suggests that policies were often enforced through the lens of a “dominant culture perspective” instead of with sensitivity towards how Native Americans may have parented.

This chapter also examines the assimilation practices of the mid to late Nineteenth Century in which children were often forcibly removed from their homes and put into Federal boarding schools. In these schools, they were converted to Christianity and were forbidden to speak their native languages. This chapter is of particular importance to the larger project because Skinner’s field notes often focus on the neglect and abuse of children. Beauchamp’s chapter provides some context for possible reasons why those conditions existed on the Shoshone Bannock reservation.