Indigenous
Peoples Specialty Group Selected Sponsored sessions, |
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Frank Shockey, University of Minnesota "Civilized, industrious, and self-sustaining: representation in the Alaskan reindeer-herding program, 1890-1914" The Alaskan reindeer-herding program ostensibly began as an entirely philanthropic collaboration of the U.S. Bureau of Education and several Christian missionary groups to save Native Alaskan people from starvation by training them to herd reindeer. Representations of themselves and their Native Alaskan pupils by government officials and missionaries tell a more ambivalent story of the early days of the program. Missionaries and officials produced a view of northwest Alaska through legal documentation as an unproductive wilderness populated by uncivilized, shiftless people left unable to fend for themselves after their food supply was irreparably damaged. Then, through the implementation of the reindeer program, they endeavored to instill in their Native Alaskan pupils what they represented as a civilized, industrious, and self-sustaining lifestyle. This study concludes that the effects of the reindeer program in its early years supported its essential function as a representative strategy to place northwest Alaska and its people within the American colonial ideology. key words: Native Alaskans, colonialism, legal geography, Alaska Email: shoc0012 (at) tc.umn.edu
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