Traumas Experienced by Native Americans (as a group)

Many thanks to Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart, Ph.D, University of New Mexico

Genocide and Enslavement: The first Indians encountered by Cristobal Colon in 1492 were the Taino. His first letter back to the rulers of Spain told how attractive, friendly, and healthy the people of the Indies were, and what good slaves they would make. One of his early acts was to kidnap and take Tainos to Europe as curiosities. Those remaining on the island (renamed Hispaniola) were subjected to a slave system in which they had to fill a gold quota, and if they werent successful they were punished by having their hands chopped off; subsequent failure led to execution (there was little gold on the island). Other Natives were enslaved and forced to build and labor for the Spanish. In 1542, 30 years after first contact, the Taino population was reduced to 5,000 native inhabitants, a decline of almost 98%. This pattern continued throughout the invasion of the Western Hemisphere. Death rates from disease averaged from 70 to 95%, usually within 20 years of the first European contact. The pattern of enslavement continued as well, from Coronado, who forced Natives to serve as bearers, to the Massachusetts Colony, where Europeans attacked Natives and sold them to Caribbean sugar plantations, to the sending of smallpoxinfected blankets to various Native groups. Assimilation Policies: Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 Tribal (communal) land divided into individual parcels: "excess" land opened to white settlers Termination and Relocation Policies of 1950s Terminate tribal treaty status/empty the reservations by sending Indians to cities, where they faced racism and poverty Boarding School Era 1879 -1950s: Violence and Shame, Self-Esteem and Parenting Skills Children were removed from homes, forbidden to speak Native languages, beaten, given shaming messages of inferiority. Indian families were told they were not capable of raising their own children and that Indians are culturally and racially inferior. Abusive behaviors: physical, sexual, and emotional were experienced and learned by the children No emotional or spiritual behaviors leading to positive self-esteem were allowed; no healthy parenting skills for raising their own children were learned. Educational Systems that continue to present biased views that misrepresent Native cultures and history Jewish Holocaust Studies reveal that people have difficulties in mourning mass losses of life; they experience massive group trauma For later Native people, their OWN country perpetrated the holocaust Survivors have intense emotions: intense rage they must repress, which results in psychic numbing Disenfranchised Grief is grief that persons experience when a loss cannot be openly acknowledged or publicly mourned. Indians have been portrayed by the dominant culture as stoic, and without feelings. They are/were socially defined as incapable of grief; there is little recognition of their sense of loss, their need to mourn, or their ability to do so. The resulting message is that Indians have no need or right to grieve. Disenfranchised Grief results in an intensification of normative emotional reactions such as anger, guilt, sadness and helplessness. The absence of rituals to facilitate the mourning process can severely limit the resolution of grief. When a society disenfranchises the legitimacy of grief among any group, the resulting intra-psychic function created is shame. Shame inhibits the experience and expression of grief effects (sadness and anger). Grief covered by shame negatively impacts relationships with self and others, and one's realization of the sacredness within oneself and one's community. Further, European American culture generally legitimizes grief only for immediate nuclear family members in

the current generation. This may also serve to disenfranchise the grief of Native people over the loss of ancestors and extended kin, as well as animal relatives and traditional languages, songs, dances, and other aspects of culture. The Six Stages of Unresolved Traumatic Grief for Native Americans 1. 1st Contact: life shock, genocide, no time for grief. Colonization Period: introduction of disease and alcohol, traumatic events such as land thefts and forced religious conversions. 2. Economic competition: sustenance loss (physical/spiritual). 3. Invasion/War Period: extermination, refugee symptoms. 4. Subjugation/Reservation Period: confined/translocated, forced dependency on oppressor, lack of security. 5. Boarding School Period: destroyed family system, beatings, rape, prohibition of Native language and religion; Lasting Effect: ill-prepared for parenting, identity confusion. 6. Forced Relocation and Termination Period: transfer to urban areas, prohibition of religious freedom, racism and being viewed as second-class; loss of Native governmental system and community. Historical Trauma: The collective emotional and psychological injury both over the life span and across generations, resulting from a cataclysmic history of genocide. Historical Unresolved Grief: Grief resulting from the historical trauma of genocide, grief that has not been expressed, acknowledged and resolved. Like trauma, it can span generations. Internalized Oppression: When a culture is assaulted in a genocidal fashion, along with the victim's complete loss of power comes despair, and the psyche reacts by internalizing what appears to be genuine power--the power of the oppressor. The internalizing process begins when Native American people internalize the oppressor, which is merely a caricature of the power actually taken from Native American people. At this point, the self-worth of the individual and/or group has sunk to a level of despair tantamount to self-hatred. This selfhatred can be either internalized or externalized. . . Research has demonstrated the grim reality of internalized hatred results in suicide. Another way in which internalized self-hatred is manifested symptomatically is through the deaths of massive numbers of Native people from alcoholism. When self-hatred is externalized, we encounter a level of violence within the community that is unparalleled in any other group in the country. (Duran and Duran, 29). Anger and aggression are acted out upon oneself and others like the self (members of one's group); internalization of self-hatred is an outcome of oppression coupled with the danger of directly expressing anger toward the dominant culture. Search: http://www.google.com/search? hl=en&newwindow=1&tbo=d&site=&source=hp&q=historical+traumas+experienced+by+Native+American+I ndians&oq=historical+traumas+experienced+by+Native+American+Indians&gs_l=hp.3...4347.19620.0.20048. 57.55.0.2.2.0.234.6755.4j50j1.55.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.HiArvR5dWCg Takinis Historical Trauma site http://www.historicaltrauma.com/ Brief historic timeline: http://www.class.uidaho.edu/engl484jj/Historical_Trauma.htm

Definitions & Mechanisms of Intergenerational Trauma (scroll 1 page) http://books.google.com/books? id=_hcurFqnQioC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=Trauma+and+Latinos&source=bl&ots= YSgd_lYYxq&sig=KbvHIPVu-

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