The Assimilation of the Native Indians by the Colonizers in the United States with Special Reference to Their Languages

Abstract

Colonizers forced an assimilation not only on Indian Americans in the name of civilization and education. Their basic agenda was to usurp the land of the natives so that they can built their empire on it. To crush the resistance of the Natives it was important to suppress their culture and the language which is their source of power to their spirit. Their languages are their identity marker. To achieve their goal the colonizers after the civil war made a plan consisting on three stages and third one was to educate the native in the schools. These schools were the tools to destroy their languages and culture and to make them adapt to the culture, religion and the language government was providing them with.  Facing severe punishments and suppression the natives continued to struggle in order to save their language. Though Crystal (2003) opine that this is not the language that is powerful, it is its speaker who are and thus the language of the powerful wins for the powerful wins. This paper traces the sufferings of the native Indians on the path of forced assimilation and their struggle to for their survival as well as of their culture and languages, to which to some extent they succeeded.