Genocide and the Road to ICWA

From a theoretical point of view slavery across the globe and across the span of human history commonly included a temporary span of forced labor (as was the case for many Native Americans taken as slaves by the European powers) but also included social and cultural alienation and detribalization as well as the threat of a deferred death sentence to be possibly carried out at some point in the future. This concept applies clearly to the taking of Indian slaves in New Mexico during the colonial and a portion of the territorial period even though owners frequently characterized their intentions as part of an officially-sanctioned practice to adopt Indian children, teach them Spanish, raise them in the Catholic Church, and release them upon reaching adulthood. Despite a need to believe otherwise, this practice also uncomfortably resonates with the boarding school era and the epidemic of the placement of Indian children in foster care and/or adoptive services throughout the first seven decades of the 20th century. While also meeting the formal definition of genocide according to international treaty convention, this practice also included the expectation of labor, social alienation, separation from Native culture, and the all too real possibility of death forced upon Indian children in exchange for Christianization and acculturation. These genocidal practices endured well into the 20^th century in the United States with the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act ultimately providing the beginnings of a framework to end them.