The act was strongly supported by non-native people of the South, who were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. Christian missionaries, most notably Jeremiah Evarts, protested against its passage.
The "Five Civilized Tribes," made up of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, and original Cherokee Nations, had been established as autonomous nations in the southeastern United States. The acculturation proposed by George Washington was well under way among the Cherokee and Choctaw.
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ACCULTURATION
Acculturation explains the process of cultural change and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures.[1] The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and social institutions. Noticeable group level effects of acculturation often include changes in food, clothing, and language. At the individual level, differences in the way individuals acculturate have been shown to be associated not just with changes in daily behavior, but with numerous measures of psychological and physical well-being. As enculturation is used to describe the process of first-culture learning, acculturation can be thought of as second-culture learning.
The concept of acculturation has been studied scientifically since 1918.[2] As it has been approached at different times from the fields of psychology, anthropology, and sociology, numerous theories and definitions have emerged to describe elements of the acculturative process. Despite definitions and evidence that acculturation entails a two-way process of change, research and theory have primarily focused on the adjustments and adaptations made by minorities such as immigrants, refugees, and indigenous peoples in response to their contact with the dominant majority. Contemporary research has primarily focused on different strategies of acculturation and how variations in acculturation affect how well individuals adapt to their society.
The earliest recorded thoughts towards acculturation can be found in Sumerian inscriptions from 2370 B.C. These inscriptions laid out rules for commerce and interaction with foreigners designed to limit acculturation and protect traditional cultural practices.[3] Plato also said that acculturation should be avoided, as he thought it would lead to social disorder. Accordingly, he proposed that no one should travel abroad until they are at least 40 years of age, and that travellers should be restricted to the ports of cities to minimize contact with native citizens.[2] Nevertheless, the history of Western civilization, and in particular the histories of Europe and the United States, are largely defined by patterns of acculturation.
J.W. Powell is credited with coining the word "acculturation" in 1880,[4] defining it as "the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation". The first psychological theory of acculturation was proposed in W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki's 1918 study, "The Polish Peasant in Europe and America". From studying Polish immigrants in Chicago, they illustrated three forms of acculturation corresponding to three personality types: Bohemian (adopting the host culture and abandoning their culture of origin), Philistine (failing to adopt the host culture but preserving their culture of origin), and creative-type (able to adapt to the host culture while preserving their culture of origin).[5] In 1936, Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits provided the first widely used definition of acculturation as:
Those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups...under this definition acculturation is to be distinguished from...assimilation, which is at times a phase of acculturation.[6]Before efforts at racial and cultural integration in the United States, the main thrust was assimilation.
No matter how unjust or cruel, Gudykunst and Kim (2003) argue that the host way of thinking, feeling, and behaving constitutes the "higher level" of psychic evolution and any resistance to pressure to conform, to disintegration on the part of a minority person indicates that the immigrant is communicatively incompetent, immature (p. 381), mentally ill (pp. 365, 372-373, 376), weak (p. 369), irrationally aggressive or hostile (pp. 371, 376), lacking in self-control (p. 369), cynical (p. 380), pessimistic (p. 369), closed-minded (p. 369), simple minded (pp. 382–383) and "ethnocentric" (pp. 376, 382, . Evolutionary progress for the individual requires the individual to "abandon identification with the cultural patterns that have constituted who one is and what one is" (p. 377). These patterns are not just behavioral but "appropriate" ways of thinking as defined by the majority mainstream reality.
In contradistinction from Gudykunst and Kim's version of adaptive evolution, Eric M. Kramer, in his theory of Cultural Fusion (2011,[9] 2010,[10] 2000a,[11] 1997a,[10][12] 2000a,[11][13] 2011,[14] 2012[15]) maintains clear conceptual separation between assimilation, adaptation, and integration. Only assimilation involves conformity to a pre-existing form. Kramer's (2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2003, 2009, 2011) theory of Cultural Fusion, which is based on systems theory and hermeneutics, argues that first it is impossible for a person to unlearn themselves and second that "growth" is, by definition, not a zero sum process that requires the disillusion of one form for another to come into being but rather a process of learning new languages and cultural repertoires (ways of thinking, cooking, playing, working worshiping, and so forth). One need not unlearn a language in order to learn a new one. Nor does one have to unlearn who one is in order to learn new ways of dancing, cooking, talking and so forth. Cognitive complexity involves the ability to code switch between repertoires, not a zero growth, zero-sum process as Gudykunst and Kim claim (2003, p 383). Learning is growth, not unlearning.
Gudykunst and Kim defined intercultural adaptation as an "upward-forward" progress of "acculturation that brings about change in strangers in the direction of assimilation, the highest degree of adaptation theoretically conceivable. It is the process by which strangers resocialized into a new culture so as to attain an increasing functional fitness...complete adaptation is a lifetime goal."
Gudykunst and Kim postulated a utopian or ideal type person they call an "intercultural person" or a "universal person" with "transcultural identity".[25] They argue that this new ideal type of person and society can and should be engineered by all means available, including using the mass media and primary schools to manufacture them "by design".[26] They argue that this not only moral but will be a "special privilege"[27] for those so "trained".[28] The same social institutions should be used for the "resocialization and acculturation"[28] of unfit persons by means of the disintegration and reintegration of their psyches in line with the "conformity pressure" of the dominant mainstream culture. In this way they may achieve a higher level of "evolution",[29] "competence",[30] "operational ability",[31] "functional fit",[32] and "productivity".[33] According to Gudykunst and Kim, any resistance to conformity or any lack of enthusiasm for disintegrating and unlearning one's original self on the part of the immigrant suggests that they are "mentally ill",[34] "hostile" and irrationally "aggressive",[35] weak,[36] lacking in "self-control"[36] and "maturity",[37] "self-deceived," "unrealistic," deluded,[38] and simply "maladjusted" and failing to "perceive the world and himself correctly".
They claim that in order to achieve functional fit and communication, the immigrant must "unlearn" and "deculturize"[40] themselves and avoid "ethnic communication activities".[41] Since these negative traits are defined as "personality predispositions"[41] or "adaptive predisposition",[42] they could, as Galton and Pearson proposed, be bred out of the human population. For instance, according to the DAD theory, religious identity for a predominantly idolic person, is not perceived by them as arbitrary, or even questionable. By comparison, a predominantly symbolic person may be able to convert from one religion to another, but such a change in identity has very profound emotional consequences. For a signalic person, where everything is arbitrary, changing religion is like shopping: it is a matter of personal choice and convenience. Acculturation thus varies from person to person depending on what worldview they manifest.
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(Indian Removal Act cont.)
Thomas Jefferson's policy had been to respect the Native Americans' rights to their homelands, allowing all Native Americans who had adopted Anglo-European behavior to remain east of the Mississippi. He planned to guide them towards practicing an agriculture-based society. However, Andrew Jackson sought to renew a policy of political and military action for the removal of the Native Americans from these lands and worked toward enacting a law for Indian removal.
In the 1823 case of Johnson v. M'Intosh, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands.[7] Jackson, as was common before the American Civil War, viewed the union as a federation of sovereign states. He opposed Washington’s policy of establishing treaties with Indian tribes as if they were foreign nations. Thus, the creation of Indian jurisdictions was a violation of state sovereignty under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution.
As Jackson saw it, either Indians comprised sovereign states (which violated the Constitution) or they are subject to the laws of existing states of the Union. Jackson urged Indians to assimilate and obey state laws. Further, he believed he could only accommodate the desire for Indian self-rule in federal territories. That required resettlement west of the Mississippi River on federal lands.[8][9]
The Removal Act was strongly supported by non-native people in the South, who were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. In particular, Georgia, the largest state at that time, was involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokees. President Jackson hoped removal would resolve the Georgia crisis.[10]
The Indian Removal Act was controversial. While many European Americans during this time favored its passage, there was significant opposition. Many Christian missionaries, most notably missionary organizer Jeremiah Evarts, protested against passage of the Act. In Congress, New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen and Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee spoke out against the legislation. The Removal Act passed after bitter debate in Congress.[11]
Jackson viewed the demise of Indian tribal nations as inevitable, pointing to the advancement of settled life and demise of tribal nations in the American northeast. He called his northern critics hypocrites, given the north’s history; Indian tribes were driven to extinction, Indian hunting grounds replaced with family farms, and state law replaced tribal law. If the Indians of the south were to survive and their culture maintained, they faced powerful historical forces that could only be postponed. He dismissed romantic portrayals of lost Indian culture as a sentimental longing for a simpler time in the past—progress requires moving forward.[12]
Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country and philanthropy has long been busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. … But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another … Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?[13][14]Jackson, according to historian H. W. Brands, sincerely believed his population transfer was a “wise and humane policy” that would save the Indians from “utter annihilation.” Brand writes that given the “racist realities of the time, Jackson was almost certainly correct in contending that for the Cherokees to remain in Georgia risked their extinction.” Jackson portrayed his paternalism and federal support as a generous act of mercy.[12]
On April 24, 1830, the Senate passed the Indian Removal Act by a vote of 28 to 19.[15] On May 26, 1830, the House of Representatives passed the Indian Removal Act by a vote of 101 to 97.[16] On May 28, 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson.
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"AND I HELPED."
~(REV. WILLIAM "ALEXANDER" AVERY)~
I believe me an Mike "Avery" Ross, both, are fifth generation Arkansan for the same reason;
a distant relative having crossed the Mississippi River to preach to the Choctaw Indians.
Having fucked up nine children instead; obviously his preaching was a failure.
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