Sioux Indian Women Receiving Rations, Pine Ridge Reservation, 1891, courtesy Library of Congress

By the early 1920s, some of the indifference to Native Americans’ cultural values had lessened.

However, even if  a government official occasionally saw positive traits in native peoples or respected their need for cultural wholeness, his viewpoint could be buried in a continued avalanche of popular sentimentality and/or naivete that perpetuated stereotypes and fed unrealistic daydreams about the status of Native Americans. Continue reading →