American Indian Stories

While American Indian Stories includes many examples detailing American Indian traditions, culture, and lifestyles, its primary goal is to describe the effects of assimilation on American Indian tribes in general and the Sioux tribe in particular at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the book’s autobiographical sections and fiction stories, Zitkála-Šá details how attempts to require American Indians to adopt White, Euro-American, and Christianized culture were more or less forced. Furthermore, her book details how these practices, which were sponsored by missionaries, the US government, and other groups, split apart families, disrupted cultural traditions, and lead to injustice.

Early in the book, Zitkála-Šá’s mother warns her not believe the “white man’s lies” because their “words are sweet but […] their deeds are bitter” (22). Despite the warning, Zitkála-Šá chooses to attend a mission school. Her mother repeats warnings like this throughout the book, such as when Zitkála-Šá returns home from the mission school and when she returns again after securing a teaching job. Her decision to describe these experiences in her book, rhetorically speaking, gives her authority to criticize the practice of assimilation. She writes from a

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