Established in 1824, the United States Indian Service (USIS), now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was the agency responsible for carrying out U.S. treaty and trust obligations to American Indians, but it also sought to ""civilise"" and assimilate them. In Federal Fathers and Mothers, Cathleen Cahill offers the first in-depth social history of the agency during the height of its assimilation efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cahill shows how the USIS pursued a strategy of intimate colonialism, using employees as surrogate parents and model families in order to shift Native Americans' allegiances from tribal kinship networks to Euro-American familial structures and, ultimately, the U.S. government.
Cathleen D. Cahill is assistant professor of history at the University of New Mexico, USA.
"A groundbreaking account." -- Ethnohistory "A major contribution to our understanding of how gender and ethnicity shaped Indian affairs in this era. The book is well written and deeply researched, and it gives readers a sophisticated and informed account of an era that remains understudied." -- North Carolina Historical Review "A new perspective on Indian-U.S. relations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . . An essential library addition for all scholars of federal policy and colonialism." -- Western Historical Quarterly "A valuable contribution to Indian history." -- Western Legal History "An in-depth social history of the United States Indian Service. . . . Well-researched, interesting, even inspirational, Cathleen Cahill's Federal Fathers and Mothers highlights Indian history and the American historical context and brings the term 'intimate colonialism' solidly into the lexicon." -- Southwestern American Literature "An outstanding investigation of the Indian Service and its employees. Cahill's work bolsters scholarship, challenging the unidirectional impact of empire and colonialism by demonstrating the domestic consequences of imperialism." -- Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era "Cahill's work is perceptive and astute . . .[and] offers uncommon insights into myriad other topics." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Innovative and compelling reading by a promising young scholar. . . . Cahill writes beautifully. . . [and] her research and significant interventions into historiographic trends make this an important book." -- Journal of Social History "This work is essential in understanding the history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs." -- Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians "Will appeal to scholars interested in colonialism and Native American studies, especially students of the assimilation era in the United States. Beyond North America, Cahill's work will be of use to scholars interested in the social history of large governmental agencies and the employees who implement the broad directives of policymakers." -- H-Florida
