Uncle Sam's Stepchildren. The Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1887. byLoring Benseon PriestReview by: George DevereuxAmerican Sociological Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Feb., 1943), pp. 114-115Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085485 .

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II4 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

presents first a brief survey of the development of the English constitution and government and then she offers equally concise summaries of the history of the British empire in Africa and of the main issues which con- front the peoples of Africa. Time and again she calls attention to analogies from British history and without glossing over errors, she pleads for a careful study and a sympathetic understanding of the complexities of the African situation. Although excellent as far as it goes, this study is too brief to be enlightening for American readers. Written in a modified type of basic English, the book is provided with a glossary containing words like "navy," "peasant," and "twin." Americans will, no doubt, quarrel with the author's definition of "squatter" as "an agricultural worker who is paid partly by being allowed to live on his employer's land and who in return must work for him for a certain number of days in a year." This fits the South African word "by-woner" but not the American and Australian squatter. Americans will also challenge her statement (p. 2i) that "The most striking gift the United States has made to art comes directly from the negro."

PAUL KNAPLUND University of Wisconsin

Uncle Sam's Stepchildren. The Reformation of United States Indian Policy, I865-z887. By LORING BENSEON PRIEST. New Brunswick: Rutgers University, I942. PP. x+3IO. $3.75. The period under study covers the transition from the treaty-and-

removal system to the system of land-allotments to individual Indians. The author rightly stresses the fact that much of this transition occurred in a haphazard manner and was a result of compromise. The chaotic char- acter of this process may be responsible for the fact that some sections of the book do not seem very well organized. A chronological table of the events would have been helpful, and names mentioned in the appended footnotes might profitably have been incorporated in the index.

The policy of the Dawes Act of I887 was the outcome of battles between many parties for the control of Indian Affairs, Congressional monies, the furnishing of supplies and, above all, of Indian lands. The least significant of factors in deciding the policy was the Indian, and the least important of battles those fought by the Indians.

It is hard to say who knew less about the Indians: his foes or his friends. It is even harder to say whether the foes or the friends of the Indian dam- aged him most, the one advocating suppression, the other advocating policies which, though admirable in terms of the White man's standards, were disastrous to the Indian. Nothing, to my mind, shows more con- clusively the character of the total situation than the fact that not even the Quakers-of all people-could remain immune to the infection spread by the cesspool of Indian Affairs.

In the actual events of that era, as well as in Priest's book, the Indian is the object rather than the subject of the discourse. The author quotes no real anthropologists. The tribal affiliation of Indian individuals involved in crucial test-cases is sometimes not given. Priest's enormous historical erudition is not matched by a similar knowledge of Indian matters. Thus he speaks of Agent James McLaughlin's "considerable sympathy" for Sitting Bull, though Stanley Vestal holds that Agent responsible for

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BOOK REVIEWS II5

Sitting Bull's assassination. Priest similarly speaks of Indian "communism" in connection with land-tenure. The myth of primitive "communism" has long been assailed by anthropologists, and was given the death-blow by Herskovits. Some Indians, such as the Mohave, always had individual land-tenure. The tribal ownership of land was no more communistic than corporation-property or the principle of eminent domain.

Priest appears to object to the basic principles of the present administra- tion's Indian Reorganization Act, because he feels that they stand in the path of the Indian's adjustment. Unfortunately this adjustment is con- ceived of as a one-sided process. Cultural diversity is cultural conflict only if we do not know how to make this diversity bear priceless fruits through cross-fertilization. Indian culture has more to give us than corn, Navajo jewelry, and plots for horse-operas. The contemporary scene is not such as to disprove my contention that we may yet have to learn something about the art of living from a race which we have pushed to the brink of disaster.

Withal, Priest's book will be invaluable to any anthropologist who, for- saking "historical" reconstruction, will attempt to step into the tracks of Grinnell and Mooney and write authentic Indian history.

GEORGE DEVEREUX University of Wyoming

X Syllabusfor the Study of Marriage and the Family. By WILLIAM LINNAEUS LUDLOW. New Concord, Ohio: The Radcliffe Press, I942. Pp. 94. $1.SO.

Workbook Manualfor Marriage and the Family. By JOHN HARVEY FURBAY. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., I942. Pp. vii+247. (Price not indicated.)

Family Relationships. By ADA HART ARLITT. New York: The McGraw- Hill Book Company, Inc., I942. Pp. x+277. $2.50.

An intellectual crossfire has been directed of late upon the family institu- tion. Not only is the family a focus for the interests of social scientists, but likewise educators, biologists, philosophers, and men of letters increasingly feel that it is their mission to portray family life in more or less scientific terms. There is ample evidence of this convergence in these three books and in the extensive bibliographies which they contain. The aim of the three books, however, is primarily pedagogical. They all seek in varied ways to transmit information and guidance to non-experts.

The syllabus prepared by Ludlow is most ambitious in scope, dealing as it does with historical backgrounds, the social processes of courtship and marriage, and various aspects of family relationships including economic, biological, and legal problems. The general pattern is that of a conven- tional, comprehensive, course given in a department of sociology using, shall we say, Baber's book as a text. The syllabus is printed in loose-leaf and deals with thirty-six topics. There is a very brief introduction concern- ing approaches to the study of the family. Discussion questions of the con- ventional text-book type for each topic are followed by text references and more general references. At the end of the syllabus an extensive eleven-page bibliography is appended. The book is unquestionably a valuable pedagogi- cal contribution and it bespeaks acquaintance with an enormous and varied literature. The bibliographic contribution is enhanced by specific

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