Economic and Psychic Exploitation of American Indians

Two general points can be made about Euroamerican exploitation of American Indians: first, whatever level of exploitation they have experienced by the motion picture industry, it is part of a long tradition which dates back to the earliest contacts between white Europeans and Indians; and second, that the exploitation has taken on two forms—economic and psychic. Just how Indians have been taken advantage of economically is relatively clear. Euroamerican history texts happily record the ways in which the native inhabitants of the American shores were bilked, with the $24 worth of beads, for Manhatten Island and with equally inequitable arrangements for the rest of their lands. Perhaps less obvious, and more damaging is just how these same people have been exploited for emotional and psychological reasons.