Native policy making in North America: The unresolved conflict between economic desires and political idealism

The thesis explores the practical, moral and intellectual forces shaping native policy making in North America. It is argued that white society is struggling with an unresolved dialectic between its economic desires and its political idealism and that this conflict is expressed in native policy making as a simultaneous affirmation and denial of aboriginal rights. This theme is traced comparatively through Canadian and American native policy making histories from 1763 to 1990, focusing on three major policy areas: Indian dispossession, Indian political incorporation and Indian economic integration.