This module discusses the impact of HIV/AIDS on Native Americans and the health and psychological legacies of contact and colonization.

Topics include:

1. History and Trauma



2. Impacts of Contact and Colonization



3. Discrimination and Homophobia



4. Effective Communication



5. Biological Factors



6. Poverty



7. Violence and Powerlessness



8. Trust and Lack of Confidence



9. Substance Abuse



10. Healthcare Funding for Native Communities



11. Structural Barriers to Intervention/Prevention
    

• Module 2 Evaluation
  
  

Disease
Early European contact exposed Native people to diseases such as smallpox, typhus, and measles. These diseases had a devastating impact on Native populations for hundreds of years. There were roughly five million Native Americans in 1492 and as few as 250,000 in 1900.³ Smallpox in particular caused many Native deaths and losses of leaders, spiritual knowledge, and traditional ways of life. In Alaska, disease was a greater threat to the Native population than violence. Harold Napoleon, author of Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being, refers to this time period as “the great deaths” because thousands of Alaskans died from Western diseases.⁴

War and Enslavement
As colonists moved west, the government carried out policies to remove tribes from their lands, forcing them onto reservations. These strenuous journeys caused many deaths. The Plains Indian Wars killed millions of American Indian men, women, and children. Some American Indians were enslaved, which further contributed to physical genocide.

Assimilation: The Breakdown of Native Social Structures
Many federal policies had a devastating impact on the economic, political, and emotional well-being of Native peoples. Federal policies broke down traditional family and tribal social structures. For example, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 gave portions of reservation land to male heads of Native households. It shifted decision-making power from women to men, upsetting the matrifocal society that was the structure of family health and social governance of many Native populations for thousands of years.

Removal of Native Children
In 1875, the federal government set up the Indian Boarding School System. This System aimed to civilize Native children through education and assimilation into Eurocentric culture. Attendance was voluntary at first, but by 1890, it was enforced. The US government threatened to put Native people in jail and to take away rations and supplies if parents did not cooperate.⁵,⁶ Modern child welfare policy moved thousands of children from their families into non-Indian foster care and adoptive homes.⁷ Many Native children were made to feel culturally and racially inferior. Native children died from disease, homesickness, and suicide. Many children suffered from physical and sexual abuse. Some never returned to their homes and families, contributing to a loss of language, identity, culture, and tradition.

⁴Napoleon H, Madsen EC, ed. Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being. University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Cross-Cultural Studies; 1991.

⁴Napoleon H, Madsen EC, ed. Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being. University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Cross-Cultural Studies; 1991.

⁵McDonald D. An historical overview of Indian education. Children’s Advocate.  November/December 1990:4-5.

⁶Noriega J. American Indian education in the United States: Indoctrination for subordination to colonialism. In: Jaimes MA, ed. The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance. Boston: South End Press; 1992:371-402.

⁷Noriega J. American Indian education in the United States: Indoctrination for subordination to colonialism. In: Jaimes MA, ed. The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance. Boston: South End Press; 1992:371-402.