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The American Indian
Long before state health care or food stamps, before the creation of welfare ghettoes in our major cities, America's first experiment with socialism and government dependency practically destroyed the American Indian.
Government experts created the Indian reservations. America's churches wholeheartedly supported it, convinced the reservation would be the key to winning souls for Christianity.
In 1944 young R. J. Rushdoony arrived at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada as a missionary to the Shoshone and the Paiute Indians. For eight years he lived with them, worked with them, ministered to them and listened to their stories. He came to know them intimately, both as individuals and as a people. This is his story, and theirs.
It is also the story of an experiment that failed, disastrously-and exercise in statist paternalism and ineffective Christian meddling whose effects ravage the Indians to this day. The reservation system debased the people it was meant to serve, and the churches failed in their mission; until, in the end, the proud and resourceful Indian was transformed into "a defeated man, lacking in character." This is Rushdoony's eyewitness testimony to that failure.
Today, as America's leaders expand the welfare state and radically transform the entire nation, we'd do well to reconsider this first experiment in government dependency and a Christianity stripped of God's law-before all of the United States is transformed into a massive reservation on a continental scale. Rushdoony's description of our past is also an indictment of our statist future.
Government experts created the Indian reservations. America's churches wholeheartedly supported it, convinced the reservation would be the key to winning souls for Christianity.
In 1944 young R. J. Rushdoony arrived at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada as a missionary to the Shoshone and the Paiute Indians. For eight years he lived with them, worked with them, ministered to them and listened to their stories. He came to know them intimately, both as individuals and as a people. This is his story, and theirs.
It is also the story of an experiment that failed, disastrously-and exercise in statist paternalism and ineffective Christian meddling whose effects ravage the Indians to this day. The reservation system debased the people it was meant to serve, and the churches failed in their mission; until, in the end, the proud and resourceful Indian was transformed into "a defeated man, lacking in character." This is Rushdoony's eyewitness testimony to that failure.
Today, as America's leaders expand the welfare state and radically transform the entire nation, we'd do well to reconsider this first experiment in government dependency and a Christianity stripped of God's law-before all of the United States is transformed into a massive reservation on a continental scale. Rushdoony's description of our past is also an indictment of our statist future.
139 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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102 people want to read
About the author
Rousas John Rushdoony
137 books148 followersRousas John Rushdoony was a Calvinist philosopher, historian, and theologian and is widely credited as the father of both Christian Reconstructionism and the modern homeschool movement. His prolific writings have exerted considerable influence on the Christian right.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
July 6, 2022
My congregation and I take a trip to southwest Oklahoma every year. We serve among the descendants of some plains Indians, helping around the area and conducting a vacation Bible School. I was recounting our last trip to the head of a Native American Ministry, when he popped out that he had just finished reading a great book by R.J. Rushdoony that relates his time working on a reservation, and his assessment of Native American work. I was intrigued. I've read almost everything Rushdoony wrote years ago, and had forgotten that he had pastored on a reservation (1944-1953). So I immediately order "The American Indian: A Standing Indictment Against Christianity and Statism in America". It's a small, easy-to-read 144-page paperback.
The chapters work out Rushdoony's engagement with his Shoshone and Paiute neighbors, what he learned, and how it shaped him. His biggest concerns are how Christians and American elitists have imbibed in the old notion of the "Noble Savage" and how that has hurt Christianity and Indian peoples. Thus, he works through funerals, power, education, medicine men, self-image, the fallacy of primitivism, etc. Though the writing is unusually jerky and bumpy at times, yet it was a useful read. My favorite observation was when the author recorded an old Native American that still remembered his pre-reservation days, "The white man wanted what we had, our land, but he didn't want us. We wanted what the white man had - his improvements, his guns, his modern conveniences - but we didn't want him" (9).
My favorite chapter was the last, "Improving the Morals of the Past". Here Rushdoony tackles, over and over again, the faulty practice of the "white champions of Indians" confessing the crimes of their ancestors. "People who are prone to confessing the sins of their forebears rather than their own are consummate Pharisees and hypocrites...Too many people want a cheap virtue by condemning the sins of men of the past or of their own ancestors" (112-3). It's an instructive chapter worth some time to ponder over.
The volume might not sit well with modern 21st Century hypersensitivities, nevertheless I found it a beneficial read. No one is excused in this dossier, but all can gain some healthier perspective if they allow this set of short chapters to work on their viewpoint. It's a manuscript well worth reading.
The chapters work out Rushdoony's engagement with his Shoshone and Paiute neighbors, what he learned, and how it shaped him. His biggest concerns are how Christians and American elitists have imbibed in the old notion of the "Noble Savage" and how that has hurt Christianity and Indian peoples. Thus, he works through funerals, power, education, medicine men, self-image, the fallacy of primitivism, etc. Though the writing is unusually jerky and bumpy at times, yet it was a useful read. My favorite observation was when the author recorded an old Native American that still remembered his pre-reservation days, "The white man wanted what we had, our land, but he didn't want us. We wanted what the white man had - his improvements, his guns, his modern conveniences - but we didn't want him" (9).
My favorite chapter was the last, "Improving the Morals of the Past". Here Rushdoony tackles, over and over again, the faulty practice of the "white champions of Indians" confessing the crimes of their ancestors. "People who are prone to confessing the sins of their forebears rather than their own are consummate Pharisees and hypocrites...Too many people want a cheap virtue by condemning the sins of men of the past or of their own ancestors" (112-3). It's an instructive chapter worth some time to ponder over.
The volume might not sit well with modern 21st Century hypersensitivities, nevertheless I found it a beneficial read. No one is excused in this dossier, but all can gain some healthier perspective if they allow this set of short chapters to work on their viewpoint. It's a manuscript well worth reading.
September 24, 2021
An interesting book; repetitive at times, Rushdoony makes worthwhile points about Indians being treated as a static peoples. Its marred at times by the author's socio-emotional obtuseness and by his wonky theology. Rushdoony is fascinating but always feels a bit too morally and religiously presumptuous which is a mark of his heterodox Calvinism.
July 2, 2014
As can be expected with Rushdoony, this book makes a number of good observations and insights respecting religion, culture, and society, this time surrounding a situation he was quite personally acquainted with: the American Indian. Rushdoony writes sympathetically, though not sentimentally, concerning the Indian, as he had been a missionary among the Shoshone and Paiute for eight years, starting in 1944.
Rushdoony makes the point repeatedly that it is not a issue of race, but of religion. Life without true Christianity ends in ruin, whether we talk about paganism, the "whiskey religion," romanticized primitivism, and statism. And the destructive nature of these alternatives to Christianity can be seen among Indian and white man alike, though the situation might be different.
The full title of the book is "The American Indian: A Standing Indictment Against Christianity and Statism in America," and at first I was confused about the "indictment against Christianity" part. But Rushdoony's point is that Christians have failed to live out their faith with respect to the Indian peoples. Instead, all too often the Indians have been caught up in the apostasy of the West. With the coming of secular humanism, many have tried to preserve the Indians as a supposedly "unspoiled" people, hindered from progressing like the rest of America. Rushdoony does a good job separating the humanistic myth of the American Indian from the true story.
Rushdoony makes the point repeatedly that it is not a issue of race, but of religion. Life without true Christianity ends in ruin, whether we talk about paganism, the "whiskey religion," romanticized primitivism, and statism. And the destructive nature of these alternatives to Christianity can be seen among Indian and white man alike, though the situation might be different.
The full title of the book is "The American Indian: A Standing Indictment Against Christianity and Statism in America," and at first I was confused about the "indictment against Christianity" part. But Rushdoony's point is that Christians have failed to live out their faith with respect to the Indian peoples. Instead, all too often the Indians have been caught up in the apostasy of the West. With the coming of secular humanism, many have tried to preserve the Indians as a supposedly "unspoiled" people, hindered from progressing like the rest of America. Rushdoony does a good job separating the humanistic myth of the American Indian from the true story.
September 2, 2019
Good book
Very interesting good. A lot of insight from personal experience living first hand with Native American Indians. As an Australian I didn’t know a lot about their history but I feel this book was a good stepping stone. Aside from history, this book also has a lot of applications relevant to us today.
Very interesting good. A lot of insight from personal experience living first hand with Native American Indians. As an Australian I didn’t know a lot about their history but I feel this book was a good stepping stone. Aside from history, this book also has a lot of applications relevant to us today.
November 26, 2022
Rushdoony did missions in American Indian tribes for eight years, and the things he saw changed his outlook on religion, politics, and family. Many Americans were pretty disenchanted with Christian theism due to their interactions with white men and women. Although they associated Christianity with white people, simply because it was the white man who first introduced it to them, they did not associate Christians to Christ. And this is the primary reason why they rejected it so strongly. A man who claims to have strong legs, but can only crawl, won't be trusted.
Rushdoony also looked at how the government has caused the American Indian tribes to die out. They literally took their land, their people, and their food against their will. The government's hand infiltrate anything that is not theirs.
Rushdoony also looked at how the government has caused the American Indian tribes to die out. They literally took their land, their people, and their food against their will. The government's hand infiltrate anything that is not theirs.
January 24, 2014
I enjoyed this book tremendously! Rushdoony recounts lessons of faith as he ministered to the Shoshone and Paiute Indians of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. Many of the myths and legends associated with Native American’s are addressed from a refreshing perspective. Though I am sure this book will not be popular with some groups, I found it to be a much needed breath of fresh air. This is one of my favorite books from Rushdoony.
May 21, 2024
4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
This was so enlightening. It brings immense clarity to a complex topic that is so controversial in this day and age. He shows us that what is thought of often as very black and white (no pun intended I promise) is not actually that stark. It’s not: white people are good and Indians/Native Americans are bad or—a more common theory nowadays—Native Americans are the good ones, so in tune with nature and with themselves and the white colonizers are the awful villains. Rushdoony not only casts light on what is going on around us but also what can be done. He wrote this in the 1940s and it's tragic that hardly anything has changed. This is a part of our history we need to face, not in an apolize-for-being-white kind of way, simply something we need to be aware of. Both sides committed crimes, broke promises, massacred etc., but the difference is, Americans claimed to be followers of Christ. That claim brings huge responsibility, and we failed in that. Mostly anyway.
While there were a few minor (I mean teeny tiny) points I “disagreed” or a mentally debated, this book was so rich, so intricate, yet laid everything down in such a practical, comprehensive way that I don’t know how to do it justice in a review.
This is something every American should read. Again, I repeat, read this.
This was so enlightening. It brings immense clarity to a complex topic that is so controversial in this day and age. He shows us that what is thought of often as very black and white (no pun intended I promise) is not actually that stark. It’s not: white people are good and Indians/Native Americans are bad or—a more common theory nowadays—Native Americans are the good ones, so in tune with nature and with themselves and the white colonizers are the awful villains. Rushdoony not only casts light on what is going on around us but also what can be done. He wrote this in the 1940s and it's tragic that hardly anything has changed. This is a part of our history we need to face, not in an apolize-for-being-white kind of way, simply something we need to be aware of. Both sides committed crimes, broke promises, massacred etc., but the difference is, Americans claimed to be followers of Christ. That claim brings huge responsibility, and we failed in that. Mostly anyway.
While there were a few minor (I mean teeny tiny) points I “disagreed” or a mentally debated, this book was so rich, so intricate, yet laid everything down in such a practical, comprehensive way that I don’t know how to do it justice in a review.
This is something every American should read. Again, I repeat, read this.
This was so enlightening. It brings immense clarity to a complex topic that is so controversial in this day and age. He shows us that what is thought of often as very black and white (no pun intended I promise) is not actually that stark. It’s not: white people are good and Indians/Native Americans are bad or—a more common theory nowadays—Native Americans are the good ones, so in tune with nature and with themselves and the white colonizers are the awful villains. Rushdoony not only casts light on what is going on around us but also what can be done. He wrote this in the 1940s and it's tragic that hardly anything has changed. This is a part of our history we need to face, not in an apolize-for-being-white kind of way, simply something we need to be aware of. Both sides committed crimes, broke promises, massacred etc., but the difference is, Americans claimed to be followers of Christ. That claim brings huge responsibility, and we failed in that. Mostly anyway.
While there were a few minor (I mean teeny tiny) points I “disagreed” or a mentally debated, this book was so rich, so intricate, yet laid everything down in such a practical, comprehensive way that I don’t know how to do it justice in a review.
This is something every American should read. Again, I repeat, read this.
This was so enlightening. It brings immense clarity to a complex topic that is so controversial in this day and age. He shows us that what is thought of often as very black and white (no pun intended I promise) is not actually that stark. It’s not: white people are good and Indians/Native Americans are bad or—a more common theory nowadays—Native Americans are the good ones, so in tune with nature and with themselves and the white colonizers are the awful villains. Rushdoony not only casts light on what is going on around us but also what can be done. He wrote this in the 1940s and it's tragic that hardly anything has changed. This is a part of our history we need to face, not in an apolize-for-being-white kind of way, simply something we need to be aware of. Both sides committed crimes, broke promises, massacred etc., but the difference is, Americans claimed to be followers of Christ. That claim brings huge responsibility, and we failed in that. Mostly anyway.
While there were a few minor (I mean teeny tiny) points I “disagreed” or a mentally debated, this book was so rich, so intricate, yet laid everything down in such a practical, comprehensive way that I don’t know how to do it justice in a review.
This is something every American should read. Again, I repeat, read this.
July 3, 2019
Rushdoony lived with and ministered to an Indian tribe for 8 years, beginning in 1944. This is a collection of essays, stories and reflections based on that experience.
He is not afraid to challenge conventional stereotypes about the American Indian—countering and correcting both the negative, bigoted ones and the romanticized narratives that Progressivism spins. Rushdoony shows a great respect for many elements of Indian culture and heritage, their spiritual capacity and intelligence. He is sharply critical of federal government social policies that serve to enslave the modern Indians on reservations and keep them from prospering. The right solution is to give them their freedom back and respect them enough to sink or swim without government “help.” Here’s his conclusion from an essay written circa 1952:
He is not afraid to challenge conventional stereotypes about the American Indian—countering and correcting both the negative, bigoted ones and the romanticized narratives that Progressivism spins. Rushdoony shows a great respect for many elements of Indian culture and heritage, their spiritual capacity and intelligence. He is sharply critical of federal government social policies that serve to enslave the modern Indians on reservations and keep them from prospering. The right solution is to give them their freedom back and respect them enough to sink or swim without government “help.” Here’s his conclusion from an essay written circa 1952:
”The best cure for any kind of slavery, after all, is nothing more or less than freedom.
“Finally, any complaining Indian should be firmly told, ‘Your old song that the white man stole the land from you is out of date. We are giving it back to you with more privileges, more opportunity, and more freedom than your ancestors enjoyed. But in order to hold any of these, you will have to work and compete for them even as your forefathers did before they ever saw us. Our best payment of our debt to you is not the money that some of you hanker for, but the full freedom of American citizenship; nothing will give you more returns. We are offering you the status of a man.’ In no other way can the ancient wrongs be righted, and we have no rights to withhold from the Indian that for which silent millions of the world hunger.”
April 15, 2018
This is a very easy read in terms of writing style, and helpful to combat a lot of prevalent myths about our history. It is sometimes frustrating and hard to read in the sense that it reminds or informs the reader how badly we've handled certain situations in the past.
While the chapters were edited posthumously to form a more cohesive structure, I still found the book to read more like a series of essays, and it read better once I adjusted my expectations accordingly.
While the chapters were edited posthumously to form a more cohesive structure, I still found the book to read more like a series of essays, and it read better once I adjusted my expectations accordingly.
April 29, 2025
This was a very good enlightening read. There is a tendency to romanticize the way of life of the native American, but as one of the ladies he quotes said, "The sum of Indian life: staying alive." Life was hard, and largely entailed hunting and gathering, and threats of starvation were very real. Warring between the tribes was also very real as the competition for resources meant survival. This was a very informational book, and I'm grateful to have read it!
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November 2, 2022Fantastic book chronicling Rushdoony's time as a chaplain and missionary on an Indian Reservation in Southern California. He brings up some interesting observations and comments on various cultural beliefs that I would never have supposed Native peoples believed. He contrasts Native life on reservations with Christian civilization.
January 19, 2020
Very informative
Rushdoony shows the difficulties the natives went through and the problems created through the involvement of the federal government. He also speaks lovingly of them. One can see the love he had for them.
Rushdoony shows the difficulties the natives went through and the problems created through the involvement of the federal government. He also speaks lovingly of them. One can see the love he had for them.
February 7, 2022
Listened to this awhile back in 2020 during many sessions of cutting grass. I’ll never forget the content of this book as long as I live. It’s quite a sad story about the natives, but Rush gives his take on it through his personal experience living in a reserve. It’s pretty dog on awesome.
September 3, 2023
Rushdoony's collection of writings about his time on a Nevada reservation bites like a rye whiskey. Through the Native American example, Rushdoony displays the Christian's role in evangelization and charity in a broken and welfare dependant people. Good read.
March 19, 2018
This book greatly aided me in understanding how wrong fallen man can often be when it comes to understanding not only their own history but also their relationships with others.
September 11, 2018
Always insightful and biblical in his categories.
November 9, 2018
Very good!
March 27, 2020
Lots of insights.
January 8, 2022
Wow! Clear eyed observations from someone who earned the right to be heard.
March 1, 2022
Fascinating and insightful look
March 16, 2022
Deep insight into the American Indian out west from a missionary that lived there.
July 17, 2022
Very insightful.
August 12, 2022
Fascinating look into the attempts to aid native americans through socialistic policies, and the alternatives.
June 6, 2023
The chapter on envy and the appendix were worth the read themselves.
November 18, 2025
Very compelling thesis. Not the best execution.
February 17, 2016
Rousas J Rushdoony had a gift for seeing the broad landscape of issues, and how things fit together. I was surprised by some of the conclusions of this book, as he saw things from a different aspect than most of us do. Yet, I believe his analysis of the situation of Native Americans is accurate, even though written about 50 years ago. He made predictions about the results of practices America has pursued in trying to "help" Native Americans, and the were true. Our means of "helping" have caused a good deal of hurt and damage. What is written in this book is just as true now as when it was just off the press.
I wish I had the observational and analytical insights of this man.
I wish I had the observational and analytical insights of this man.
November 28, 2013
I liked this book a lot. Rushdoony is direct as to the sin that plagues native American communities but is quite clear as to the sin of the "white man" in his treatment of the "indian". He writes fondly and with high regard of both Christian and non-Christian native American friends. The book is actually a series of articles cobbled together posthumously. As such he appears to repeat himself somewhat.
January 4, 2014
Excellent book, great observations into the reality of culture... It is not sacred but broken.
January 1, 2023
One of Rushdoony's better writings. A great look into the lives and culture of the Paiute and Shoshone Indians. At times repetitive but overall well worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews