When we think about American history, we often think about the tragedy that claimed the land, lives, culture, and heritage of the indigenous people of North America. European intrusion consequently prompts a long arrangement of land usurpation that continuously displaced the natives into confined reservations. It is against this background that Erdrich, in her novel 'Tracks' explicitly illustrates the political and historical experiences of the Native American as shown by the troubles of Chippewa Tribe. The novel ‘Tracks’ dramatically presents the struggle and survival of the Native Americans due to historical injustice, dispossession, and deprivation through colonization.
In her novel, Tracks, Erdrich deals not only with individual American …show more content…
The Allotment Act itself, at a large scale, is arguably one of the most devastating pieces of the legislature for Natives, the act cut large portion of the land from the existing land base, separated the tribes and threatened tribal sovereignty. Many of these white settlers viewed the continued practice of native traditions as barbaric and intolerable. They believed that assimilation into mainstream white American society should be the only acceptable way of life for Native Americans making the Allotment Act and assimilation an important factor at a macro level. They have also used the Catholic missionaries and the boarding schools to practice their plan of assimilation and absorption of the Indian’s culture as seen in Tracks where Pauline were completely absorbed in the Catholicism and completely dissociated from her traditional beliefs and values. Pauline completely absorbed in religion states “He said that I was not whom I had supposed. I was an orphan and my parents had died in grace, and also, despite my deceptive features, I was not one speck of Indian, but wholly white” (Erdrich 137). This has separated Pauline from the rest of the characters causing separation within the family and disrupting the cohesion within the