Taking the Children to Take the Land: Indian Child Welfare and the Enduring Epidemic of Family Separation

This chapter theorizes poverty governance as a tool of settler colonialism by illustrating how historic constructions of Native people translate into contemporary child welfare policies. Analyses of American Indian history and federal Indian law are combined with case studies and contemporary data to demonstrate the enduring nature of child separation as a means to control Native communities and by extension their land. Because the modern Indian child welfare system mirrors the function, form, and outcome of policies established in previous centuries, this chapter argues that the colonization of Native people by controlling Native children has yet to end, forcing us to confront the ways in which neoliberalism intersects with neocolonialism. The conclusion considers the future of Indian child welfare by exploring tribal sovereignty and Native-led strategies to end genocide-by-separation.