what idea is the policy of assimilation based on?
Thomas Jefferson, address to the 21st Congress, 2nd Session, 1830-31. During the early 1800s the U.S. government adopted policies aimed at acculturating and assimilating Indians into European-American society. The policy of assimilation was an attempt to destroy traditional Indian cultural identities. Many historians have argued that the U.S. government believed that if American Indians did not adopt European-American culture they would become extinct as a people.