Defining the ‘American Indian’: A case study in the language of suppression

There is a need for educators and scholars in the speech communication and language arts to make a more concerted effort to identify the distorted and inhumane uses of language. The natural‐religious, political‐cultural, and legal definitions of the “American Indian” into inferiors, savages, and barbarians furnish a case study of the oppressive uses of language to defend and justify the indefensible, inhumane treatment of human beings.