Editing Five Civilized Tribes (section)

==Terminology==
The term "civilized tribes" was adopted to distinguish the Five Tribes from other [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes that were described as "wild" or "savage".<ref name="Donaldson1894">{{cite book |title=Indians: the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory: The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sN7AFvPpHy8C&pg=PA7|year=1890 |publisher=United States Census Printing Office|page=7}}</ref><ref name="Lewis2008">{{cite journal |author1=Robert M. Lewis |title=Wild American Savages and the Civilized English: Catlin's Indian Gallery and the Shows of London |journal=European Journal of American Studies |date=21 January 2008 |volume=3 |issue=3–1 |doi=10.4000/ejas.2263 |issn=1991-9336|pages=13, 15|doi-access=free }}</ref> Texts written by non-indigenous scholars and writers have used words like "savage" and "wild" to identify Indian groups that retained their traditional cultural practices after European contact. As a consequence of evolving attitudes toward ethnocentric word usage and more rigorous ethnographical standards, the term "Five Civilized Tribes" is rarely used in contemporary academic publications.<ref name="PerdueGreen2005">{{cite book|author1=Theda Perdue|author2=Michael D Green|title=The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-RBJCyp2bFIC&pg=PA101|date=22 June 2005|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-50602-1|page=101}}</ref>

George Washington believed that the only way Indians could survive in proximity to White settlers was for them to become civilized. The United States accordingly adopted a policy of civilizing Indians while Washington was president. The policy assumed that civilized Indians would require less land, and would need money, so that they would be willing to sell the excess land to White settlers. In White American terms, Indians became civilized by the men giving up hunting and becoming farmers, displacing the women who traditionally had been the primary farmers. They were expected to use draft animals and to give up maize as a main crop and instead raise wheat and cotton. The women were to become housekeepers, caring for children and weaving cotton for clothing. The Indians were also expected to acquire slaves and use them like their White plantation neighbors did.<ref name="PerdueGreen2001"/>

The word "civilized" was used by White settlers to refer to the Five Tribes, who, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, actively integrated Anglo-American customs into their own cultures.<ref name="Deloria2010">{{cite book|author=Vine Deloria Jr.|title=Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1iv9mqDdd8kC&pg=PA9|date=28 June 2010|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-78946-3|page=9}}</ref> Sociologists, anthropologists, and interdisciplinary scholars alike are interested in how and why these native peoples assimilated certain features of the alien culture of the White settlers who were encroaching on their lands. Historian Steve Brandon asserts that this "adaptation and incorporation of aspects of white culture" was a tactic employed by the Five Nations peoples to resist removal from their lands. While the term "Five Civilized Tribes" has been institutionalized in federal government policy to the point that the [[United States Congress|US Congress]] passed laws using the name, the Five Nations themselves have been less accepting of it in formal matters, and some members have declared that grouping the different peoples under this label is effectively another form of colonization and control by White society.<ref name="McClinton-TempleVelie2010">{{cite book|author1=Jennifer McClinton-Temple|author2=Alan Velie|title=Encyclopedia of American Indian Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_HeSvlkGFl4C&pg=PA118|date=12 May 2010|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-2087-4|pages=118–119}}</ref>  Other modern scholars have suggested that the very concept of "civilization" was internalized by individuals who belonged to the Five Nations,<ref name="Foreman1934">{{cite book|author=Grant Foreman|title=The Five Civilized Tribes|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/_Topics/history/_Texts/FOR5CT/Introduction*.html#p13|year=1934|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press (Reprinted 17 April 2013)|isbn=978-0-8061-8967-3|page=13}}</ref><ref name="PerdueGreen2005" /> but because much of Native North American history has been communicated by [[oral tradition]], little scholarly research has been done to substantiate this.

In present-day commentary on Native American cultures, the term "civilized" is contentious and not commonly used in academic literature. Some commentators, including the Indian activist [[Vine Deloria Jr.]], have declared that it is demeaning and implies that the indigenous peoples of the North American continent were "uncivilized" before their contact with the habits, customs, and beliefs of Anglo-American settlers. The term is based on the assumption that different peoples possess objective "degrees" of civilization that may be assessed and raises the question of just what qualities define "civilization". Consequently, it is considered a judgmental term whose meaning is dependent on the user's perspective, and thus best avoided.<ref name="ReeseLoughlin2013">{{cite book|author1=Linda W. Reese|author2=Patricia Loughlin|title=Main Street Oklahoma: Stories of Twentieth-Century America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2aBtAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|date=15 August 2013|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-5054-3|pages=24–25, note 2}}</ref><ref name="UARK2019">{{cite web |author1=University of Arkansas staff |title=The term "Five Civilized Tribes" |url=https://uark.libguides.com/c.php?g=556261 |publisher=University of Arkansas Libraries |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190121175104/https://uark.libguides.com/c.php?g=556261&p=3825648 |archive-date=January 21, 2019 |date=January 10, 2019}}</ref>