ABSTRACT
"Indian Reductions," the Jesuits called such new native communities. These they expected would become a perfect model, not only for the inspiration of other "wild" Indians, but for all humankind. In this chapter, the author suggested that Indians in "reductions" were people without a place: internal exiles. Reduction of the North American natives means that the colonial process has not only limited their geographic range but reduced their sociological horizon as well. Reduction began with the land itself. Somehow indigenous peoples had to be excluded from the physical space into which the new North American societies were spreading. The geographic reduction of native North Americans was tied to their demographic reduction. There are two sides to this aspect of reduction. First, the natural rate of population expansion was stunted by biological and man-made conditions. Second, the demographic growth of native communities has been, and still is, legally and ideologically restricted.
