Kill the Indian, Save the Man
 The book is primarily an extended essay, entitled "Genocide by Any Other Name," tracing the history of the mandatory attendance of Native American children at residential schools, which generally meant they left their families to receive education in distant places, where they studied with children from other tribes. Churchill analyzes this as a process of genocide (forced assimilationist policies, as school policies often prohibited the use of the students' own languages and their exercise of their own religions or cultural practices, such as style of hair and clothes. Particularly in the early years, the schools were generally run by religious organizations, many of which had already established missions among the Native Americans. During the nearly 100-year history of the schools, conditions varied from place to place. Former students have also reported positive experiences. Families often hid their children, or their cultural identities, in an attempt to keep their children from being kidnapped. Trickery and outright paternalistic force were used to remove young children from their homes. Families were devastated, and once enrolled at school, the children were not allowed to associate with siblings or loved ones. Stress and trauma for both native communities and individual children still haunt the people today. Children were forced to develop an identity which did not prepare them for life back home in the native communities from which they came, or in the society at large which did not accept native people as equals. These people did not belong anywhere. He describes the sometimes terrible conditions in the schools, with poor nutrition, a high rate of tuberculosis (untreatable until the use of antibiotics was developed) and other infectious diseases (which were common in the times); forced labor, and incidents of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. He says the students suffered a higher rate of mortality than children of their age in the general population. He notes that many graduates have reported being damaged by their experiences and have suffered high rates of alcoholism (note: this has been a problem for Native Americans outside of the school experience) and suicide. Churchill says the former students have transmitted the "trauma to successive generations," contributing to social disintegration among Native American communities. The author intended the book to compensate for his not having covered the boarding schools and their issues in his 1979 book A Little Matter of Genocide. It includes numerous photos and lists of such historic schools in the US and Canada.