Most northeastern Indigenous people living at the turn of the 20th century had adapted elements of White culture alongside traditional customs and beliefs. Unless they were seen demonstrating crafts, speaking in their own languages, or performing in stereotypical “Indian” garb, they were often invisible to their White neighbors. Some Indigenous peoples in New England saw this as necessary for survival during an era when prejudice, sometimes accompanied by violence, against all people of color made it dangerous to talk about one’s ethnicity. In Vermont and New Hampshire, the Eugenics Project started sterilizing Indigenous people and other “undesirables.” Even some White reformers argued that Native Americans could survive only by rejecting their own cultures and beliefs and assimilating into White society. Dozens of special boarding schools established for this purpose housed thousands of Indigenous children who had been wrenched from their families and cultures. Paradoxically, many in the White society continued to seek out romantic and exotic ways to interact with Indigenous cultures even as they insisted that these same people should conform to the dominant White culture.