Final answer:
Advocates of assimilation viewed Native Americans as C. likely converts to Christianity and American civilization, pushing for cultural transformation in line with Euro-American standards under the guise of benevolence.
Step-by-step explanation:
Advocates of assimilation during the period of American expansion viewed Native Americans primarily as likely converts to Christianity and American civilization (Option C). This view was influenced by the prevailing belief that Native Americans could, and should, adopt the cultural practices and norms of the dominant Euro-American society—an ethnocentric perspective that viewed the Native American ways of life as inferior and unsustainable. The essence of assimilation policies such as the Dawes Act was to transform Native American culture to fit the Anglo-American model.
This meant promoting Christianity, changing economic practices, and imposing educational systems which often led to traumatic experiences for Native children who were removed from their families and sent to boarding schools. Despite the assurances of perpetuity, reservation lands were often allocated to White settlers, with the forced agriculture failing, leaving tribes dependent on government support. Assimilation efforts were not acts of recognising equality (Option B) or encouraging the preservation of native culture (Option D), nor were they straightforwardly about subordination (Option E) or simple displacement (Option A), but were couched in a paternalistic and condescending rhetoric of 'civilizing' the Native American peoples based on misguided benevolence.