American Indian boarding schools
An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were established in the United States during the late 19th century to educate Native American youths according to Euro-American standards. These schools were primarily run by missionaries.[1] These often proved traumatic to Native American children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity and denied the right to practice their native religions, and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Native American identities [2] and adopt European-American culture and the English language. There were many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse occurring at these schools.[3][4]
In the late eighteenth century, reformers starting with Washington and Knox[5], in efforts to "civilize" or otherwise assimilate Native Americans (as opposed to relegating them to reservations), adopted the practice of educating native children in modern American culture. The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 promoted this civilization policy by providing funding to societies (mostly religious) who worked on Native American improvement.
Attendance in Indian boarding schools generally grew throughout the first half of the 20th century and doubled in the 1960s (10). Enrollment reached its highest point in the 1970s. In 1973, 60,000 American Indian children are estimated to have been enrolled in an Indian boarding school (10; 11). Several events in the late 1960s and mid-1970s (Kennedy Report, National Study of American Indian Education, Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975) led to more emphasis on community schools. Many large Indian boarding schools closed in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 2007, 9,500 American Indian children lived in an Indian boarding school dormitory (9). This includes 45 on-reservation boarding schools, 7 off-reservation boarding schools and 14 peripheral dormitories (9). From 1879 to the present day, hundreds of thousands of American Indians are estimated to have attended an Indian boarding school (12).
Non-reservation boarding schools
Native American children were often separated from their families and people when they were sent or sometimes taken to boarding schools off the reservations. These schools ranged from those like the federal Carlisle boarding School, to schools sponsored by religious organizations to some created by non-profits such as the founding of an Indian school in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1769.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School founded by Richard Henry Pratt in 1879 is one example. In a speech he gave in 1892, he said "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man."[6]
Pratt professed "assimilation through total immersion" and contended that, as slavery had assimilated African Americans, removing students entirely from their cultural surroundings would result in their assimilation. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Carlisle curriculum constituted of vocational training for boys and domestic science for girls, including chores around the school and producing goods for market. In the summer students were often outsourced to local farms and townspeople to continue their immersion and provide labor at low cost. Carlisle and its curriculum would become the model for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and by 1902 there were twenty-five federally funded non-reservation schools across fifteen states and territories with a total enrollment of over 6,000. Although federal legislation made education compulsory for Native Americans, removing students from reservations required parent authorization, although coercion and even violence were often used to secure the preset quota of students from any given reservation.
Once the new students arrived at the boarding schools, life altered drastically. They were given new haircuts, uniforms, and even new English names, sometimes based on their own, other times assigned at random. They could no longer speak their own languages, even between each other, and they were expected to convert to Christianity. Life was run by the strict orders of their teachers, and it often included grueling chores and stiff punishments. The following is a quote from Anna Moore of the Phoenix Indian School.
- "If we were not finished [scrubbing the dining room floors] when the 8 a.m. whistle sounded, the dining room matron would go around strapping us while we were still on our hands and knees."[7]
Additionally, disease was widespread due to insufficient funding for meals, overcrowding and overworked students. Death rates for Native American students were six and a half times higher than other ethnic groups.[7]
The Meriam Report of 1928
The Meriam Report, officially titled "The Problem of Indian Administration", was requested by and submitted February 21, 1928 to Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work. It recommended the abolition of "The Uniform Course of Study", which taught only white cultural values, that younger children should attend community schools near home, though older children should be able to attend non-reservation schools, and that the Indian Service should provide Native Americans the tools to adapt both in their own traditional communities and American society.
Today, a few off-reservation boarding schools are still in operation, but funding is in decline. However, some American Indians want to keep the tradition of these school alive, despite a legacy remembered by many as a time of abuse and neglect of native culture.
Assimilation efforts
Native American boarding schools in the United States were a method for the government to try to americanize Native American Indians. By putting them in these boarding schools they could educate and familiarize native Americans with society much more efficiently in the masses. These boarding schools also allowed the Native Americans to be separated from other “normal” American children.
How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population that we had persevered through all difficulties and at last had imparted our Knowledge of cultivating and the arts, to the Aboriginals of the Country by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. But it has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America — This opinion is probably more convenient than just.
— -Henry Knox to George Washington, 1790s.[8]
Most Native Americans adopted the American way of life but some still preferred to keep their heritage by staying within their tribes. When Native American children started attending boarding school they pretty much had to let go of their old way of life. They had to abandon their parents and old native language and were given haircuts with a different style of clothes. There was continuous enrollment in these boarding schools through the 1900s but eventually the government decided to give up on trying to assimilate native Americans. Some Indians went back to their old way of life in their tribes but many were now accustomed to the new American life. They used religion as another form of assimilation.
I rejoice, brothers, to hear you propose to become cultivators of the earth for the maintenance of your families. Be assured you will support them better and with less labor, by raising stock and bread, and by spinning and weaving clothes, than by hunting. A little land cultivated, and a little labor, will procure more provisions than the most successful hunt; and a woman will clothe more by spinning and weaving, than a man by hunting. Compared with you, we are but as of yesterday in this land. Yet see how much more we have multiplied by industry, and the exercise of that reason which you possess in common with us. Follow then our example, brethren, and we will aid you with great pleasure ...
— President Thomas Jefferson, Brothers of the Choctaw Nation, December 17, 1803[9]
Canada
A similar system in Canada was known as the Canadian residential school system.[10]
[11] On June 11, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a 3,600-word apology to First Nation, Metis and Inuit people for the legacy of Indian Residential Schools, which he called a "sad chapter in our history."
Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief John Beaucage commented "Our first thoughts today are for our Elders, Many of them have suffered life-long physical and emotional pain because of their residential school experiences."
Native American boarding schools
- Albuquerque Indian School, Albuquerque, New Mexico[12]
- Bacone College, Muscogee, Oklahoma,[12] 1881–Present
- Bloomfield Seminary, Hendrix/Ardmore, Oklahoma
- Bond's Mission School or Montana Industrial School for Indians ran by Unitarians, Crow Indian Reservation near Custer Station, Montana 1886-1897 [13]
- Cantonment School, Oklahoma[14]
- Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania,[14] open 1878-[15]
- Carson/Stewart Indian School, Nevada[14]
- Chamberlain Indian School, Chamberlain, South Dakota[14]
- Chemawa Indian School, Chemawa, Oklahoma[12]
- Cheyenne-Arapaho Boarding School, Concho, Oklahoma[12]
- Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, Chilocco, Oklahoma, open 1884-1980[16]
- Chinle Boarding School, Many Farms, Arizona[14]
- Dwight Mission, Marble City, Oklahoma[12]
- El Meta Bond College, Minco, Oklahoma[12]
- Euchee Boarding School, Sapulpa, Oklahoma[12]
- Eufaula Indian School, Eufaula, Oklahoma[12]
- Flandreau Indian School, South Dakota[14]
- Fort Bidwell School, California[14]
- Fort Shaw Indian School, Fort Shaw, Montana[14]
- Greenville School, California[14]
- Hampton Institute, began accepting Native students in 1878
- Haskell Indian Industrial Training School, Lawrence, Kansas, 1884–Present[15]
- Hawyard Indian School, Hayward, Wisconsin[14]
- Holbrook Indian School, Holbrook, Arizona[14]
- Ignacio Boarding School, Colorado[14]
- Intermountain Indian School, Utah
- Jones Male Academy, Hartshorne, Oklahoma[12]
- Mekosukey Academy, Oklahoma[14]
- Morris Industrial School for Indians, Morris, Minnesota,[17] open 1887—1909
- Murray State School of Agriculture, Tishomingo, Oklahoma[12], est. 1908
- Nenannezed Boarding School, New Mexico[14]
- Nuyaka School and Orphanage (Nuyaka Mission), Okmulgee, Oklahoma[12]
- Oklahoma Presbyterian College for Girls, Durant, Oklahoma[12]
- Oklahoma School for the Blind, Muskogee, Oklahoma[12]
- Oklahoma School for the Deaf, Sulphur, Oklahoma[12]
- Old Goodland Indian Orphanage, Hugo, Oklahoma[12]
- Oneida Indian School, Wisconsin[14]
- Osage Boarding School, Pawhuska, Oklahoma[14]
- Pawnee Boarding School, Pawnee, Oklahoma[14], opened 1878
- Phoenix Indian School, Phoenix, Arizona[12]
- Pierre Indian School, Pierre, South Dakota[14]
- Pine Ridge Boarding School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota
- Pinon Boarding School, Pinon, Arizona[14]
- Pipestone Indian School, Pipestone, Minnesota[14]
- Rapid City Indian School, Rapid City, South Dakota[14]
- Red Moon School, Oklahoma[14]
- Riverside Indian School, Anadarko, Oklahoma
- St. Agnes Academy, Ardmore, Oklahoma[12]
- St. Agnes Mission, Antlers, Oklahoma[12]
- St. Elizabeth's Boarding School, Purcell, Oklahoma[12]
- St. Josephs Boarding School, Chickasha, Oklahoma[12]
- San Juan Boarding School, New Mexico[14]
- Santa Fe Indian School, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Seger School, Oklahoma[14]
- Sherman Indian High School, Riverside, California[15]
- Shiprock Boarding School, Tuba City, Arizona[14]
- Seneca Indian School, Wyandotte, Oklahoma[12]
- Sequoyah High School, Tahlequah, Oklahoma[12]
- Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico[14]
- Springfield Indian School, Springfield, South Dakota[14]
- Tomah Indian School, Wisconsin[14]
- Wahpeton Indian School, North Dakota[14]
- Tuskahoma Female Academy, Muskogee, Oklahoma[12]
- Wheelock Academy, Millerton, Oklahoma[12]
- Wittenberg Indian School, Wittenberg, Wisconsin[14]
External links
See also
- Native Americans in the United States
- Canadian residential school system
- Our Spirits Don't Speak English, documentary on Native American boarding schools
- Stolen Generations, Children of Australian Aboriginal descent who were removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies
References
- ^ "What Were Boarding Schools Like for Indian Youth?". authorsden.com. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
- ^ "Long-suffering urban Indians find roots in ancient rituals". California's Lost Tribes. Archived from the original on August 29, 2005. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
- ^ "Developmental and learning disabilities". PRSP Disabilities. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
- ^ "Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools". Amnesty International USA. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
- ^ The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era, Tom Holm, http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exholgre.html
- ^ American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many : NPR
- ^ a b Unlisted (2001). The Challenges and Limitations of Assimilation. The Brown Quarterly 4(3), from website [1].
- ^ Eric Miller (1994). "Washington and the Northwest War, Part One". Retrieved 2010-08-11.
- ^ "To the Brothers of the Choctaw Nation". Yale Law School. 1803. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
- ^ Smith, Andrea. Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools. Amnesty Magazine, from Amnesty International website, [2]
- ^ [3] Union of Ontario Indians press release 'Time will prove apology's sincerity' says Beaucage
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Carter, Kent, compiler. "Preliminary Inventory of the Office of the Five Civilized Tribes Agency Muscogee Area of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Record Group 75). Appendix VI: List of Schools (Entry 600 and 601)" RootsWeb. 1994 (retrieved 25 Feb 2010)
- ^ http://prairiemary.blogspot.com/2007/12/bonds-mission-school.html
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad "Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs." National Archives. (retrieved 25 Feb 2010)
- ^ a b c "American Indian Boarding Schools." 15 Sept 2003 (retrieved 25 Feb 2010)
- ^ "Indian Boarding and Residential Schools Sites of Conscience Network." International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. (retrieved 25 Feb 2010)
- ^ City of Morris: Morris Human Rights Commission