American Indian Boarding Schools

Back when the United States wasn’t so immense and powerful, its people and their leaders wanted to expand. The people thought that the entire country should be theirs, and anyone who stood in their way, including the Native Americans, would pay for it. Manifest destiny was the “motto” for the country in this time. The first railroad that could cross the entire country was built. This encouraged many to move out west. While this was good for the Americans, it might not have been so good for the Native Americans. Native American land and culture was impacted by western expansion of the United States because of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the United States army, or militias, and government.

In the late 1800s, Captain Richard Henry Pratt set out to “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”(A Plea to “Citizenize” Indians). The goal to erase Indian cultures and replace it with white American culture was sought to be achieved through boarding schools. Pratt was the creator of the first Indian boarding school: Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. These government-funded boarding schools would take children from their homes on reservation, often for them to not see their family again until they are grown(lecture). Pratt’s goal was to eliminate the Indian culture and incorporate the Indian people into the more “civilized”(Marr) American culture. This meant forcing the Indian students to speak only English and to give up all cultural traditions, religions, names and take up Christianity and American sounding names. Students were put into these boarding schools with little or no contact with their families for “eight to nine months of the year” (Marr). These schools operated with minimal funds, so the education was very insufficient. It was clear from the beginning; the actual goal was not to give quality education for the Native American children but to get rid of the Indian culture.

Manifest Destiny is responsible for the west part of the US. Although it is also responsible for destroying Native Americans’ way of life. The United States tried to suffocate Native Americans culture, many chiefs tried to defend their culture, and in the end they were just pushed out of their homes once again at the hands of America. They fought long and hard for the life America stole away from

On September 8, 2000, the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) made a formal apology for the their participation in ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of the Indigenous Nations of the Western Territories of the Unites States.2 From forced relocation to obscure lands and forced assimilation into the white man’s view of the world, the BIA previously set out to ‘destroy all things Indian’.3 Through the colonization of Turtle Island (North America), the American Federal policy set out to eliminate in part or as a whole, the Indigenous populations.4 The attitudes of the colonists were intentionally detrimental and the process is naturally exterminatory.5 The process of colonization was often exemplified by violent confrontations, deliberate massacres, and in some cases, total annihilations of a people.6 The culture of conquest was developed and practiced by Europeans well before they landed on Turtle Island as the practice was developed, and perfected well before the fifteenth century.7 Taking land and imposing values and ways of life on the social landscape created a conflictual relationship with the Indigenous peoples and forced a new way of life that ultimately destroyed those that previously existed there.8 Modern Europe

What if the only thing that brought generations of families together were stripped from children? Native Indians had this happen to them when they attended boarding schools in the late 1900s. The language you are born into is the glue that can keep a strong bond within your culture and family. Language barriers can cause families to be unable to bond and these children may feel as if they cannot have a relationship with their family members. The Indian boarding schools were a destructive form of dehumanization since the way it tore culture from students, changed their culture into the culture they thought was right, and caused many Native Indians family troubles as well as depression and confusion.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

From its birth, America was a place of inequality and privilege. Since Columbus 's arrival and up until present day, Native American tribes have been victim of white men 's persecution and tyranny. This was first expressed in the 1800’s, when Native Americans were driven off their land and forced to embark on the Trail of Tears, and again during the Western American- Indian War where white Americans massacred millions of Native Americans in hatred. Today, much of the Indian Territory that was once a refuge for Native Americans has since been taken over by white men, and the major tribes that once called these reservations home are all but gone. These events show the discrimination and oppression the Native Americans faced. They were, and continue to be, pushed onto reservations,

At Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, Lt. Richard Pratt worked closely with Indians and had a certain respect for the Indians. Pratt advocated to General Sheridan to reform the Indians. Pratt had them moved by train to St. Augustine, Florida. At Ft. Marion, Florida the Indians underwent an experiment to change them. The Indians were dressed in army uniforms and had their hair cut to resemble the white man’s image. The purpose was to assimilate the Indians and wash out an resemblance of native culture. Pratt recruited local volunteers to help teach the IndianIndian prisoners english. They were taught to work and serve the community. Pratt believed education would save the Indians during a time of industrialization. He enrolled the Indians in a black school.

In a short history, American manifest destiny was a big mistake for Indian people in the past. The Indian people lived on the land before the Americans came. However, manifest destiny is the affliction Americans have that makes them believe God and took control all their land. For example, American settlers took their land and forced them into another uncomfortable place, less nature resource, and difficult to survive. Moreover, America settlers brought diseases into Indian tribes that made a lot of Indian people sick and dead. In addition, American settlers had a negative impact to the environment and natures resource such as more hunting and fishing that cost extinction, more cutting trees to build houses due to deforestation. In conclusion,

Manifest Destiny, one of the most influential ideologies in American history, was used as the basis to justify almost-continuous conflict from the early- to the late-19th century (Greenberg 3). This conflict included the relentless displacement of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, a war of aggression against Mexico in 1846, and attacks on countries such as Canada, Cuba, and even Central America, by filibusters and military action to gain overseas colonies (Greenberg 10, 25, and 26). While Manifest Destiny first arose as a dominant ideology during the early nineteenth-century, the concept of American exceptionalism, the heart of this ideology, was older than the nation itself. This concept was taken by white Americans as proof that they, and their nation, were unique and marked by God for a special destiny (Greenberg, 5). It would be several decades before the advantages of American settlement would be presented to the world. One advantage being the Louisiana Purchase, which was the expansion westward.

b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;<br>c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;<br>d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;<br>e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.<br>(Destexhe).<br><br>In this paper, I will argue that the act of genocide as here defined, has been committed by the United States of America, upon the tribes and cultures of Native Americans, through mass indoctrination of its youths. Primary support will be drawn from Jorge Noriega's work, "American Indian Education in the United States." The paper will then culminate with my personal views on the subject,

To include, Americans formed indian camps where they would capture Native Americans and force white culture onto them. An example of this was the Carlisle Indian School. By creating these camps, the Americans thought that they would be able to “Kill the Indian, save the man”. As a result of examining these facts, it can be shown that growth of American exceptionalism has an important role in letting Americans do what they did during the time of the Westward

As I recall Mrs. McCleave mentioning, the saying “Kill the Indian and save the man”, was from the federal government. This was Pratt’s motto. It was stressed that civilizing the Indians by teaching them English, and then converting them to Christianity and allowing them to trade. Pratt also trimmed Indians hair and prohibited traditions such as clothing, dancing or religious ceremony.

In conjunction with the "Myth of Nature's Nation", manifest destiny was a "double-edged sword." Hughes contrasts the idea of universal equality with the claim that some men were more equal than others. Apparently the tie between cultivation and natural order was so strong, in many cases, that Native Americans were not helping the natural order of things, but paradoxically hurting it. This rationalization is a common tactic that Hughes uses as a segway into the most deplorable parts of our history (113).

Between 1790 and 1920 it was a tough time for the Indians. During that period Native Americans were forced to convert to the European-American Culture. Their whole life changed, the way of living, religion, and especially their children’s future. It was wrong of Americans to convert natives into a different society that they saw fit and not letting them express their own culture and treating them as an unworthy society.