Boarding Schools In The Late 19th And Early 20th Century

In 1920, the Indian Act (1867) was amended which made school compulsory for all Native children between 7 and 15 years of age; however there were reports that children even younger than that were admitted. Some children never saw their parents for 4-6 years or even longer. The abuse, torture, and slavery caused the students to rebel or to even try to run away. In some occasions the students who ran away would eventually be found and returned to the school and punished. In other occasions the students who fled during the winter and could not be found where never searched for and parents were never notified, leading to the students freezing to death. Many students referred to residential schools as a prison sentence and themselves as

Schooling in the South was for only privileged children in the 1800s. There was no public school system in place, therefore the only institutions that offered education were private schools. Private schools could cost a lot of money so only the wealthy citizens in South were even given a chance to get a quality education. Children were exempt from school to work in the fields. Many yeomen, or the largest group of whites in the south, and tenant farmers, or farmers who worked on landlords estates, put their children into hard labor at a young age with the idea that someday the child will one day do the same, therefore not requiring schooling of any kind. The attitude towards education was that it was not needed and didn’t seem worth the money

1. Boarding schools for native americans began in 1860 on the Yakima reservation in the state of Washington. Herbert Welsh and Henry Pancoast created the boarding school, the goal of the boarding schools were to assimilate Indian tribes into mainstream of “the american way of life”. They thought using education would be their best tool to succeed this goal. They wanted the indian people to learn the importance of private property, material wealth and monogamous families. Reformers thought it was necessary to civilize indian people. They felt boarding schools were the ideal way to assimilate indian youth. The first lesson from boarding schools would be; reading, writing, speaking and learning english. They also wanted indian youth to be individualized. The end result would be to eliminate indian culture. Richard Henry Pratt, owned and operated one of the most well known boarding schools, Carlisle Indian School. His motto was “Kill the Indian, save the man”. He hoped indian children would not return home to their reservations, but instead become a part of the white community. Pratt and other off-reservation boarding schools took away any outward signs of tribal life the children brought with them. Long braids were cut from the children, they were forced to wear uniforms. They were given “white” names and surnames. Traditional native food was forbidden and they had to eat foods of the white society along with

Previously, government agents, missionaries, and educational reformers such as Pratt employed various enticements and coercions to compel Indian parents and tribal elders to enroll their children in the new boarding schools. Benefitting from two hundred years of sporadic efforts to civilize Indians, the schools proposed “to change them forever,” as one superintendent in Oklahoma declared regarding his Kiowa students. Success was contingent upon separating children as young as practicable from the contaminating influence of their tribes. To the often-repeated maxim that the “only good Indian is a dead one,” Pratt countered, “Kill the Indian in him and save the man” (Warren,

During the late 1870s, the construction of boarding schools for American Indians began. The purpose of these schools was to introduce the American Indians the skills necessary to function in the American society. In other words, the white American society forced the Indians to assimilate into the white culture and strip them of their Native American traditions. There has been a lot of controversy about whether or not the assimilation of the American Indians was to benefit them, or to get rid of the ethnicities the society disliked. So many people say it was imperative because that was a way to help Indians survive in the American society. However, other people object to this belief because they consider it racism. So what was the easiest way

“We are here to study history, not repeat it.” One of the various reasons we study history is to reflect on the past and grow and learn from people’s past mistakes to try and avoid them in the future. The individuals/groups who were unfairly treated cannot just forget what happen to them or their family they still feel the effects every day. For example, when Canada’s did the unjust acts of opening residential schools in the 19th century (the final one did not close until 1996) and the horrific acts that happened in them, and because of this, many future generations of indigenous people are now forever affected. Their kids and grandkids now cannot speak their native tongue, and those indigenous people who are traumatized by what they experienced

Schools would quickly be able to assimilate Indian youth. The first priority of the boarding schools would be to provide the rudiments of academic education: reading, writing and speaking of the English language. By the 1880s, the U.S. operated sixty schools for 6,200 Indian students. The boarding schools hoped to produce students that were economically self-sufficient by teaching work skills and instilling values and beliefs of possessive individualism, meaning you care about yourself and what you as a person own. This opposed the basic Indian belief of communal ownership, which held that the land was for all people.

Natives who have lived on this land for so long are now trying to be ¨Americanized¨ by the Americans who came and took this land from them. The places that they used to ¨civilize¨ them was a school, within these schools they did whatever they could to the Native American children to try and change they lived and how they acted. These schools began in 1887 and by 1900, thousands of Natives were studying at almost 150 schools around the U.S. Stories have been told that horrific things were done to the students at these schools. Within this paper, it will describe most of what these schools were and things you should know about them from the sources from which these details came.

The residential school has importance because it represents the assimilation brought by the Indian Act when the government felt it necessary to deny the Indians of their culture. They set up residential schools, where children were sent as a way to distance them from their families, which in turn distanced them from their culture. The children were forced the adopt “white ways” by being forbidden to use their native languages, dress in traditional ways, or follow their own spiritual beliefs. This is terrible, but it is even more appalling to realize that they were operational until

In the Hopi Followers, 71 Hopi pupils, from the village of Oraibi, Arizona, attend the boarding school in Riverside California accompanied by their Village Chief Tawaquaptewa and other Hopi leaders. Here, Hopis excelled in the school academics, vocational training, music and art by methods in which the federal government used in an effort try to assimilate Hopis to white society. Indian boarding schools began in 1869 with the establishment of the first boarding school by the Bureau of Indian affairs in Yajuma in Washington. The purpose of these boarding schools was to use education as a tool to completely assimilate young Indian children into the American culture. At the time of the establishment of these boarding schools it was important to “civilize” the native Americans and guide them to the into main stream America, and of course it was best thought to done through the children who were easily teachable as opposed to the elders. In the schools, they would provide academic education of reading, writing and speaking, all English of course. Additionally, they would teach math, science, history, art, Christianity and trade skills. The overall goal was to change Indian children into members of white society and to “kill the Indian, save the man”. Conversion to Christianity was also deemed essential to the cause. Indian boarding schools were expected to develop a curriculum of religious instruction and discipline within the Indian boarding school. Viola Martinez who was sent

While there were moments of happiness for the children placed in residential schools, the occurrences of suffering seem to overshadow them. During the first decades of the federal government's Indian boarding schools, stories of morbidity and mortality among students were prevalent. At the turn of the century, federal Indian schools were nearing their 30th anniversary of existence. As the 20th century dawned, the government rapidly filled these schools, especially the boarding facilities, beyond their intended capacities. As a result, student health was endangered as children known to be in, or suspected of, poor health were placed in the schools in order to maintain optimum efficiency (DeJong, 2007).

Indian Boarding Schools have created a lasting effect on tribes across the country. Children were ripped from their homes, tribes, and cultures to be educated by churches, specifically Catholic ones, with the support of the US Government. While the government claimed that it was to give the indigenous youth a better life, in actuality they destroyed cultural and linguistic heritages, legal and religious freedom, and societal structures within tribes.

The Boarding School and original missionaries have similar tactics that are either transitioned or continued to be practiced. When enrolled to either of these locations, the practice of their culture is inappropriate. The authority will go to all extent to isolate from the indigenous culture and also will punish if there is anything practiced like language or traditions. There is a new value or education system that needs to be demonstrated and heavily imposed on the indigenous individual. The authorities of both are not concerned with the indigenous people’s connection to their

Though Baldwin is a day school while others are mostly boarding schools, the gigantic difference in endowment still cannot be neglected. As with the money received from the endowment, it will help maintain and improve standards and quality of the school on a wide-ranging scale, including inviting quality teachers, buying new books for the library, and organizing a diverse range of extracurricular

In America, citizens have the right to obtain an education that will withstand the test of time. This education that is given to us at no cost for twelve years of our lives is a gift like no other. Our school systems employ professionals to teach each individual student what they must know to be successful in life. I have been particularly blessed to make it through my primary education with the fondest of memories. I had the opportunity to start school in pre-kindergarten, continue to Junior High, and now I am experiencing college while being a senior in high-school. Sadly, it is common that many students will not have an experience like mine. In a short essay called An Indian Father’s Plea a Native American father, Robert Lake-Thom, reveals the hardships that are faced by students that do not fit the mold.