Early Education of Native Americans

During Westward Expansion, white settlers saw the Indians as a hindrance to civilization. Therefore the mindset of settlers were to convert Native Americans into white culture. To begin assimilating, the government should, “cease to recognize the Indians as political bodies,” adult male Indians should become a citizen to the government, Indian children shall be taken away and “be trained in industrial schools,” and Indians should be, “placed in the same position before the law.” Assimilating Indians wasn’t a simple teaching of a new culture instead, it was brutal. The boarding schools were merciless towards the Indians, mainly because they wanted to force Indians to drop their culture. Native Americans were obligated to change and lost their

Yesterday’s class was not only alarming but new information. It took me a day to process the impact of the Indian boarding school. The American felt so entitled and obligated to convert and oppression others to conform. They displaced thousand and even possibly millions of native Americans from the homes, culture, trade, etc. in order to make them the American idea of successful. The Native American’s were self sustaining and independent and successful in their own way, American ideals and trade were not needed. Only after Americans had destroyed the land and forced Native American on reserves did they begin to need American skills and even then those American skills contradicted their culture. If they really just wanted to help and make Indians

Boarding School Seasons by Brenda J. Child offers a look into the boarding school experiences of many American Indian students. Child favors unpublished sources such as letters to give an uncensored inside look into boarding school experiences. However, she also includes other sources such as school newspapers, oral history collections, photographs, biographies, United States government publications, and annual reports. Government boarding schools were created to help the American government gain more control over Indians and to push the Natives to adopt the white ways of life such as language, skill, and education. While integration was the ultimate objective, Child sets out “to show that even with the challenges of cultural assimilation and a devastating land policy, American Indian people, even children, placed limits on assimilation and also defined and shaped the boarding school era.” (viii) The boarding schools designed to tear American Indian families apart did not succeed in isolating children from their tribes, but created bonds and

The Native American children were educated at Carlisle in order to make a “better” transition into society for post-bellum America. Carlisle was located in Pennsylvania and was a reform school for Native American children. “Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and moves them out into your communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have (Paul Prucha 68).” The Native Americans didn’t have the liberty to live on their land as they were before the whites arrived; “By 1979, my people were no longer free, but were confined on reservations under the rule of agents (Standing Bear 69-71).” The Native American children such as Luther Standing Bear were taken from their families, land, and tradition to be reformed into a civilized American. Luther Standing Bear recalls his time at Carlisle; “The task before us was not only that of accepting new ideas and adopting new manners, but physical changes and discomfort had to be borne un complainingly until the body adjusted itself to new tastes and habits (Standing Bear 69-71).” The Native American children’s names, attire, religion, and diet were changed to that of the white Americans. “…the change in clothing, housing, food, and confinement combined with lonesomeness was too much, and in three years nearly one half of the children from the Plains were dead… (Standing Bear

In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) passed through Congress in response to “a crisis affecting American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children, family and tribes (NICWA, 2017).” ICWA’s was enacted due to an exorbitant amount of Native American children being removed from their parents and stripped of their heritage as children were forced to assimilate to the dominant culture. Approximately 85% of the 25-35% of children were “placed outside of their families and communities (NICWA, 2017),” often in off-reservation federally funded boarding schools and/or foster placements where the values of christian, white, blue-collar were emphasized to “civilize” the children (Atwood, 2017). Native American children were often

Soon children were removed from their homes and placed in Indian Boarding Schools some of which were off the reservations. The goals of the boarding schools, which were run by the religious orders that were being paid by the government for the purpose of assimilating the young Indian population and desecrating their culture, were to Christianize Native Americans in hopes that they would accept our capitalistic system. “Kill the Indian…Save the Man”.

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.

After reading Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools by Ward Churchill, I have come to realization of some matters. First of all, while your goal might had been to civilize the Indians by teaching them English, manners, and change their whole appearance, the outcome was totally different. Your goal might have been successful to you, in the end you got what you wanted: to kill the Indian and Save the Man. But also, you stole those kid’s identities by taking them away from their families. You traumatized them, and making them go through so many forms of abuse. “Kill the Indian, save the men” or like U.S. Indian Commissioner William A. Jones said in 1903, the goal was to “exterminate the

Education has been a topic of controversy for many years now, and will continue to be for years to come. The modern American society is best defined by its education. A good part of the average person’s life is spent at school, going to school, and paying for school. However, even though education is so obviously very important, there are many groups in America that are getting shorted. The Native Americans are a key group that has struggled the most. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples are not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally

In 1930, 39% of Native American youth attended boarding school (Manson, Beals, Dick, and Duclos, 1989). One alarming piece of evidence, is that there were actually more Native American boarding schools than reported because not all of them received federal funding. These boarding schools were often filled with students who had been taken against their will (Russel, Barsh, and Trosper, 1995). People would often take Native American children out of their homes because they felt like the children were being abused or neglected because they were not being taught they white way of living (Yuan, Duran, Walters, Pearson, & Evan-Campbell, 2014). Many of these children were taken out of their homes without sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect.

Native Americans have been neglected, abused, and tormented since the 1700’s when their land was abruptly invaded by Europeans. Europeans declared this “unknown” territory to be their property from then forward and did anything and everything to make sure this would happen. This included forced assimilation, where Natives were stripped of their cultural traditions and forced to assimilate to an english speaking, westernized culture (McLeigh, 2010). This included taking children from their families and sending them to boarding school to learn a new language, new cultural traditions, and new religious practices. Starting in 1860 and lasting until 1970, children were taken from their families at a young age and often lost touch with their family

Children were taken away from their homes and told everything they knew was wrong. They were sent to boarding schools to change their culture. These boarding schools were run by the United States government. The government's goal was to civilize Native Americans. They sent children to these schools against their will. Native American children were educated like Americans and they had to change their native ways to be more like whites (Cayton 266). Teachers abused their students and beat their native ways out of them. They were not allowed to see their families so they would try to escape, but their attempts were unsuccessful. The United States government’s Boarding Schools of the mid-late 1800s irreparably changed Native American culture.

Taking away Native American children’s language caused many challenges at home. Many children were confused, homesick, as well as resentful. Many of the children attending these boarding schools did not understand why their parents sent them to boarding school. For many it was because family members were, “sick then. He don’t want to take care of a little one so he pushed me to school” (Burich 5). Many children would not understand why they were being sent to these schools, especially since the schools were changing their worlds

The modern American society is best defined by its education. The “American dream” is founded on going to school, getting a good job, and becoming successful. Ironically, the actual native peoples of this country are actually the least likely to attain this dream. The largest obstacle they face is lack of proper education. The standard educational practices being used for the instruction of Native American peoples is not effective. There are many pieces to this road-block, and many solutions. This can be rectified by having more culturally aware teachers and parents, and by teaching the general population more about the Native American cultures.

Commonly referred to as the American Indian boarding schools, these schools came into existence in the late eighteenth century but later experienced increased presence in the Indian American community during the nineteenth century (Judy & Bennett,1986). Indigenous peoples view the introduction of residential schools as one of the most painful chapters in the history of their culture. Several studies carried out a by anishanaabe affiliated outfits have indicated that