Indian Boarding School Research Paper

Residential schools are coming into perspective as harsh and assimilating institutions. These schools have been in place from 1870s to 1990s and were operated by churches. The intent of these schools were to civilize and assimilate indigenous children at the age of 6-18 into the “European” world. The assumption that Indians were uncivilized came from an ethnocentric worldview and the institutions were as to say “to kill the indian in the child”. Attendance at these schools was mandatory according to the Indian Act of 1920. Often “Indian agents” kidnaped children from their homes if their parents did not willingly hand them over. The children were not permitted to see their families, except on rare occasions. Sometimes the children were told that their parents and tribe had perished in order to break attachments. The schools started off as a way to provide education to First Nations, however, the institutions became known for their harsh methods of instilling

Boarding schools were an issue that plagued both Native Americans and Inupiats. As conveyed by the writings of Mary Crow Dog and other Native American figures, we see how the effects of such schools were devastating to the native population. Boarding schools wiped Natives of their language and culture, teaching young children to be ashamed of what makes them unique. Pupils would return from their long stays at boarding schools, unable to speak to their own family, resulting in an isolation between themselves and their community. Over the years, generations would eventually lose most of what makes them native and, for the most part, their culture slowly faded away. It seems that the Inupiat people faced a similar fate. Inupiat children were forced to learn by Western standards, eventually forgetting their crucial survival skills, language, religion and other unique aspects of their culture. However, we are exposed to a more positive outlook towards boarding schools in the book, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, where William Hensley says he enjoyed his boarding school

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

The Indian boarding schools had many goals; however, the primary goal was to completely obliterate the culture of indigenous people. This process was done through small goals. The Indians didn’t have many options. The only options that they were given were either to be killed or to assimilate into white civilization through Indian boarding schools. Richard Pratt, a former military man is a prime example of implementing Indian boarding schools. Indian children were taking from their home reservations to attend off-reservation boarding schools. The goals of the boarding school were to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Indians attending boarding schools were going through an assimilation process. The long-term goal was to leave with a white man’s image or with white ways. This was achieved through Indians being forced to cut their hair, wearing military uniforms, learning English, new religion (ex: Christianity). Through this process, many children forgot what their birth given name was. It was not uncommon for children to return back to their reservation with no recollection of who they are “" 'Your name's not Billy. Your name's 'TAH-rruhm,' " she told him (Bear, Charla). The white Anglo-Saxons goal was to erase anything associated with Indian culture because in their minds they viewed Indians as savages. The white people in charge of running these boarding schools went to extreme lengths to achieve erasure. These short-term goals were very traumatizing for the children

Zitkala-Sa was first born as Gertrude Simmons, but she took the name Zitkala-Sa as a teen to represent her Indian identity (Zitkala-Sa). This Indian identity was represented throughout her story of “The School Days of an Indian Girl.” Zitkala-Sa’s politics of location is that she was taken from her culture and developed in another culture. Zitkala-Sa was an indian and was

The entire goal of the boarding school was to take a massive amount of an entire Native American generation, and change their overall outlook on life by educating them in the western way instead of allowing them to grow up in their Native households. In the end you will be left with a mass amount of civilized Native Americans, and not many of their generation will be able to keep the Native American way of life alive because they do not know much about it. This is a very effective tactic used by the settlers. It serves to kidnap an entire generation of Native Americans, and turn them into westernized peoples, who can be easily placed infiltrate a Native American community.

In order to make this assimilation possible, federal boarding schools were established outside the reservations, and were quite far from the reservations. The phrase chosen encapsulate this federal policy was expressed by “the Father of the US Boarding School Movement,” Richard Henry Pratt, in 1890 as follows: “Kill the Native American and save the man” (Hirschfelder 129) meaning destroy the identity of the Native Americans and then build them into the dominant White society. To achieve this goal, federal boarding schools deprived children of “all outward and inward signs of […] identification with tribal life, at the same time instructing them in the values and behaviors of White culture” (128). “Children caught speaking their Native language or performing religious rituals” (129) were severely punished. The Native American children were denied their right to use their own mother tongue, and without the words of their tribal language, over time they became unable to create their own identity because not only were the Words missing but also the traditions and the spiritual power located in it. Consequently, the emergence of identity crisis

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

Attending school was required by law; therefore, the Bureau would send police to physically confiscate children from their homes on reservations. By making attendance mandatory, the number of “savage” Indians exponentially decreased. Richard H Pratt said, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” This motto led to the hair of Indian boys getting cut, the banning of all tribal food, children were no allowed to return home and any relics from home were destroyed. Lone Wolf of the Blackfoot tribe said, "Long hair was the pride of all Indians. The boys, one by one, would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor. All of the buckskin clothes had to go and we had to put on the clothes of the White Man. If we thought the days were bad, the nights were much worse. This is when the loneliness set in, for it was when we knew that we were all alone. Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad, but most of them were caught and brought back by the police" (PBS Telecommunications). If any of the students were non-compliant with the policies, punishment consisted confinement, deprivation of privileges, a threat of corporal punishment or a restriction of diet (PBS

The purpose of Indian boarding schools like Carlisle Indian Industrial School claimed to take young Native American children and educate them and transform them into proper citizens of the United States. However, the reality falls far short of the expectations of the wealthy reformers who fought for the schools to improve the lives of the Native Americans. Filled with good intention the Indian boarding schools of the 19th century failed more students than it helped. Graduates from boarding schools suffered prejudice from white Americans and were ill suited for life on the reservations after years living in a different culture. Lost between two worlds neither, Indian nor American the students of the Indian boarding schools were victims of the good intentions

Native Americans put up a good fight in defending their homelands against foreign invaders. Unfortunately, they suffered defeat and realized they would have to adapt to a new way of life. The battle for their lands was over, but the battle for their identities would just begin. However, it would not be the hardened warriors engaging in this conflict. Instead, the young Native American children would witness first-hand the American government’s solution to the Indian problem. Boarding schools were established to assimilate Native American children into white society. These boarding schools had both positive and negative impacts on the children.

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

Many bills and laws have been passed to help set up education reform but with little or no effect. In the time that the Native Americans were placed on Reservations and 1871, over 400 treaties were signed with the government. Of those, 120 promised to move the Indian children to ’civilized’ children. Such treaties had the children put into boarding schools where they were to be taught the ’white man’s way’. Schools like this

The children were taught to follow and not question the belief in the moral and intellectual superiority of white culture, and to reject all aspects of their native lives (Claes & Clifton, 1998). The government 's missions for the Native children ranged from assimilation, to make Indians indistinguishable from Europeans, segregation, to education native people and restrict their life in their own communities, and integration, for native people to be absorbed into mainstream institutions and society (Claes & Clifton, 1998). Although the goals of the residential schools changed over time, one thing always stayed the same, the genocide of the Native culture.

In the government boarding schools, the American Indian children were children were not treated well. They were not feed with good meals that were having the nutrients that they needed for their good health and physical wellbeing. In addition to that they were treated in a military style. If one students did something “wrong” they were given hard punishment that were sometime harming them physically and mentally. In the afternoon, their classes were on vocational training classes. One could imaging the trauma a child who is subjected to those harmful treatments can have in his/her life.