Meriam Report

Since there was always a strong bond between children, parents, and other members of the tribe, the “loss of the children to school was… like a death in the family and community” (Devens 288). Because this bond was severed at a young age, children had to grow up without the love and guidance of their tribe and instead with the harsh punishments that teachers gave out when the children did not follow instructions. Not only were children torn apart from their tribal community, but when they graduated from their respective boarding schools and returned home, there was a language barrier between their tribe and themselves, leaving children unable to communicate with their families. Since boarding schools were taught in English, there would be punishment if any teacher found a student speaking their native language. There was an emphasis of not speaking their native language at school and instead learning English, American Indian children pushed their native language to the back of their mind and eventually they were unable to speak it at all. These dramatic effects of boarding schools impacted the American Indian community greatly, much more than the land allotments, as family and tribe values and the education of their children were more important to them than the land allotments. American Indian children

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

The act also funded boarding schools that designed to replace Native American culture with American culture within the school system. Family and cultural ties almost diminished because of the boarding schools. Children were even punished for speaking their native tongue or practicing anything dealing with Native American rituals

“Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” That was the motto of government established boarding schools for Native Americans on the western frontier. These schools were a cruel and dehumanizing attempt at assimilating native culture with that of the European white man. By enrolling Native American children in these schools, they were susceptible to new diseases brought from Europe, such as tuberculosis and the flu, which the natives had never encountered and resulted fatal. Little Indian boys who prided themselves in their long hair were forced to cut it off and exchanged their given names for “white” names. Since Indian children were forced to speak only English, some schools went so far as to punish whomever spoke in their native language. These schools had good intentions, they offered nursing, education, and more opportunities to grow in the new society than the Indians would otherwise ever receive, yet that gift was not requested by the native peoples. By killing off Native Americans, making them resign aspects of their culture, and forcing them to switch to the European language, government boarding schools completely replaced the culture of Indians by means of cruel and dehumanizing procedures.

The first and most famous boarding school was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1878 and was run by Richard Pratt. (“Remembering Our Indian…”). Pratt forced students to live with “good white” families for at least part of the year to see the type of character they are supposed to have. The boarding school in Carlisle lasted until voices of opposition finally began to rise and voices of support wilted. Pratt lived from 1840- 1924 running his school and publicly speaking his thoughts and viewpoints on the topic. (“Reservation Boarding Schools”).

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.

There have been devastating times when people’s hatred makes them do things that are inhumane. Unfortunately, this still happens in today’s society, perhaps not literally but metaphorically; however, thankfully it is not as bad as it was in the late 19th century. I chose to discuss this document because I have always been one to try to understand the roots of any situation, good or bad. In this case, I wanted to understand the federal government at the time wanted to convert young native Americans into the ideal mainstream American. The document does its best to explain the purpose of this movement. Although the federal government at the time thinks the implementation of conversion boarding schools is

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

One of the darker parts of Canada’s history, residential schools caused a cultural genocide across the First Nations peoples. Residential schools were created with the intent of colonizing the First Nations peoples. Most of these schools were run by the christian churches and they were funded by the government’s department of Indian Affairs. Roughly 150,000 children have been through the school system. From this group, approximately 6,000 kids died. During their time at the schools, a vast majority of students suffered through various degrees of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Along with this, the facilities were poorly maintained. Lots of teachers would force the kids to maintain the facilities. They passed it off to the kids by saying it was “training for their future.” Despite this the facilities were still poorly maintained and they also had inadequate heating systems. This led to high rates of tuberculosis and influenza.

In 1820, the United States made plans for a large scale system of boarding and day schools Noriega, 377). These schools were given the mission to, "instruct its students in 'letters, labor and mechanical arts, and morals and Christianity;' 'training many Indian leaders'" Noriega, 378). In the case of boarding schools, Native American children would be forcibly stripped from their homes as early as five years old. They would then live sequestered from their families and cultures until the age of seventeen or eighteen (Noriega, 381). <br><br>In 1886, it was decided, by the United States federal government that Native American tribal groups would no longer be treated as 'indigenous national governments.' The decision was made, not by the conjoint efforts of the Native American tribes and Congress; but, by the "powers that be" the United States Legal System. This self-ordained power allowed Congress to pass a variety of other laws, directed towards, assimilating, Native Americans, so that they would become a part of "mainstream white America" (Robbins, 90)<br><br>By this time the United States Government, had been funding over a dozen distinct agencies, to provide mandatory 'education' to all native children aged six through sixteen. Enrollment was enforced through leverage given by the 1887 General Allotment Act, which made Natives dependent on the Government for

In the article “Taking the Indian out of the Indian: U.S. Policies of Ethnocide through Education”, Donald Grinde informs us about how white European settlers and early Americans discriminated against Native Americans through the education system. I learned that the U.S built boarding schools specifically for Native Americans, tried to erase Native American history and traditions, and how they later on tried to “civilize” them by having them conform to their Eurocentric standards. A while back I had read on the internet that the U.S. had built many boarding schools specifically for Native American children. The things that I read seemed terrible and kind of surreal. Now that I have read Grinde’s article I can now confirm to myself that it was accurate.

The Mount Pleasant Center opened in 1891 when the United States Congress directed than an Indian Industrial School be established in Isabella County. In the late 1800s, the U.S. government established many boarding schools throughout the country with the intention of assimilate Native Americans into the predominant European American culture with education as a secondary goal. The Methodist Episcopal Church was another big part of boarding schools as they were contracted with the Federal Government until the late 1880s to assimilate Native children to white culture. The assimilation of Native Americans had begun in the late nineteenth century with the idea of stamping out the culture of the Native Americans. At this point, small parcels of unproductive land were set up as reservations for help rid the public of the “Indian Problem,” which was often addressed through federal policies and acts of violence. Religion, namely that of Christianity, was a key foundation for Native resistance as accepting Christianity and becoming “civilized” meant the discontinuance of traditional ceremonial practices. Adopting this “civilized life” meant that the Native Americans could become American citizens. Attending a boarding school was thought to “civilize” Native children “by eradicating their own language and culture and substituting the English language.” The attitudes at these boarding schools changed in response to political and cultural trends in the United States, but the initial

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

This lack of proper learning could have been a product of many factors: the language that was forced upon the children, the qualifications of the teacher and the working hours that invaded their learning time. Children had to speak English, a foreign, which took them a long period of time to master. This time of adjustment was not helped by the teachers, who believed a full-immersement technique was the way to go, punishing children for speaking their Native tongue. The teachers created an environment that was not open to questions, and did not take in individual needs or concerns, stopping a safe, healthy learning environment from blossoming. Up to the 1950s, children worked for half a day in order to run the school cheaply, but these jobs cut into learning time severely. In a busy world, knowing how to keep up a school and an education level of Grade 4 would rarely open any doors for a person. Finally, these schools that would take care of children did everything but take care of the children. First Nations children ages 6 to 16 faced, physical, emotional and sexual abuse while they stayed at residential

In 1969, the Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education released a disclosure titled, “Indian Education: A National Tragedy” that centered their observations on the alarming educational situation among these people. The report is summarized as having the lack of Indian participation or control; coursework which rarely recognized Indian history, culture, or language; and anti-Indian attitudes on the part of school administrators and teachers. Schools were discovered to be insufficiently funded, inadequate in academic performance, unacceptable in effectiveness and standards of instruction, severely lacking in programs involving guidance or counselors, and described as an impersonal environment. As a result of these finding, in 1972, the United States passed what was known as the Indian Education Act. This act established a comprehensive approach to fulfill the social and academic needs of Native American students. Though there has been succeeding legislative reauthorizing statutes, the distinctive aspects of the original act have been preserved. The Indian Education legislation is unique in the following ways: