Native American Children And The Educational Assault On Indian Children

increases in the United States, their representation is public education remains very low. For Native Americans, there has been a history of continuous underrepresentation in teaching. Women represent the most predominant representation, in gender. In 1991, 72% of the teachers were female as opposed to only 28% of male teachers. As of today, the percentage of women remains predominant. According to the NEA, 41% of teachers are black females and 42% represent while females as compared to their opposite gender 23% of the teachers are black males and 27% of teachers represent white males (NEA, 2015).The proportion of teachers of color as of today is 18% compared to two decades ago it was counted as 26% ( NEA, 2015) . According to the National

The relationship between Native Americans and the United States has always been troubled; moreover, when white settlers expanded westward, Native American’s life style was forever changed. Violence occurred when the Mormon settlers encroached onto Indian land, causing a chain of events that lead to the horrific Bear River Massacre. Along with violent interactions, the US government wanted to integrate the Indian tribes into the American way of life. One way the government tried to civilize the Indians was through boarding schools where children were forced from their homes to learn how to be a white person. Even though children were mistreated, they learned life skills in their classes and how to be independent.

For this essay I will look at two different articles and compare them to see how useful they would be in writing a research paper on the Native American education system. I will discuss how their points of view differ and how they approach the same issue but with different strategies. Finally, I will give my suggestion on which article to use to get the best information for a research paper.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, my grandmother, like thousands of other Native children, was forced into boarding school. Those boarding schools were established in the United States as a way to educate Native children according to Euro-American standards (CITATION). It is without a doubt that the assimilation of Native American children led to the loss of their culture and tradition, as they were required to change their appearance, forbidden to speak their native tongue, and forced to replace their traditional names with European-American names (CITATION).

There are 529 federally recognized Indian Nations in the United States (National Congress of American Indians, 2003). The United States Constitution currently recognizes these Indian Nations as sovereign nations; but this was not always the case, especially regarding education of Native American students. According to PBS, a program of assimilation education began on the reservations. This was in the hopes that the assimilation of the children would translate to assimilation of the parents. However, this didn’t work in the way that was hoped, so education reformers pushed for Native American boarding schools. Children were taken from their parents (with no legal backing other than assimilation) and sent to boarding schools, where they were

1968. Devils Lake Sioux tribal members were concerned with the treatment of Native American children by local welfare workers. Native American children were frequently removed from their homes and placed in foster placements and for adoption with individuals that were not of Native descent. The removal of these children was carried out without discussion with the Native American community, nor officials of the Tribe. These tragic occurrences shaped the realization that something had to be done for these children and families. The situations that led to the passage of this legislation can be tied to the historical background and issues that Native American people faced. Cultural genocide plagued the American Indian people from the very beginning

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

     In 1858, Commissioner of Indian affairs, Charles E. Mix, in his annual report, stated that manual labor schools were to be established for the Native American children. This was to help prepare them for agriculture. The schools also taught basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In order to maintain harmony between the whites and the Indians Commissioner Mix “recommended that a military force should remain in the vicinity of the reservations to add in controlling the Indians (Spring, 1997, p.28).” The second idea for schooling Native American children was to send them away to

According to an article in The Washington Post, Sari Horwits states that sexual assault, unemployment, drug addiction and depression within the nation’s 326 Indian reservations leads to three times the national average of young Native American suicides based on statistics in 2014.( The hard lives — and high suicide rate — of Native American children on reservations - The Washington Post) With this in mind, 19th century promises made to uphold an adequate environment in Indian reservations were never fully established, so the lack of stability within these Native American Preserves continues to plague the present and future generations of American Indians. Because of the mental diagnosis of depression that has continuously lead these young

“The term American Indian education has been used to refer to two distinctly different, segregated, and often opposing worlds: (1) the education of American Indian children by their parents, extended families, and communities, and (2) the education of American Indian children, teenagers, adults, and communities by colonial authorities, particularly European American institutions” (Lomawaima, 1999) Throughout the colonial era education for America was an immense portion of making a nation that was great. But before the Europeans came over to escape the hand of Britain, Native Americans roamed the lands.

When it was decided that the Native American culture was of no benefit and needed to be eradicated, the children were stripped from their homes and forced to spend year after year in a boarding school, where their lifestyle, their language, their very culture was taken

It’s important to me that Native American cultures are taught, especially when the schools’ population is over half Native American. Not only, is it educational but it teaches other valuable life lessons like tolerance. As disappointed as I was over not having more Ojibwa classes while I was younger, I’m glad a new generation of students can learn. Maybe one day, one of those children could teach Ojibwa to students. Even in college, Native American topics are taught more. New majors are being created as a response to this change.

In the late nineteenth century, there were attempts to enlighten Native Americans to the European culture. The attempts were to make Native American views more civilized, in order for them to be viewed as equals. In this effort, there was a push to have the Native American children taught in schools. The teaching was to take place in a boarding school. The boarding schools were mainly operated by Christian evangelist. This goes along with the idea of making them more like them, since the main religion at the time was Christianity. At theses boarding schools, the children were taught not to talk in their native language, which is a huge change in culture (JBT Author 2).

The Indians were very poor. They existed for only one reason, to work. The Spaniards forced them to farm the land or work the mines. Indians worked from dawn to dusk. Abuse of the Indians was common. They beat, tortured and even murdered the Indians, plus sheer exhaustion took their toll on the native population. The Colonists brought diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhus, chicken pox, and mumps. The Indians had no resistance to these diseases. Millions of Indians died. The Colonists left the Indians to die by taking their food. Fewer and fewer Indians were left. The Spaniards were in a panic as to who would work their fields and mines. They would turn to the African slaves.

Personally, I think that learning about American Indians in school is a good thing. Especially in Minnesota, since this is our home, we should learn about how they lived and were treated before we modernized the land. In the last few weeks we have learned about 2 of the strongest, most noble American Indians know to Minnesota. I have learned that they were treated poorly, and that our government had promised them safe land to use and practice their beliefs. As we found out, our government did not uphold their promises and basically were stealing the land right out from under them.