The Changes in Objectives of the Mount Pleasant Center

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 Child favors unpublished sources such as letters to give an uncensored inside look into boarding school experiences.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

In the 1870s, the U.S. government enacted a policy of assimilation of Native Americans, to Americanize them. Their goal was to turn them into white men. Schools were an important part of facilitating their goal. In 1879, Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School. It was the first school in which Native American children were culturally exposed to American ideology. The idea for the boarding school first came through treatment of Cheyenne warriors. In the 1860s, Americans were in the midst of a major western migration. Settlers were moving into the western region, pushing natives off lands, and in some cases, killing livestock. Warriors then took revenge on settlers and soldiers. General Sherman called for “the

With the passage of the British North American Act in the 1867 and the implementation of the Indian Act in 1876, the “government was required to provide Indigenous youth with an education to integrate them into Canadian society” (Brady 1995). The first residential schools were set up in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s. After the residential school system was established, children were stripped away from their parents and had no freedom to choose whether they wanted to attend. In these schools heavily controlled by catholic churches, children were forced to pray to whom they had no connection with and forbidden to practice their own culture. The goal was to “convert the children to Christianity and

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.

With waves of the American population moving westward, government attempted to assimilate, or integrate, Native Americans into American society. Their goal was for Native Americans to live and behave like white Americans, and for them “to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community” (Doc 9). Children were sent to boarding schools where they were given new clothes and haircuts, and taught English, Christianity, and American ways of life (Doc 13). While many Americans believed this would be good for the Native Americans, it effectively destroyed their culture and identity. By forcing them to learn English, they were unable to communicate the concepts, beliefs, and ideas their languages were based on. Americans did not consider the fact that English could not substitute for Native languages, because they are based on different realities, histories, and cultures (Doc 3). Assimilation turned the lives of Native Americans upside-down, forcing them to give up ideas and beliefs they had been practicing their whole lives, without any say. Slowly, Native American culture and lifestyle faded until it was nearly

Indian Residential Schools has been a major contributing factor towards the mistreatment and decreased standard of living for the First Nations people of Canada. Originally founded in the 1840’s and the last to close in 1996 the goal of Residential Schools was to assimilate First Nations people into Canadian society. The assimilation process consisted of the forced attendance (by Canadian law) for every Native, Metis, and Inuit child to attend the “boarding” schools. Residential Schools were ran by Christian, Catholic, and Anglican churches, the schools were also funded by the Canadian government’s Indian Affairs. Treatment students received while attending the schools was unbearable for the young children. After being taken and

Indian Boarding Schools, which began in the late 1870’s, were started to transition Native Americans from their traditional cultures and transform them into American citizens. By the 1900’s, there were 147 day schools on and off reservations in the Great Plains. Day schools were first built before the government decided that the children needed to be removed from their Indian lifestyle in order for total assimilation to occur. The first off-reservation boarding schools appeared around 1884 in the Great Plains. By 1890, 25 federal off-reservation and 43 on-reservation boarding schools were operating nationally. Many Indian families chose to send their children to boarding schools because there were no other schools available. After $45 million had been spent and 20,000 Indian children had been put into schools, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Jones put emphasis on the importance of utilizing existing boarding and day schools more effectively. Jones declared that the Indian children had shown little evidence of assimilation and introduced the idea for a hierarchy of schools in order to “provide the greatest opportunity for assimilating the best students with the greatest potential for surviving in the white world” (Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, par.8).

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

Throughout all of Minnesota’s history, assimilation of culture has been present. In Minnesota’s early history (pre-1880), the assimilation of culture was sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary. This same trend continues in the modern history of the state (post-1880). For the Native Americans in the state, assimilation was involuntary and mandatory for them, and especially for the young Native Americans. One example of forced Native American assimilation is the “Indian boarding schools” for young Native Americans (Laliberte, Natives, Neighbors, and the National Game, 2010). These purpose of these schools was to ‘civilize’ the Native Americans and force them to adopt western culture, like English and Christianity (Laliberte, Natives, Neighbors, and the National Game, 2010). The process of assimilating Native Americans picked up intensity during the 1880s (Laliberte, Natives, Neighbors, and the National Game,

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

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

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 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

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.

In the late nineteenth century, the effort to ‘civilize” native Americans entailed removing children from their families and placing them in boarding schools where they were forced to adopt European culture. They were forbidden to speak their traditional language and were forced to abandon their religious beliefs in favour of Christianity.