The Controversy: The Construction Of Boarding Schools

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

Assimilation of the native Indians occurred in different phases. The United States in the early years adopted an Indian policy that they used to build good relations with the bordering tribes which helped politically and in trading with the natives. However, they reserved to stop the good relationships in order for them to acquire more land as the moved west to expand their territory. (Keller,1983)

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

During America’s Gilded Age, a drastic change in the west transpired. While many Native Americans had already endured profound changes, their freedom was about to become nearly extinct. It was a time in which they called the Second Industrial Revolution. There was an ample amount of natural resources and a development in the market for manufactured goods. Railroad companies flourished and alas, Indian removal was imperative in obtaining land for laborers and miners (Foner, Give Me Liberty!, p.477). As Americans wanted to take their land, they also wanted to strip Native Americans of their culture. The federal government strived in trying to civilize them, so The Bureau of Indian Affairs created boarding schools all over the west in the 1870s. These schools were for Native American children of all ages. The goal was complete “assimilation” (Mabalon, 9/9/15). The children were forced to dress differently, they gained new names, and they were isolated from any cultural influence. It was as though they were forced to give up tradition. It caused them to start having hatred towards their culture and to be ashamed of themselves. Native Americans lost their values and their freedom almost completely. They were essentially being taught how to be white capitalists. (Mabalon, 9/9/15). It wasn’t until after a long, painful struggle and resistance that they finally gained citizenship for all in 1924. Even then, there was still a great way to go until the Native Americans were able to

“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.

Instead they were filled with loneliness, disrespect and pain. These schools were founded on the premise of “education” by an Army office named Richard Pratt. Richard Pratt is known for saying "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one," Pratt said. "In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." (Bear, 2008) “The intent of these boarding schools were to erase and replace, to completely transform people, inside and out. "Language, religion, family structure, economics, the way you make a living, the way you express emotion, everything," (Lomawaima, 2008) These people were forced to become everything the white people wanted them to be. They were forced to forget. Their hair was cut, they were bathed in kerosene, they were beaten, they were stripped of their Native names, they were treated as if they didn’t matter. They were treated as if they weren’t human. But for many, federal schools were the only option as public school were closed to Natives due to racism. In these schools, the curriculum focused mostly on carpentry for boys and housekeeping for

The Native Americans also lost their old cultures throughout time. In 1860, Americans created the first boarding school for Indians. The government forced many families to put their kids into the school. At the school it was mandatory to learn english, American ways of living, religious training for Christianity, change names to American names, and wear proper clothing. Americans thought if they were taught the religious beliefs of Americans everyday, they would soon believe in Christianity and forget about their old culture. Their end goal was to completely demolish the Indian culture. One boarding school then turned to sixty schools for 6,200 Indian students all learning the same things. In order to change the kids from Indian to American,

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.

Daklugie, an American Indian who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School later recalled, “we’d lost our hair and we’d lost our clothes; with the two we’d lost our identity as Indians.” The purpose of assimilation was to “kill the Indian and save the man,” in order to transform Native American culture to European-American culture. This was particularly prominent in places such as Indian boarding schools, where Native Americans were stripped of their cultural identities, and forced to adopt white American culture instead. As “friends of the Indians,” Americans wanted to assist Native Americans by ending their savage ways and assimilating them into white society.

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 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

Starting off as a plan to assimilate and educate Native American Children, the boarding school program resulted in the stripping of culture and native identity. The cultural deprivation process began in 1860 when the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the first on-reservation Indian boarding school in Washington state. The main goal of both the boarding and day schools was to assimilate Indian children into the “American way of life” (American Indian Council).

According to the Wikipedia page, Native American boarding schools, “ they were established in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to educate and [simulate] Native American children and youths according to European standards”. So, the intended purpose of the Indian boarding schools was to educate and assimilate the children with the idea of the “living the American way”. The reformers wanted the children to understand and have practical knowledge of the American culture , and be kept away from their traditional Indian relatives. Probably, their Indian relatives were closed minded and did not want to expose the younger generation to different things. According to the website nativepartnership.org, “reformers assumed that it was necessary to “civilize” Indian people”(par. 2). The reformers wanted the children to understand the outside world, not have influences from their tribal life, be a self sufficient member of society, and not have anything, get in their way.

Upon the arrival of the Europeans in the US and their attempt to overtake land from the Native Americans, various movements took place. One of them was the establishment of boarding schools for Native American children’s. They claimed to offer modern English education for better future, as opposed to their cultural schools. Children were forcefully taken away from their families to boarding schools where they were forced to cut their hair, pick an English name and even forced to convert to Christianity. Since, Native children were not familiar with English language; they had trouble understanding the norms and what was being taught. Children often showed resistance when they were asked to give up their local practices and lifestyle. Some practices instilled fear American Indian children as they had deep meanings in their culture. Like cutting hair was a symbol for death and mourning. Some

When parents around the world choose to send their children to boarding school in the USA, it is always good to learn where one can start. They want to spend money and send the kids to the most selective, competitive, and influential boarding schools in the United States. These great boarding schools are the ones that could be seen as a means of Ivy League open doors and alleged lands that networking were made.