The Purpose Of Indian Boarding Schools

People know about the conflict between the Indian's cultures and the settler's cultures during the westward expansion. Many people know the fierce battles and melees between the Indians and the settlers that were born from this cultural conflict. In spite of this, many people may not know about the systematic and deliberate means employed by the U.S. government to permanently rid their new land of the Indians who had lived their own lives peacefully for many years. There are many strong and chilling reasons and causes as to why the settlers started all of this perplexity in the first place. There was also a very strong and threatening impact on the Native Americans

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.

The purpose of residential schools enforced from 1920 to 1996 under the Indian act was to “kill the Indian in the child” (Hanson, 2006). The system was brought into North American by Europeans and Catholics and was majorly run by nuns. The Europeans believed that aboriginal people needed to become more civilized, influencing them with their culture. This is when Nicholas Flood Davin, who was studying industrial school systems in the United states at the time recommended that Canadian aboriginal children needed to be taught through “aggressive civilization” (Hanson, 2006). Davin believed that to take the Indian out of the child it had to

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

This was a very important report because prior to it, Native American children were being sent to boarding schools were their heritage was frowned upon. “Recommendations included building day schools in Native American communities and the reform of boarding schools for Native American children.” (Parkay, F. 2001) This report was considered a landmark one because of the issues it highlighted of the educational issues plaguing the Native American community at the

The Indian Residential Schools were boarding schools that forced students to leave their families and homes in order to go and continue their education elsewhere. They were formulated with the partnership of the United Churches along with the Government. (Laing,2013:53). The Government and the Churches put these schools in place in order to separate the children from their family and cultural customs and values. The goal was to isolate the children from what they are used to in order to “kill the Indian in the child” and have them pick up the new Euro- Canadian culture and values along with the English Language. In addition to being taken away from their families, the

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

At Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, Lt. Richard Pratt worked closely with Indians and had a certain respect for the Indians. Pratt advocated to General Sheridan to reform the Indians. Pratt had them moved by train to St. Augustine, Florida. At Ft. Marion, Florida the Indians underwent an experiment to change them. The Indians were dressed in army uniforms and had their hair cut to resemble the white man’s image. The purpose was to assimilate the Indians and wash out an resemblance of native culture. Pratt recruited local volunteers to help teach the IndianIndian prisoners english. They were taught to work and serve the community. Pratt believed education would save the Indians during a time of industrialization. He enrolled the Indians in a black 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

Richard Henry Pratt was born in 1840 in Rushford, New York. And at the age of 20, Pratt joined the Union Army and served in the American Civil War. Being accustomed to the military lifestyle and becoming a commander in Fort Arbuckle working with the black and Indian troops, he assumed that the American Natives needed to learn how to live in a white man’s world. With that being said, he believed that with educating the natives they would learn to fit in the Anglo world. He was known for the phrase “Kill the Indian, save the man”. He practically wanted to tech the Indians a different way of living, by removing them from their reservations and taking them far away from their roots, so they were able to forget the native life style.

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

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

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.

To start of we will talk about similarities between indian residential schools and british home children. The first similarity that is important, and that is relevant on both sides is that the act happened after the 1800s. Both were physically, verbally, and mentally abused. On the indian residential side it was mandatory to come, on the other hand the british side the people had no choice to come but if you wished you didn't have to. Yet on the british side if you didn't come you would be on the streets starving to death so they had no choice. On both sides they