PRESIDENT Harrison’s administration focused Indian policy on encouraging assimilation, or integration, into white culture. This method meant taking away everything “Indian” about a person. Efforts at assimilating adults had limited success, so it was decided to start earlier by placing native children at Indian boarding schools.
Richard Pratt created the first of these schools, Garlisle Indian School, in Pennsylvania in 1879. Pratt’s philosophy was “Kill the Indian, save the man.” While the approximately 100 Indian boarding schools that sprang up from Pennsylvania to Washington to Oklahoma operated differently, they shared many similarities.
Admission to an Indian school wasn’t voluntary. Ghildren were taken from their homes, against family wishes, to faraway schools. While mothers, fathers, and grandparents stood by with tears in their eyes and their hands figuratively tied, children as young as five years old were pulled from clinging to their mothers’ skirts and forced onto trains and wagons.
Native American actor and activist Floyd Red Grow Westerman remembered, even more than 60 years later, the trauma of leaving for boarding school. He had thought his mother
Didn’t want him anymore until he saw that she was crying. Westerman then looked at the other families of children leaving for boarding school. “I’ll never forget. All the mothers were crying.”
One of the first things children faced when they arrived at school was the removal of their hair. Boys’ hair was cut short. Girls’ hair was cut or braided. Lakota children believed that hair was only cut when someone died. They found these haircuts very traumatic.
The children’s hair was washed with kerosene to kill possible lice and their bodies were scrubbed with a harsh substance called lye. Students received new names and clothing. Discipline was strict. One of the first rules children learned was that they couldn’t practice any of their customs or speak their own language. According to one student, “If we were caught speaking our language, we were punished severe. We might get a kerosene shampoo or a bar of yellow soap shoved in our mouth. That was just part of it.” Students could only speak English or they might be spanked, sometimes in front of others as a lesson.
Indian boarding schools were a particular threat to Native American history. Previously, history was largely shared and communicated orally. Many nations that originated in the Southeast had tribal historians who were
(LEFT) A classroom at Carlisle School. (BELOW) Digging potatoes at Carlisle School.
Jim Thorpe playing baseball for the New York Giants.
JIM THORPE
His name was Wa-Tho-Huck, meaning "Bright Path," and he is known as one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen. Born in Prague, Oklahoma, in 1887, Thorpe was Pottawatomie, Sauk, and Fox. As a teen, he attended Carlisle Industrial Indian School where he ran track and played football, winning first team All-American in football for two years.
At the age of 24, Thorpe represented the U. S. track team at the 1912 Olympics in Belgium. He not only won gold medals for the pentathlon and the decathlon, he set records that took many years for anyone to beat. When awarding Thorpe his medals, King Gustav V exclaimed, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world." Unfortunately, Thorpe was stripped of his medals in 1913 when it was discovered that he had played two semiprofessional seasons of baseball.
After the Olympics, Thorpe played baseball for six years, starting with the New York Giants. Always fascinated with football, he switched to playing that sport for another six years before he organized an all-Native team, the Oorang Indians. Thorpe created the American Professional Football Association, which evolved into the NFL (National Football League). He served as its first president. Thorpe continued to play professional football until age 41.
Jim Thorpe’s medals were returned to his family and his Olympic record reinstated in 1982, almost 30 years after his death.
Keepers of the stories or the knowledge of the band or nation. An entire generation lost their culture and their language. Losing native languages meant losing native history as well.
When the FLopi refused to allow their children to be taken to boarding schools, authorities arrested 19 Hopi men for rebelling against government policy, known as “sedition.” They spent almost a year in the prison on Alcatraz Island in 1895 and 1896.
Schools were military in nature and required students to wear uncomfortable uniforms. Carlisle was even set up in an old military barracks. School days were often very regimented and included roll call and inspections. At the Cushman Indian School in Tacoma, Washington, the day began at 5:45 a. m. as children rose and made their beds military style. The sound of a bugle playing was often the first and last thing a child heard. A morning and afternoon “free period” was expected to be used at studying, athletics, music lessons, or industrial work.
At Carlisle, half the day was spent on academic work, and the other half was spent on a trade, with more emphasis on trades as children grew older. Boys might learn agriculture or blacksmithing. Girls were limited to the domestic arts, such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Children with special talents, such as athletics or art, were allowed to also pursue that. Carlisle was known for its football team
Where they had a star player and future Olympian in Jim Thorpe.
Other schools used religious study as its only academic work and spent the rest of the day learning trades. In many cases, children were forced to spend their days doing hard labor. Some schools were worse than others, leaving children malnourished and abused. Often, the emphasis wasn’t on education but on taking away a child’s identity. The BIA oversaw the schools and was supposed to provide supplies. Just as with the Indian agents, the results were uneven: sometimes the supplies arrived; sometimes they didn’t.
Obviously, life at the boarding schools was difficult for many children. They were cut off from their families and not allowed to keep anything familiar in their lives. Toys were forbidden except for a brief time at Christmas. For some students, it might be a long time before they could speak to another person, since they had to learn how to use English.
Runaway children were not unusual as extreme homesickness overwhelmed many students. Most runaways were caught and returned to the school. Punishment might come from a strap or being confined to the dorm or even the guard house for a few days.
The schools had their share of sick children. Some died from diseases like smallpox or tuberculosis. A flu epidemic in 1918 was severe at many boarding schools. Over 300 students died at the Haskell School alone. Few children returned to their families in the summer. Many were enrolled in the “Outing Program,” in which they lived with white families in town. Some boarding school students were treated as members of the family; others were used as cheap laborers who worked in a home or a farm.
Zitkala-Sa, a Dakota woman who was a graduate of the boarding school system, became a teacher and a writer. She recalled having a difficult time adjusting to school life and often hiding under her bed. One of Zitkala-Sa’s published stories was “The Soft-Hearted Sioux.” It told the story of a young man who returned to his reservation after being in boarding school. His experience at school left him unable to take part in his former native life.
Many boarding school students who did eventually return home had similar experiences. Bill Wright of the Pattwin tribe was sent to the Stewart Indian School in Nevada at age six. He remembers not being able to communicate with his grandmother and losing his Indian name.
Although some Indian boarding schools lasted well into the middle of the 20th century, most closed down and were replaced by BIA-operated reservation schools. These were later replaced with tribal schools or public schools in the 1970S.
World History
