Education and Native American Assimilation

1 PAPER 1 – EDUCATION AND NATIVE AMERICAN ASSIMILATION

PRIMARY SOURCES In 1906, Helen Sekaquaptewa “awoke to find [her] camp surrounded by troops.” She later recalled that a government official “called the men together, ordering the women and children to remain in their separate family groups. He told the men . . . that the government had reached the limit of its patience; that the children would have to go to school.” Helen went on to relate how “All children of school age were lined up to be registered and taken away to school. 82 children, including [Helen], were taken to the schoolhouse ...with military escort.” Helen Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi girl from Oraibi, was just one of many American Indian children who, from the 1880s up to the 1930s, were forced by U.S. government agents to attend school against the wishes of their parents and community.

A BATTLE FOR THE CHILDREN: American Indian Child Removal in Arizona in the Era of Assimilation, Margaret D. Jacobs, University of Nevada, March 2004

A. VIEWPOINT OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, AND CONCERNED CITIZENS: Many people had different viewpoints on what to do with the “Indian problem,” though most agreed that education was fundamental to solving this issue. DOCUMENT1: George Grant, Presbyterian minister, 1872

As the Indian has no chance of existence except by conforming to civilized ways, the sooner that the Government or Christian people awake to the necessity of establishing schools among every tribe the better. Little can be done with the old, and it may be two, three or more generations before the old habits of a people are changed; but by always taking hold of the young, the work can be done. https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1

DOCUMENT 2: Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1903:

To educate the Indian in the ways of civilized life, therefore is to preserve him from extinction, not as an Indian, but as a human being. As a separate entity, he cannot exist [enclosed], as it were, in the body of this great nation. The pressure for land must diminish his reservations to areas within which he can utilize the acres allotted to him, so that the balance may become homes for the white farmers who require them. To educate the Indian is to prepare him for the abolishment of tribal relations, to take his land in severalty, and in the seat of his brow and the toil of his hands to carry out, as his white brother has done, a home for himself and family.

DOCUMENT 3: Excerpts from “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man,” 1892, presented by Richard Henry Pratt.

Captain Richard Henry Pratt fought for the United States against Native American Tribes including the Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa. After the U.S. won the “Indian Wars,” Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He presented his thoughts at the Nineteenth Annual Conference of Charities and Correction in 1892. He is famous for his philosophy: “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man.”

2 Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. It has preached against colonizing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them. It has demanded for them the same multiplicity of chances, which all others in the country enjoy. Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes [the USA], and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have. …. When we cease to teach the Indian that he is less than a man; when we recognize fully that he is capable in all respects as we are….— Then the Indian will quickly demonstrate that he can be truly civilized, and he himself will solve the question of what to do with the Indian. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929/

DOCUMENT 4: Indian Commissioner Thomas Morgan speaking at the establishment of the Phoenix Indian School in 1891

"It's cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them." B. “ENROLLING” STUDENTS INTO THE SCHOOLS By the 1880s, the federal government mandated that Indian children be educated in either boarding schools or schools on the reservation. Some parents were eager to get their children in schools; however, others did not want their children to go. DOCUMENT 5: Eyewitness testimony on forced removals.

Often, the children were forced from their families to attend school: “Everything in the way of persuasion and argument having failed, it became necessary to visit the camps unexpectedly with police, and seize such children as were [school age] and take them away to school, willing or unwilling. Some [parents] hurried their children off to the mountains or hid them away in camp, and the police had to chase and capture them like so many wild rabbits. This unusual proceeding created quite an outcry. The men were sullen and muttering, the women loud in their [crying] and the children almost out of their wits with fright.”

DOCUMENT 6: A white woman who worked in many boarding schools explains the issue with getting children to attend school.

“In the fall, the government stockmen, farmers, and other employees go out into the back country with trucks and bring in the children to school. Many [children] apparently come willingly and gladly; but the wild Navajos, far back in the mountains, hide their children at the sound of a truck. So stockmen, Indian police, and other mounted men are sent ahead to round them up. The children are caught, often roped like cattle, and take away from their parents, many times never to return. They are transferred from school to school, given white people’s names, forbidden to speak their own [language], and when sent to distant schools are not taken home for three years.”

C. SCHOOL CURRICULUM

3 The government established a set curriculum for the students to follow. These schools were “industrial” schools, meant to teach male students jobs in the trades (manual labor), and female students the traditional western female roles of mother and homemaker. DOCUMENT 7: Memo sent out by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on what is to be taught in Indian schools, 1878.

It is the policy of the Department to combine with the ordinary branches of the English education...instruction to the boys...in cultivating the farms and gardens; and also in a sufficient knowledge of the use, not only of agricultural implements, but of ordinary mechanical tools...The girls should also be taught all household industrials such as bedmaking, plain cooking, cutting, making and mending garments for both sexes, the work of the dairy, and proper care of the house.

PHOTOGRAPH 1: Furniture Building Shop, 1901. (Library of Congress, Frances Benjamin Johnson Collection, https://www.loc.gov/item/98503020/)

PHOTOGRAPH 2: Home Economics class, 1901. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004676524//

Library of Congress, Frances Benjamin Johnson Collection,

4 D. THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VIEW OF THE SCHOOLS Photographs such as these class photos (before and afters) were taken for the purpose of showing the "successful civilization" of the Indian students. The schools marketed themselves extensively to the American public as they believed this would get broad support, both political and financial, for their Indian schools. PHOTOGRAPH 3: – Before and After Publicity photographs for the Carlisle Industrial School.

Chiricahua Apache children upon arrival at Carlisle Indian Industrial School from Fort Marion, Florida. J.N. Choate, photographer, Barry Goldwater Collection #GI-44, Arizona Historical Foundation, University Libraries, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

Chiricahua Apache children four months after their arrival at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. J.N. Choate, photographer, Barry Goldwater Collection #GI-44, Arizona Historical Foundation, University Libraries, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

5 DOCUMENT 8: Indian Girls at Hampton - The accompanying picture (right) was published in Harpers Monthly, April 1881. “The improvement made in the appearance of the Indian students, boys and girls, a three years’ course of study at Hampton has convinced more than one observer from the Western frontier that there is something better to do for the red man (Indian) than to shoot him on sight. Miss Helen W. Ludlow, one of their teachers says of the two older girls that appear in the picture: “They have been among the farmers of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, working for their board, sharing the home life and improving in health, English and general tone…their [] labor has its compensation in a better physical condition…and their uplifting may prove the most important factors in the salvation of their race.” http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets /assimilation/

DOCUMENT 9: Educating the Indians--a female pupil of the government school at Carlisle visits her home at Pine Ridge Agency

6 E. LIFE AT SCHOOL The students were fully “Americanized” as soon as they arrived at the school. This included cutting the boys’ hair, and changing the students’ names to Western names that were easier for teachers to pronounce and remember. DOCUMENT 10: A young man recollects having his hair cut.

Late in the morning, my friend Judéwin gave me a terrible warning. Judéwin knew a few words of English, and she had overheard the paleface woman talk about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled [cut] by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards! We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judéwin said, "We have to submit, because they are strong," I rebelled. "No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!" I answered. I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indignities…And now my long hair was shingled like a coward's!

DOCUMENT 11: An Indian Boy's Story: Ah-nen-la-de-ni [Daniel La France] 1903

After my bath and re-clothing and after having had my name taken down in the records I was assigned to a dormitory, and began my regular school life, much to my dissatisfaction. The recording of my name was accompanied by a change which, though it might seem trifling to the teachers, was very important to me. My name among my own people was "Ah-nen-la-de-ni," which in English means "Turning crowd" or "Turns the crowd," and at the institution my Indian name was discarded, and I was informed that I was henceforth to be known as Daniel. It made me feel as if I had lost myself. I had been proud of myself and my possibilities as "Turns the crowd," for in spite of their civilized surroundings the Indians of our reservation in my time still looked back to the old warlike days when the Mohawks were great people, but Daniel La France was to me a stranger and a nobody with no possibilities. http://www.rcs.k12.in.us/files/an_indian_boys_story.pdf

F. THE DAILY ROUTINE School life followed a military routine, as these schools were based on military practices, and many schools were located in former military barracks. It was also expected that students convert to Christianity and attend church. DOCUMENT 12: A typical school day:

We got up at 6:00 a.m. and we were sitting in church about 6:45. Then we went to breakfast and did chores after breakfast and at 8:30 a.m. we were in the classrooms until 12:00, then we went down for lunch. [At] one p.m. we were back in the classrooms until 5:00. At 5:00 we went to benediction (church) for a half- hour and then went to supper. We did chores after supper to 8:30 and then had free time. (https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1)

7 G. THE CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS The schools were expected to be self-sufficient with the students producing clothing, and growing their own food. The schools were often underfunded, and experienced terrrible sanitary conditions. Illness and epidemics were not uncommon. Some schools even had their own graveyards. DOCUMENT 13: Hoke Denetsosie, a Navajo, described his boarding school experiences at Leupp, Arizona, in the early twentieth century:

Conditions at the school were terrible...Food and other supplies were not too plentiful. We were underfed; so we were constantly hungry. Clothing was not good, and, in winter months, there were epidemics of sickness. Sometimes students died, and the school would close the rest of the term. It was run in a military fashion, and rules were very strict. A typical day went like this: Early in the morning at 6 o’clock we rose at the sound of bugles. We washed and dressed; then we lined up in military formation and drilled in the yard. For breakfast, companies formed, and we marched to the dining room, where we all stood at attention with long tables before us. We recited grace aloud, and, after being seated, we proceeded with our meal...Some teachers and other workers weren’t very friendly. When students made mistakes they often were slapped or whipped by the disciplinarian who usually carried a piece of rope in his hip pocket. https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1

DOCUMENT 14: Recollection of a death in the boarding school.

My saddest and worst memory was when there was a girl that went to school there and she was from one of the communities on our reservation and she died there. They didn’t take her to the doctor. I remember all the girls talking about when she died and I remember thinking why didn’t they take her to the doctor. I remember the parents coming and getting their child and we all got to see what...we didn’t get to see her...but we knew what happened and they came after her, but she died there in the little girls section. I think she died from pneumonia. That’s what kids were saying. I couldn’t believe it happened. I don’t remember seeing doctors there, I just remember one day she was sick, sick for three or four days, and then she died.

H. SCHOOL PUNISHMENT Students were punished harshly for not following the rules. DOCUMENT 15: Physical discipline was used by teachers at most boarding schools. It was common for a student to be punished for speaking their native language. Here, a young student describes an example of this:

“One time I was given enough demerits so I had to miss two movies in a row for speaking my native Lakota language…Missing two movies was bad enough, but this [teacher] also made me bite down on a large rubber band, and then he stretched the rubber band to its limit, and let it snap back against my lips. It was very painful. All of this punishment for speaking my Lakota language.”

8 DOCUMENT 16: One girl remembers the types of punishment she experienced at school.

I remember you had to hold your hands out and you were hit with the ruler on one side and you had to flip them over and they hit you on the other side. They pulled the back of your hair behind your neck. They made you kneel in the broom closet in the dark. They spanked you with a big old board.. https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1

I. STUDENT RESISTANCE Many students resisted by running away or continuing to practice their culture secretly. DOCUMENT 17: Helma Ward, Makah, interview with Carolyn Marr:

Two of our girls ran away...but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell, fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she'd get out there and whip them and make them stand up again.

DOCUMENT 18: Native American Leader, Dennis Banks on the Overlooked Tragedy of Nation’s Indian Boarding Schools

But there was severe punishment for running away from that kind of system. I ran away. I kept running away. Almost once a week, I’d run away from those schools. They’d catch me. They’d bring me back to the school, beat me. And it was—it was terrible. https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/8/native_american_leader_dennis_banks

DOCUMENT 19: Resistance - “Letter from Superintendent Padgett to Commissioner of Indian Affairs on January 11, 1921.”

“I came upon Albert Whitecalf [a student] beating upon a tin pan and singing an Indian song with a bunch of boys around him dancing and singing to his accompaniment. When Albert espied me he shamefacedly put the tin pan down and the singing and dancing stopped. However, after I had gotten into the building the singing started again.”

J. LEGACY OF THE SCHOOLS Assimilation came at a great cost to the students. They found that once they went home, they could not relate or even speak to their families. They felt they had lost all sense of who they were. DOCUMENT 20: Native American Leader Dennis Banks on the Overlooked Tragedy of Nation’s Indian Boarding Schools

[T]hey cut off all communication with your parents, and a lot of letters, which I found later in—I stayed there for six years without communicating to—with my parents at all. And finally, they let us go home for six years. Of course, we couldn’t speak the language. We could speak only English… https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/8/native_american_leader_dennis_banks

DOCUMENT 21: Interview with a former student about losing their Indian identity

Going to school at boarding school, I guess I was really traumatized that they didn’t let me speak my language, so I was kind of ashamed of who I was. I never got into the traditional or cultural part of our Lakota ways, even my language.

9 When I went to school I really felt ashamed of being Indian. https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1

DOCUMENT 22: Wright, a Pattwin Indian who was sent to boarding school at six years old, recollects a conversation he had with his grandmother.

“I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, ‘Grandma, I don’t understand you,’ “. “She said,“then who are you?’” Wright says he told her his name was Billy. “ Your name’s not Billy. Your name’s TAH-rruhm,’ ‘ She told him. “And I went, ‘That’s not what they told me.”

DOCUMENT 23: An interview with former student, Anne Bender I seldom heard from my parents and was so young when I came away that I did not even remember them…When I arrived at the station, I was met by my mother who had with her my two younger sisters, and two young brothers whom I had never seen. They greeted me kindly but they and everything seemed so strange that I burst into tears…. When my father returned from work he greeted me kindly but scanned me carefully from head to foot. He asked me if I remembered him, but I had to answer "No". He talked to me kindly and tried to help me recall my early childhood, which proved unsuccessful. At last he told me I had changed greatly from a loving child to a stranger and seemed disappointed which only added to my lonesomeness.” http://www.twofrog.com/hamptonstories1.html

DOCUMENT 24: A student from the Hopi tribe was confronted by her uncle when she visited home about how she had changed while at school:

“You proud and stubborn girl! Why are you straying from the Hopi way of life? Don’t you know it is not good for a Hopi to be proud? Haven’t I told you a Hopi must not pretend to hold himself above his people? Why do you keep trying to be a white man? You are a Hopi. Go home. Marry in the Hopi way. Have children…Leave these white people who are leading you away from your own beliefs.”

PART 3 - POPULAR NOTIONS OF INDIANS [In the late 1800s] the rampant exploitation of natural resources, and the conquering, or in some cases extermination of Natives was recast in the popular imagination as a necessary consequence of progress. Indians could be depicted in all of their "natural" glory, as noble savages, mythical icons of America's wilderness past. This phenomenon allowed Americans to largely forget the ugly consequences of their expansionist past. Additionally, even though the Noble Savage is defended as being a "positive" stereotype, the result is historical amnesia and the dehumanization of real people who still exist. By cementing the Indian as an "other" from the past, it allows modern society to largely ignore the existence and plight of Native Americans today.

10 PHOTO 4: PHOTO 5: (Below) Handpainted print of a young woman by the river. Early 1900s. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

(Above) Charles American Horse (the son of Chief American Horse). Oglala Lakota. 1901. Photo by William Herman Rau. Source - Princeton Digital Library.

PHOTO 6: (Right) Piegan men giving prayer to the Thunderbird near a river in Montana. 1912. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

11 PHOTO 7: (Right) Cheyenne Chief Wolf Robe. Color halftone reproduction of a painting from a F. A. Rinehart photograph. 1898. Source - Denver Public Library Digital Collections. PHOTOGRAPH 8: Oglala War Party

"a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter tribal warfare, carefully making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy's camp." Curtis Photograph, 1907. https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/native/ns1-brave/index.html

12 DOCUMENT 25: Bubble Gum Card “Indian Gum: The Original Picture Book Gum. This is one of a series of cards illustrating Indian and Pioneer romantic days”

http://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/luqaiot.jpg DOCUMENT 26: Cough Medicine. Dr. Kilmer’s Indian Cough Cure

https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/native/ns1-brave/index.html

13 DOCUMENT: Chase and Sanborn’s Teas and Coffees

https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/native/ns1-brave/index.html