American Indian Boarding Schools

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.

Back when the United States wasn’t so immense and powerful, its people and their leaders wanted to expand. The people thought that the entire country should be theirs, and anyone who stood in their way, including the Native Americans, would pay for it. Manifest destiny was the “motto” for the country in this time. The first railroad that could cross the entire country was built. This encouraged many to move out west. While this was good for the Americans, it might not have been so good for the Native Americans. Native American land and culture was impacted by western expansion of the United States because of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the United States army, or militias, and government.

From its birth, America was a place of inequality and privilege. Since Columbus 's arrival and up until present day, Native American tribes have been victim of white men 's persecution and tyranny. This was first expressed in the 1800’s, when Native Americans were driven off their land and forced to embark on the Trail of Tears, and again during the Western American- Indian War where white Americans massacred millions of Native Americans in hatred. Today, much of the Indian Territory that was once a refuge for Native Americans has since been taken over by white men, and the major tribes that once called these reservations home are all but gone. These events show the discrimination and oppression the Native Americans faced. They were, and continue to be, pushed onto reservations,

Manifest Destiny, one of the most influential ideologies in American history, was used as the basis to justify almost-continuous conflict from the early- to the late-19th century (Greenberg 3). This conflict included the relentless displacement of Native Americans from their ancestral lands, a war of aggression against Mexico in 1846, and attacks on countries such as Canada, Cuba, and even Central America, by filibusters and military action to gain overseas colonies (Greenberg 10, 25, and 26). While Manifest Destiny first arose as a dominant ideology during the early nineteenth-century, the concept of American exceptionalism, the heart of this ideology, was older than the nation itself. This concept was taken by white Americans as proof that they, and their nation, were unique and marked by God for a special destiny (Greenberg, 5). It would be several decades before the advantages of American settlement would be presented to the world. One advantage being the Louisiana Purchase, which was the expansion westward.

The term “Manifest Destiny,” popularized in the mid-1800s, argued that it was America’s moral and heavenly duty to expand its superior institutions and technologies into Indian territories, where they could be employed to civilize native peoples. As Americans expanded their frontier into the Trans-Mississippi West, deep South and Cuba, the term was used to justify their unilateral acquisition of Indian territory. Both the religious and moral aspects of Manifest Destiny are exemplified in John Gast’s painting, American Progress, in which American expansionism is portrayed as a positive force enlightening savage Indian peoples and connecting them with modern technology. American feelings of moral and intellectual superiority, encapsulated in the term of Manifest Destiny, are reflected in the many layers of John Gast’s American

However, this emphasizes that the Indians were constantly forced to leave their land until there was essentially nowhere else to go. Throughout the piece, Brown portrays the American Settlers as deceptive murderers who unlawfully took the land of the Native Americans. The book also highlights the Unites States’ attempt to rid the country of Native American beliefs. The government’s proceedings are looked upon as an effort to extinguish the culture, religion, and way of life of the Native American people. These intolerable acts were condoned under the popular movement known as Manifest

For more than 300 years, since the days of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Government, an attempt of genocide of the Native American Indian has existed. From mass brutal murders and destruction by Spanish and American armies, to self-annihilation through suicide, homicide, and alcohol induced deaths brought about because of failed internal colonialism and white racial framing. Early Explores used Indigenous inhabitants upon first arriving to the America’s to survive the New World and once they adapted, internal colonialism began with attempts to convert the Indians to Christianity, repressing their values and way of life, forcing them into slavery, and nearly exterminating an entire culture from existence.

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.

In conjunction with the "Myth of Nature's Nation", manifest destiny was a "double-edged sword." Hughes contrasts the idea of universal equality with the claim that some men were more equal than others. Apparently the tie between cultivation and natural order was so strong, in many cases, that Native Americans were not helping the natural order of things, but paradoxically hurting it. This rationalization is a common tactic that Hughes uses as a segway into the most deplorable parts of our history (113).

In a short history, American manifest destiny was a big mistake for Indian people in the past. The Indian people lived on the land before the Americans came. However, manifest destiny is the affliction Americans have that makes them believe God and took control all their land. For example, American settlers took their land and forced them into another uncomfortable place, less nature resource, and difficult to survive. Moreover, America settlers brought diseases into Indian tribes that made a lot of Indian people sick and dead. In addition, American settlers had a negative impact to the environment and natures resource such as more hunting and fishing that cost extinction, more cutting trees to build houses due to deforestation. In conclusion,

To include, Americans formed indian camps where they would capture Native Americans and force white culture onto them. An example of this was the Carlisle Indian School. By creating these camps, the Americans thought that they would be able to “Kill the Indian, save the man”. As a result of examining these facts, it can be shown that growth of American exceptionalism has an important role in letting Americans do what they did during the time of the Westward

b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;<br>c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;<br>d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;<br>e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.<br>(Destexhe).<br><br>In this paper, I will argue that the act of genocide as here defined, has been committed by the United States of America, upon the tribes and cultures of Native Americans, through mass indoctrination of its youths. Primary support will be drawn from Jorge Noriega's work, "American Indian Education in the United States." The paper will then culminate with my personal views on the subject,

As I recall Mrs. McCleave mentioning, the saying “Kill the Indian and save the man”, was from the federal government. This was Pratt’s motto. It was stressed that civilizing the Indians by teaching them English, and then converting them to Christianity and allowing them to trade. Pratt also trimmed Indians hair and prohibited traditions such as clothing, dancing or religious ceremony.

Native Americans could not flee the brutal boarding schools. In fact, Carolyn Marr references the rigorous military schedule, which contained multiple roll calls to make sure they were always present (Carolyn Marr). More importantly, children who managed to escape boarding schools would not get far, and would be quickly returned by the police (“Indian diaries”). Furthermore, there were over 100 “desertions” at Chimewa, most of which were returned to the school (Marr). Escaped students who were returned would be punished by the teachers. Marr states, “As a punishment their hands and feet were tied, and they were forced to stand in the hall, so if they fell asleep, the teachers would hear them fall, and they would be whipped” (Marr). In short, there was little chance of escape and even slimmer chances of remaining free of boarding schools if they were to

What if the only thing that brought generations of families together were stripped from children? Native Indians had this happen to them when they attended boarding schools in the late 1900s. The language you are born into is the glue that can keep a strong bond within your culture and family. Language barriers can cause families to be unable to bond and these children may feel as if they cannot have a relationship with their family members. The Indian boarding schools were a destructive form of dehumanization since the way it tore culture from students, changed their culture into the culture they thought was right, and caused many Native Indians family troubles as well as depression and confusion.