Killing the Injun, Saving the Child... A Native American Student Perspective
"Mission school" origins can be traced most notably to Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries in the 1500s and later to various Protestant sects. In early colonial times with the inception of the College of William and Mary, Harvard, and Dartmouth, schooling became integrated into the lives of Indian children who came from tribes that were settled permanently on the east coast. These schools were seen as a vise and leverage to gain land by settlers moving westward and also used as a tool to systematically assimilate Native Americans into "industrial, mainstream white society." Almost overnight another form of school, the "off-the-reservation boarding school," started up throughout the United States. At the behest of an ever-growing United States and with the idea of "Manifest Destiny" a concept that bore the idea "it was God's will and all must reform or die," looming large, many groups such as "The Friends of the Indians," "The Indian Rights Association," "Women's National Indian Association," "Boston Indian Citizenship Association," and sympathetic politicians were growing weary that First Nation people hardly stood a chance with their diminishing land base.
The vision of the off-the-reservation boarding school was reborn through the eyes of an unlikely supporter, Captain Richard Henry Pratt. While at Fort Marion, Florida, Pratt discovered that the Indian prisoners he oversaw could easily be trained in vocational situations and given a "theological cleansing." This spawned the idea of a training school for Native American children embodying the idea that through a strict, regimented curriculum based on the ideas of theological, agricultural, and domestic needs, the Indian would need in order to adapt to a way of life unknown to him in the past.
Pratt's idea gained favor with the Secretary of War due to his educational and humane treatment of his Indian prisoners at Fort Marion. On November 1, 1879, the Carlisle Industrial Training School opened its doors. Twenty-five other off-the-reservation schools that were opened within a twenty-five year period followed it. From this point on, views about education from a Native American standpoint would never be the same. This will be a historical perspective that could lead to further research to show where Native Americans have progressed on a national level in education and what needs to be done to get Native Americans on the same educational level as other minority or non-minority groups.
"Kill the Indian, Save the Man" Captain Richard H. Pratt
The vision of the off-the-reservation boarding school was reborn through the eyes of an unlikely supporter, Captain Richard Henry Pratt. While at Fort Marion, Florida, Pratt discovered that the Indian prisoners he oversaw could easily be trained in vocational situations and given a "theological cleansing." This spawned the idea of a training school for Native American children embodying the idea that through a strict, regimented curriculum based on the ideas of theological, agricultural, and domestic needs, the Indian would need in order to adapt to a way of life unknown to him in the past.
Pratt's idea gained favor with the Secretary of War due to his educational and humane treatment of his Indian prisoners at Fort Marion. On November 1, 1879, the Carlisle Industrial Training School opened its doors. Twenty-five other off-the-reservation schools that were opened within a twenty-five year period followed it. From this point on, views about education from a Native American standpoint would never be the same. This will be a historical perspective that could lead to further research to show where Native Americans have progressed on a national level in education and what needs to be done to get Native Americans on the same educational level as other minority or non-minority groups.
"Kill the Indian, Save the Man" Captain Richard H. Pratt
School:
Haskell Indian Nations University
Department:
American Indian Studies
Research Advisor:
Diane K. Mann
Department of Research Advisor:
USACERL
Year of Publication:
2003