Boarding Schools : “Kill the Indian and Save the Man”

In 1892, Colonel Pratt, the founder of Indian Boarding Schools, made the following speech: "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

"I believe that the system of removing them from their tribes and placing them under continuous training in the midst of civilization is far better than any other method... I am sure that if we could bring to bear such training … for only three years, that savagery among the Indians in this country would be at an end... The end to be gained...is the complete civilization of the Indian and his absorption into our national life, [for] the Indian to lose his identity as such, to give up his tribal relations and to be made to feel that he is an American citizen.... "

And so from the 1880s through the 1960s, Indian children were taken – often forcibly – from their families and sent to Indian Boarding Schools.

The teachers spent the first few days forcing the children to discard their Indian ways and adopt American ways: – children were forbidden to speak their native language, often under threat of physical punishment. – their long hair was clipped to the skull, sometimes as part of a public ritual in which the child was forced to renounce his or her Indian origins.

Their comfortable, loose-fitting clothing were taken away and burned - boys wore military uniforms and girls were wore tight-fitting, Victorian-style dresses. Both boys and girls were required to wear shoes rather than their traditional loose-fitting moccasins.

The children were forbidden to use their Indian names and were given a new American name. The children were forbidden to practice any cultural or religious rituals, usually under threat of punishment, and were instead told that they were expected to become devout Christians.

Their days included a strict routine defined by military drill and structure. Children marched in silence to and from all classes and meals. Children attended school half of each day and spent the other half training to become mechanics, farmers, and servants.

Helen Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi Indian, recalled: “Evenings we would gather in a corner and cry softly so the matron would not hear and scold or spank us...I can still hear the plaintive little voices saying, 'I want to go home. I want my mother.’ We didn't understand a word of English and didn't know what to say or do...We were a group of homesick, lonesome, little girls...”

Sun Elk, from the pueblo of Taos, recorded this experience at Carlisle: "They told us that Indian ways were bad. They said we must get civilized. I remember that word too. It means ‘be like the white man.’ I am willing to be like the white man, but I did not believe Indian ways were wrong …. And the books told how bad the Indians had been to the white men - burning their towns and killing their women and children. But I had seen white men do that to Indians. We all wore white man's clothes and ate white man's food and went to white man's churches and spoke white man's talk. And so after a while we also began to say Indians were bad. We laughed at our own people and their blankets and cooking pots and sacred societies and dances."

Tom Torlino, Navajo Before and After A series of “before and after” photographs were taken to demonstrate the “progress” toward civilization that the boarding schools were making.

Hampton students

Conclusions