The Native American Boarding Schools

In the time near the end of the Native American conflicts the U.S. Military
and Government came to the conclusion that the Native American people could not
be controlled as is and were in fact barely human when compared to the
civilization of mainstream America. At this conclusion many many were in search
of a solution to the issue of controlling the native people and one man was quite
influential in the action that was taken; Richard Pratt. Richard Pratt was a veteran
of the American Civil War and he had the solution that in order to kill the savage
but save the man the Native American men should be shipped away to boarding
schools. As radical and hateful as this may seem from our perspective this was one
of the more sympathetic solutions of the time and in relation Richard Pratt had all
the best intentions at heart when it came to the integration of Native Americans.
The pilot program for the Native American boarding schools took place in
Fort Marion, Florida. The first groups of Native American men to be enrolled in
this program were from a Cheyenne camp in present day Colorado. After their
people were defeated and massacred, they were forced into camps where it was
apparent they would not comply to authority. To offset this a group of men were
taken by train to Fort Marion in Florida to start their transition to civilized
American. For the most part this pilot program was considered to be quite
successful, despite strong objections from both the Native Americans and the white
settlers. Eventually this class graduated and for the most part the Native
Americans were integrated into white Christian culture.
After the success with the pilot Richard Pratt successfully lobbied for a large
scale program to be implemented which he would administrate directly. For this
program hundreds of Native American children were taken from their home and
transported to boarding schools thousands of miles away from their homes and

people. This was a significant part of the process because the Native people have a
connection to the land and believe it to be a sacred part of them. The places they
were transported were completely foreign compared to the rolling plains of the
west. Some of the significant changes made to their physical environment was the
stripping of their entire native identity through cutting their hair. This was
significant because in their culture the hair was cut as a indicator of mourning.
Also their traditional garb was traded for uniforms often in the style of military
uniforms. So much of their culture is based in their spirituality and their
surroundings, which were completely stripped from them. After their physical
culture was ripped away they would start undergoing transition in an emotional and
mental state. They were forced to start learning English and speaking only English.
They were also made to choose an English name. The were completely and totally
immersed in Christian white culture. The full scale project can be considered much
less successful as many students attempted to escape and many died from disease
or heart break.
Overall the boarding school program had positive intentions at heart in the
idea of the long term vision but in the short term it was a cruel and savage program
meant to strip the Native Americans of everything that that made them different. In
their attempt to kill the savage and save the man, they showed quite a bit of the
savage that resided in the white man.

"Mary Annette Pember: Boarding Schools Leave Impact in US Too." Indianz.

N.p., 23 June 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.indianz.com/News/2015/017936.asp>.