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Assimilation: Long-Term Effects Of Native American Boarding Schools

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Assimilation was the goal of the Native American boarding schools. Native kids will be taught the importance of material wealth, Christianity, private property and monogamous families. By the 1880s, the US federal government operated over 60 schools. These schools would be the foundation for the ethnic cleansing of native children. These schools were the ideal tool used to try and erase a whole culture from the minds of upcoming generations. Misconceptions are all around us, and especially surrounding the native boarding schools. “No one knew what the conditions were at the time,” (Slide 11). There is ample evidence showing that the US government & church covered up the abuse that went on in the schools. Discipline inside the boarding schools were …show more content…

(2007). The Ojibwe. Lerner Publications Co.) That is what Henry Pratt said the superintendent led the idea of boarding schools to accomplish just that. Long-term effects of residential boarding schools were profound. Generational trauma along with Ojibwe people trying to rebound from the effects of boarding schools. In 1893, a court ruling increased pressure to keep Indian kids in boarding schools. It wasn’t until 1978 that the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed by the federal government. This law gives Native American parents the right to deny their children’s placement off the reservation. By 1926 nearly 83% of Indian school-age children were attending boarding schools, this equivalent to 60,889 kids. Conversion to Christianity was deemed essential for the Indian boarding school curriculum. Expected to know the Ten Commandments along with teaching the ideas of sin and the sense of guilt. Traditional native food was abandoned, making the students adjust to white food while using forks, spoons and knives. A complete abandonment of their culture is expected. It is astonishing that the Native American peoples are still here living their authentic

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These schools have been described as an instrument to wage intellectual, psychological, and cultural warfare to turn Native Americans into “Americans”. There are many reports of young Native Americans losing all cultural belonging. According to an interview with NPR, Bill Wright was sent to one of these schools. He lost his hair, his language, and then his Navajo name. When he was able to return home, he was unable to understand or speak to his grandmother.

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Throughout assimilation, there was a cultural barrier between the Indians and the teachers. At the core of this barrier was the idea that one culture was more civilized than the other. This idea can be seen in both Native American boarding schools and at St. Lucy’s. As stated in Sarah E. Stone’s dissertation, the teachers at Native American boarding schools were not “culturally familiar” (57) with the students and, as a result, treated them differently. Similarly, at St. Lucy’s the nuns saw the wolf girls as barbaric people and treated them accordingly.

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Save the child”. Some of these boarding schools were privately owned and operated but school such as Carlisle were paid for by the federal government and under federal authority. These schools had some of the worst conditions imaginable and had the soul purpose of deculturalize all of these children. The next document further goes to prove how the federal government is to blame. The under supplying of reservations was harmful to Native Americans living there because it did little to stop epidemics and periods of starvation.

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These schools forcefully broke up families, stripped kids of their culture, and sent them back, seemingly without an identity. They were given new names, new clothes, short hair, and many other different things, dividing them from their families. These institutions were abusive, and caused great harm to the cultures of the indigenous tribes. Though the schools came with a promise that they would offer the Native American children a better future, this was simply not the case. Racism prevented any Indian, no matter how assimilated, from being truly accepted and equal in the eyes of the American population.

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Native American boarding schools were established in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s to educate and assimilate children of Native Americans to conform to American standards. Assimilation was meant to make all Native Americans speak English as their primary language, for them to be Christians, to stop wearing their native clothing, wear their hair as the Americans wear their hair and most importantly, to think like Americans. So the best method of assimilation was to focus on the children of these reservations. Most schools started on the reservations by Christian missionaries, their goal was to Christianize Indians so they wouldn’t believe in Wakan Tanka. Their hope was “that an education grounded in Western training and stern discipline would detribalize Native American children

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Native Americans in the 1920s were forced into assimilation. Many Native Americans tried to reject the assimilation, some tried to adapt the white man’s practices with their own practices, and others accepted the assimilation. Forced assimilation began at a young age beginning in the 1920s. Young Native Americans were taken from their homeland and tribes and were sent to assimilation schools. The assimilation schools stripped the young children of their Native American identities by renaming the children, cutting the children’s hair, changing the attire they were allowed to wear, and teaching the children tasks that were beneficial for the white population but not for the traditional Native Americans.

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Moreover, this means that though there are no longer residential schools, their harm cannot yet be forgotten as many Native peoples’ have yet to find any healing. Despite some legislative efforts, such as the Indian Child Protection Act, the lack of adequate healing services and redress sustains this cycle of suffering (Native American Boarding Schools, n.d.). Furthermore, the socio-economic fallout of historical trauma, including barriers to education and opportunity, exacerbates the challenges faced by modern Native youth. The pervasive impact of these factors makes it exceedingly difficult for Native individuals, both historically and in contemporary times, to excel in education, as they are hindered by systemic barriers that impede academic success and limit access to resources and opportunities. The legacy of Native American boarding schools is a harrowing testament to the destructive and horrific impact of cultural genocide inflicted upon indigenous

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The Native culture was lost a while ago some people might think it was a long time ago but it wasn't if you really think about it. Because the boarding schools started around the 1860's, but it didn’t start effecting the Native people until the first generation of children were all grown up. And it wasn't until the late 1970's that the Native parents had a choice of whether or not they'd let their kids go to a school off the reservation. But by that time there was a lot of children that had already been abused and died that when they were old enough to stop going to the boarding schools they didn't want to go home they wanted to forget what happened to them. A lot of the children that grew up and had a family ended up abusing the ones they loved because that's all they knew, they didn't get the love they needed growing because the were abused as children and they thought that's what was normal.

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Indian Boarding schools were created in the 1800s to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” They achieved this by transforming the natives looks, culture, language, and teaching them a certain way so they would be able to function in a “european society”. Indian boarding schools taught students both academic and “real world” skills, but they did so while ripping the indians from their culture. Most indian boarding schools were the same with their tactics in transforming the native man into a white one.

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The government believed that if the children remained with their parents the problems would only increase, with the boarding schools it would make it easier to cut off their culture and religions. They decided it was best to christianize the children making almost every boarding schools either christian or catholic. The Native American kids were forced into going to church two to three times a day. It was against the

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Mental and Physical Health of Boarding School Students and Their Parents The boarding school experience in the U.S. and in Canada affected both Native students and their families in destructive ways and had terrible impacts on their mental and physical health. The practice of removing children from their parents led to numerous problems in families, while children in boarding schools suffered from the loss of their identities, as well as from different forms of abuse (Barton et al. 296). Moreover, students both in American and Canadian boarding schools often became sick during the school year and carried various diseases home to the reservations (Barton et al. 296; Child 79). Separating children from their parents had detrimental effects on their families.

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