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Cultural Assimilation In Residential Schools

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Assimilation is not a word the aboriginals take too kindly. Wayne Warry (2007) defined it as the “process by which a minority population is absorbed into a prevailing dominant culture”; the dominant culture being that of the European. The fastest way to assimilate the Indians was to remove the children from their homes (the government had already lost hope on the adults) and force them into residential schools. The recommendation came from N.F. Davin who took the idea from native schools based within the United States. At this time the government believed that they owed it to the “poor Indian” to give them an “equal chance of success”. Residential schools offered religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic like the day schools but also …show more content…

Natives are very spiritual and believe they are part of something bigger; that everything (biology, chemistry, physics, psychology) is all interrelated and that everything has a spirit. Europeans follow a less spiritual and a more individualistic approach seeing life as more of a lab setting where items can be quantified and manipulated, and learning from books or by being told what to do and how to behave. The non-native instructional methods are also different than the learning methods of natives. Natives learn by watching and doing, usually working/learning alongside their families and elders like an apprenticeship. As Friesen & Friesen (2002) put it: to teach a Native to hunt you take him hunting, you do not explain it from a book and expect them to learn. Natives also learn from legends and stories often told by the elders and medicine men. Legends are a necessity in the indigenous culture and can be spiritual, moral, entertaining as well as teaching. The European educators had an authoritarian style and were new to Canada thus were not aware of the native ways or their culture. When the government was supposedly helping the Indians they were actually hindering them by ignoring their native ideals and instilling European ones instead. The intentions were to have Indians be more like the superior Europeans but their way about it was damaging to the Indian’s identity. As Warry (2007) pointed out, identity is not only necessary but crucial for the self, good health, and

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The Gradual Civilization Act encouraged the Indian people to assimilate into the Canadian society by “encouraging enfranchisement” (Hanson, 2009). However this was a failure since it is said that only one person voluntarily enfranchised. The Indian Act created a “homogenizing and paternalistic relationship” (Hanson, 2009) between the aboriginal people and Canada. In short, the Canadian government saw the aboriginal people as savage and un-civilized so they sought to control the rights of the aboriginal people. The quote by John A Macdonald in Hanson’s article demonstrates how “the great aim of our [the] legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change”

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667 Words | 3 Pages

The purpose of the boarding schools were to strip the Indians of their culture, to punish them until they believed and practiced English ways. Boarding schools were made to isolate the children and break the patterns of their backgrounds. The adolescents at were treated horribly at the school, their hair had been cut, they had been abused for speaking the only language they knew and they were locked in closets for crying. The children of the boarding schools were neglected, they returned with the language of the English and some knowledge of christianity but they did not return with the basic skills to work in the white society. The children could no longer relate to their families and the impact was huge negativity.

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916 Words | 4 Pages

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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992 Words | 4 Pages

However, boarding schools specifically targeted the younger generation creating a more impactful lasting effect. As talked about in lecture, these children were taken from their homes and forced to completely disassociate themselves from tribal life. At these boarding schools, children were taught in and forced to speak English, which led them to forget their own language. Once done with school, if the children decided to go back home, they would often times not be able to communicate with their parents and grandparents because many Native Americans living on reservations didn’t know English. This ruined relationships and the transferring of culture through generations as children had no way of communicating and were never home to learn from their peers and environment about culture.

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1183 Words | 5 Pages

Americanization and Indian Boarding School The history of Native Americans was full of violent, cheats and sadness. From Spanish conquerors, English settlers to U. S Government, Native Americans lost their battles against these parties with greater power. As a result, their home lands, people and culture were consistently threatened by different societies.

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1671 Words | 7 Pages

As time moved forward, the relationship between Europeans and Natives started to change, and with this change came forced assimilation. For the Natives, the Europeans saw the forced assimilation as there way of civilizing them (Lahlum, 22 Feb 2017). One of the main features of forced assimilation was Indian Boarding schools. In these schools, they teach the Native children English and Christianity (Laliberte, Natives, Neighbors, and the National Game, 2010). On the other hand, the immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia willingly adapted there culture to include aspects of Minnesota/ American Culture.

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1058 Words | 5 Pages

Intimate Colonialism is when the government tried to set up a policy that would encourage Indian Service staff members to intermarry with Native Americans. During the late 19th century, immigration was rising and the big thing in this era was assimilation. Assimilation is integrating people to be accustomed to the United States culture, behavior, value and norms. Though Native Americans have lived in America longer than anyone, the federal government thought that instead of ostracizing them for wanting to value their traditional culture, they created an assimilation policy for Native Americans. “The government’s assimilation policy sought to destroy Native nations’ cultural and political identities by replacing them with Anglo – American norms of behavior (108).”

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The Indian Boarding schools gave Native American children the opportunity to have stronger academics,

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577 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1460 Words | 6 Pages

One way that the Indigenous studies requirement would aid in combating racism is through diminishing harmful stereotypes that surround Indigenous peoples. According to Maclean’s, “one in three prairie residents believe that many racial stereotypes are accurate” and that 52% of prairie residents also agree that “Aboriginals’ economic problems are mainly their fault” (Macdonald, 2015) in a poll conducted by the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration. Canada has had a long history of racism against and the dehumanization of Indigenous peoples, including but not limited to the residential school system and the more recent issue of the high rates of Indigenous children in Child and Family Services (CFS). It is estimated that 150,000 Indigenous children were placed into residential schools from 1874 to 1996 (Fee, 2012) and it is believed 6,000 of these children died while attending, although this number is difficult to determine due to the government ceasing recordings of deaths in residential schools around 1920. Indigenous children were taken from their homes, from their parents and from their way of life to be put into schools that were meant to rid them of their Indigenous culture and assimilate

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484 Words | 2 Pages

Now, you might think that because the settlers recognized the problem and started putting new systems into place that it was benefitting the Native Americans. Well, it was in fact not. The US government only started pushing Indigenous people’s kids into these schools so they could destroy their culture! These schools started popping up in 1860 and were fully functioning until 1978. Not only were these schools

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798 Words | 4 Pages

US Indian Boarding Schools were established in the late 19th century with the goal of assimilating Native American children into white American culture. Children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to these schools, where they were forbidden from speaking their native languages or practicing their traditional customs. The schools were often far from reservations, making it difficult for parents to visit their children. The conditions in these schools were often harsh, with children subjected to physical and emotional abuse. Many children died from disease, malnutrition, or neglect.

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770 Words | 4 Pages

Generally the Europeans viewed their selves as being better and more powerful than the Native Americans. The Native Americans views the Europeans are untrustworthy and uncivilized because they attempted to be welcoming while the Europeans came to take over their

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1514 Words | 7 Pages

Nonetheless, it is evident that they were one of the most peaceful people who were wise, and focused on being in harmony with nature and the world. The Iroquois creation story verifies that the Indians are not uncivilized or savages. Rather, it emphasizes the countless similarities they share with different cultures and how their ideas are not different to that of the rest of the world. The Natives have had a magnanimous impact on shaping Americans into who and what they are. They have taught them many precious lessons as well as values that allowed them to expand and build the vast country that stands erect today.

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2254 Words | 10 Pages

They go to school but just not in the same way as you or me might go to school their school comes to them their parents are their teachers they teach them basic studies as well as learning nature and the animals in their natural habitat. So what do the Native

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