The perception was that Native American adults had a limited ability to learn new skills and concepts. Later in the report, it is expressed that children learn little at day school, causing their “tastes to be fashioned at home, and [their] inherited aversion to toil is in no way combated. ”11 Davin recommended that similar industrial boarding schools should be built in Canada, which would attempt to assimilate Native children into the European culture.12 Nicholas Flood Davin’s research and advances about the industrial schools in America, was important in the creation and developing of the Residential school system in
The white men had treated the natives poorly, continued in viewing them as savages and trying to civilize the Native Americans through uncomfortable ways. Native Americans were forced to assimilate into Western culture and have to withstand the racism and discrimination from the Whites during that time. One of the methods that the Whites used to try to have the Indians fit into the Western culture were Native American boarding schools. These schools were established during the late 19th century to educate the Native American children according to Euro-American standards. The boarding schools often established rules for the Native Americans to follow, but most of the Native Americans were not willing to abandon their culture and tribal traditions.
From 1800 to 1850, America experienced a lot of geography, population, and capita growth. For one, the geographic size not only doubled, but triple because of the introduction of 4 million slaves and 2 million immigrants. Additionally, in the thirty-one of the states, fifteen of which were acquired in the last 50 years, the capita per home had doubled. The eastern United States was growing in number, and to accommodate new life, people began to move west. Accompanied by the technological innovations of the day people were now able to experience much more when they were outside of their small towns.
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
Indian Boarding Schools In the 1800’s, all Native Americans in America were forced onto reservations by the United States Government. The government controlled their food, supplies, and ways of life. However, the government wasn’t satisfied by this. They felt like the Indians were savages and needed to become more like the whites.
Indian Boarding Schools In the 1800’s, all Native Americans in America were forced onto reservations by the United States Government. The government controlled their food, supplies, and ways of life. However, the government wasn’t satisfied by this. They felt like the Indians were savages and needed to become more like the whites.
Before the Civil War, Congress reserved the Great Plains for Indians. However, in the era of steel plows, building up the continent and the speedy geographic and economic development in the United States enabled by the growth of railroads, policy makers took over power of the whole region. Indians living in reservations were forced to flee as they faced violence and confused federal policies. In the late 1800s Americans developed various laws and procedures in order to outline the relationship between the Indians and the Federal Government.
The Impacts of the American Boarding Schools on Indians Introduction Prior to the arrival of the first generation immigrants who disrupted the social and political setups of the Indians, there had been one social unit strung together in their beliefs, unity, and a drive for survival and existence (Mayo, 2014). However, the first generation immigrants proved superior and later even subjected them to systems that they had never anticipated (Charla, 2008). Amongst such systems were the boarding schools that came in place of their cultural/informal schools. The Indians’ boarding school experiences, as was described by Zitkala-Sa (2015), began in the 1860 with the government later establishing over 100 schools particularly for this purpose. While
Before colonization, the Native Americans lived a peaceful and skillful life, but as the europeans started to populate the land, they were forced into a new culture that was completely different from their way of living. Joe Suina, a Native American author who went through the experience of the change in the way they lived, wrote an short story on the education of Native Americans during the time of colonization. In his short story, “And Then I Went to School”, he describes a young boy living with his grandmother in a cosy one-room house. We see that he gets his education through the family, familial and social wealth, but not the education we traditionally think about, a teacher in front of the class delivering facts. Near the beginning
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.
Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.
The Native American boarding schools of 1800’s and early 1900’s left a huge crater in the Native American societies. Under the pretense of “helping”devastated Indian Nation the Euro-Americans,created boarding schools of assimilation .Forcing children to attend and sometimes resorting to what would now be kidnapping. Many of these children died from homesickness,working accidents ,uncontrolled disease and ill planned escape attempts. They have were abolished in the 1940’s,but the damage has been done.
In the 1800s, the Witherbee School was built. This was one of the first schools on Aquidneck Island. The students there were taught the basic classes, which included reading, Writing, Arithmetic (mental and written), Geography, Grammar. History, Physiology, Drawing and Spelling, almost the same curriculum as any Middletown Public School. Since this was a one room school-house, all of the students of various ages were in the room together.
In the 1800s the main school system was within the family itself. After the American Revolution, decades, cultural leaders had tense communication in whether or not education was necessary in order to train and teach citizens. By 1800 Boston was the only city that agreed and supported a system of public schooling. Some farmers in the areas that were less affected by the capitalism in the rural areas resisted the systems that were supported by the states, fought to controls of the local district schools. The Midwest was transformed with the rural capitalism, that legislators officially established free public education in Indiana (1852), Ohio (1854), and Illinois (1855).
The education of the American Indian was heading the assimilation process that began when reformers and government policy makers agreed that to educate the Indian was to “civilize the savage” (Holman, n.d). By educating the Indians, it was thought that it would be giving him, or her, the opportunity to live and work among the whites; preparing them to become farmers, citizens and self-sufficient members of the population (Holman n.d). Boarding schools were one method of education used to assimilate the Indian people. During the boarding school experience, children who did not embrace the white culture suffered traumatic changes as they saw their old culture seemingly disappear.
