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The First Days At Carlisle Sparknotes

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“The First Days at Carlisle”: Critical Analysis “The First Days at Carlisle” by Luther Standing Bear takes place in the year of 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the Carlisle school, a federal boarding school. The purpose of the school was to force the Native American children to assimilate to the white man's culture and to eradicate their culture and traditions. At the school Native Americans children were taught the ways of the white man, but they were not given beds, they were not well fed, they were treated like prisoners, and they were taken advantage of. Throughout the short story “The First Days at Carlisle,” Luther Standing Bear shows how the Native American children were not well taken care of at the Carlisle school. A good night's …show more content…

A cast-iron stove stood in the middle ofthe room, on which was placed a coal lamp. There was no fire in the stove. We ran through all the rooms, but they were all the same - no fire no beds. This was a two story building, but we were all herded into two rooms on the upper floor”( 606).
As seen in the quote there were plenty rooms in the building but the Native American boys were all herded into two rooms, in the rooms there were no dividers so the boys had no privacy or personal space just like prisoners. Prisoners are forced to do whatever the guards say, if they like it or not they still have to do it. Just like the prisoners the Native American children at the Carlisle school were forced to do things they did not want to do. This is shown when Standing Bear said,
“We were all called together by the interpreter and told that we were to have our hair cut off. We listened to what he had to say but we did not reply. This was something that would require some thought, so that evening the big boys held a council, and I recall very distincty that Nakpa Kesela, or Rober American Horse, made a serious speech. Said he, “If I am to learn the ways of the white people, I can do it just as well with my hair on.” To this we exclaimed “Hau!” -meaning that we agreed with

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