The Progressive Movement: The Ultimate Failure Of Native American Education

The Progressive Movement believed that Indian culture was inferior to white culture, which led to boarding schools, reservations, and suppression of Indian culture. Although well intended, the Progressive policies resulted in loss of identity and led to the ultimate failure of Native American education. The Progressive Era was from the 1890s to the 1920s, and it occurred all over the United States. The Progressive Movement was an attempt to fix the corrupted government, break up monopolies, and improve problems in society. The Progressives thought that the Indians were problematic to white society who believed that land was sacred, and the whites felt that land was to use. The Progressives had noble intentions, but they did not produce the

The whites thought that the Indians were inferior and they “could not govern themself”(#4). In reality the Indians managed fine until the whites forced the Indians to go to boarding school which destroyed the reservation system. The Indians held democratic elections to elect the chief. The whites did not recognize the tribal systems and thought the Indians uncriticized. The whites wanted the Indians to adhere to a town government structure. The goal was to integrate the Indians into american civilization. The Progressive morals provided the Americans justification to govern the Indian people. The white people felt they had authorization; “the us must govern its new territories with or without their consent...”(#5). Although the white people had good intentions, they caused immense devastation the Indian people.|Assimilation of Indians into american society caused destruction to Indian ideas and religion: “The Reservation system is highly detrimental to the Indians (#6). The Indians were often separated and put on farm lands the whites thought this would show the Indians that owning land was favorable over living on the reserves. The attempts to assimilate the Indians did not work separation of the Indian people contributed to loss of culture and

These practices resulted loss of Indian identity and destruction of their culture. The whites set up special boarding schools to teach the Indians. The schools focused on teaching vocational and agricultural skills “schools should be industrial”(#4). Analysis. The boarding schools taught english and white religion “the Indians should be treated as an individual-- like the white man”(#6). The net effect of the whites teaching policy was the Indian culture was bad. Furthermore, the boarding schools basic only went up to eighth grade. The consequence of only teaching vocational skills, and limiting education was that the Indians “cannot compete with a college bred race”(#8). The by-product of of these teaching methods was no self worth, loss of culture, and significant resentment toward whites. What the boarding schools taught make it almost impossible for the Indians to go back to their old way of life, and it also did not give them enough skills to move forwards. The Indians were frozen in limbo and were unable to move forward or