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What Are The Positive And Negative Effects Of Native American Boarding Schools

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Have you ever thought something was for the better, but made a sharp turn for the worst? Well, that is essentially what happened with the Native American Boarding Schools. The establishment of Native American Boarding schools in the US was a key point in history. It had all kinds of both positive and negative effects. First off, the settlers who were colonizing North America weren’t huge fans of the Native Americans. With that being said, the settlers started out by making treaties but ended up just swiping their land. Obviously, there were some serious prejudices going on here. This caused severe problems, and finally, the settlers recognized this problem. They instituted a lot of new rules to “help out” the Native Americans. The most important thing was the creation of boarding schools for Native Americans (The American Government and Native Americans). 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 …show more content…

These children were forced to speak English and no other language without facing severe punishments. “Punishments varied and included privilege restrictions, diet restrictions, threats of corporal punishment, and even confinement” (Mejia). These punishments for simply attempting to speak in the languages these Indigenous kids grew up with are very extreme. Kids were also beaten and forced into becoming a part of what they called “American Culture.” The government was simply trying to wipe the memory of these people by beating their culture into them. These conditions were inhumane and deeply affected Native American culture

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