American Indian Education: Deloria The goal of Indian education has not been education. Indian education has been oriented toward performing other peripheral.

American Indian Education: Deloria“The goal of Indian education has not been education. Indian

education has been oriented toward performing other peripheral tasks of a political and economic nature” (p. 165).

Stages of Indian Education

•Assimilation

•Pluralism (still with paternalism)

•Self-Determination

Tom Torlino (Navajo) as he appeared upon arrival to the Carlisle Indian School, October 21, 1882.

http://home.epix.net/~landis/main.html

Tom Torlino (Navajo) three years later

http://home.epix.net/~landis/main.html

A fundamental consideration behind school policy was the transfer of Indian real estate to white hands.Colonial education for Indian people designed to “condition Indian people to surrender tribally-controlled lands and accept individual land allotments” (Lomawaima 2002 p. 430)

After 1887 General Allotment Act, a majority of students were property owners.

Assimilation

Apache children on arrival at the Carlisle Indian School (Pennsylvania) http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/phoenix/jpegs/phoenix4.jpeg

Apache children at the Carlisle School

four months later. http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/phoenix/jpegs/phoenix5.jpeg

The Contrast Picture – From Primitive to Civilized

Assimilationist desires

Contrast Picture tied to Boarding School Experience

Richard Henry Pratt established Carlisle (Pennsylvania) in 1879. Between 1880 and 1902, 25 off-reservation boarding schools were built and 20,000 to 30,000 Native American children went through the system. That was roughly 10 percent of the total Indian population in 1900.

Student body assembled on the Carlisle Indian School Grounds. Photo courtesy of Carlisle-www.army.mil

Carlisle Indian Industrial School

(1879 - 1918)

Richard Henry Pratt spent eight years (1867-1875) in Indian Territory as an officer of the 10th Cavalry, commanding a unit of African American "Buffalo Soldiers" and Indian Scouts. During this time, he was stationed at Ft. Sill, OK, 60 miles east of the site of the Battle of the Washita where Black Kettle (Cheyenne) was killed in 1867.

Frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to 'bring in' the most recalcitrant of the 'hostiles', the United States instituted a plan to incarcerate them.

1875-1886 Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo Nations, were rounded up for exile to Fort Marion, Florida. Pratt jailor

“Take Indian children from the reservations, remove them to a school far away from tribal influences, and transform them.”

1879, Pratt had secured permission of the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of the War Department McCrary to use a deserted military base as the site of his school. Carlisle Barrack, Pennsylvania.

www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/cumberland/zeamer/

Pratt was driven by his strong desire to see the Indian become an imitation of the white man. This article from the March 18, 1898 school newspaper, the "Indian Helper" embodies Pratt's assimilationist philosophy.

The author of the letter evidently has the idea of Indians that Buffalo Bill and other showmen keep alive, by hiring the reservation wild man to dress in his most hideous costume of feathers, paint, moccasins, blanket, leggins, and scalp lock, and to display his savagery, by hair lifting war-whoops make those who pay to see him, think he is a blood-thirsty creature ready to devour people alive. It is this nature in our red brother that is better dead than alive, and when we agree with the oft-repeated sentiment that the only good Indian is a dead one, we mean this characteristic of the Indian. Carlisle's mission is to kill THIS Indian, as we build up the better man. We give the rising Indian something nobler and higher to think about and do, and he comes out a young man with the ambitions and aspirations of his more favored white brother. We do not like to keep alive the stories of his past, hence deal more with his present and his future."

Pratt is often quoted as saying "Kill the Indian, save the man". Of the 10,000+ Indian children who attended the Carlisle school over its 39 year life span, most returned to the reservation.

Marshall decision 1832

Though the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government, yet it may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations. They may more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile, they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.

http://www.vlib.us/amdocs/texts/cherokee.htm

Chief Justice Marshall of the US. In office 1801-1835

Marshall decision 1832

“domestic dependent nation, ward to guardian

Senator Dawes Massachusetts, 1875-1893en.wikipedia.org/wik

Dawes Act authorized the President of the US to survey Indian tribal land and divide the area into allotments for the individual Indian. Dawes strongly believed that the ownership of land was an important process in persuading people to accept the laws of the government. He therefore suggested that Native Americans should be granted land in exchange for renouncing tribal allegiances.Under the terms of this legislation family heads received one hundred acres, and each dependent child 40 acres. This land was held in trust for 25 years, at the end of which time the holder was to acquire full title with the right to sell. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

General Allotment Act of 1887Also known as the Dawes Act

The practical effect of the Dawes Act fundamentally changed the way Indians dealt with their land base and it eventually removed much of the land from their reservations through private sales or outright confiscation. "Surplus" land was then sold off. The result was Native Americans often found it impossible to make a living, and so began selling their allotments to land-hungry farmers and ranchers. In 1881, Indians held more than 155 million acres. By 1890, they held 104 million acres. By 1900, 77 million acres.

www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w188/usind.gif

Social and legal definitions of native statusAre tribes nations or wards? (Marshall decision 1832 “domestic dependent nation, ward to guardian)Indian parents, classified as children were denied rights of choice in their children’s education

Diminishment of economic and social opportunities for Native students Allotment Act of 1887 meshed with alienation of Native corporate land holdingsChallenges of placing Native alumni on the job marketPreparation for Indians as domestics and laborers

Ziewie, a fifteen year old Sioux girlfrom Crow Creek Agency arrivedat Hampton in 1878.

Ziewie, four months after her arrivalat Hampton.(Hampton

Archives) http://www.twofrog.com/hampton.htm

Assimilation to Pluralism, 1887-1934

• The Office of Indian Affairs was established March 11, 1824, as an office of the Unites States Department of War. It became responsible for negotiating and holding fulfillment, at least on the Native American part, of treaties. In 1849 the bureau was transferred to the Department of the Interior. Office of Indian Affairs re-named Bureau of Indian Affairs as of 1947)

• General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act) Native lands privatized, tribes forced into a capitalistic legal system

• Indian Citizenship, 1924• The Meriam Report, 1928 “The Problem of Indian

Administration”• Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Roosevelt’s New

Deal), Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 formally ended allotment. Pluralist approach.

Indian Reorganization Act of 1934Indian New Deal

As a proponent of cultural pluralism and repeal of the Dawes Act, Collier directly attacked the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Prior to Collier, criticism of the Bureau was directed at corrupt and incompetent officials and not the actual policies implemented. For the next decade Collier fought against legislation and policies that were detrimental to the well-being of Native Americans. Collier's efforts led to a monumental study in 1926-1927 of the overall condition of Indians in the United States. The results of the study became known as the Meriam Report. Published in 1928 as The Problem of Indian Administration the report revealed failures of federal Indian policies and how they had contributed to severe problems with Indian education, health, and poverty.

SEE: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5058/

John Collier

(1884-1968) mssa.library.yale.edu/.../146/thumb/006248.jpg

Meriam Report 1928 “be absorbed into the prevailing civilization or be fitted to live in the presence of that civilization”

Collier (IRA 1934) paternalisticNew Deal Policy – new idea – schools

serve needs of Indian students – wedded to old idea – federal policy-makers defined those needs

Day schools/off reservation boarding schools only option available for Indian students

Threat that a high school degree might enable access to higher education and economic development

“Remain an Indian as long as they remained on their reservation land and did not compete for jobs”

Carlisle Indian School, ca. 1900.Frances Benjamin Johnston photo

Courtesy Cumberland County Historical Society http://home.epix.net/~landis/primary.html

Methodological boundaries expanded

Examples:

Tsianina Lomawaima “They Called it Prarie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School”

Kikapoo Nation Film “Another Wind is Moving” (E97.5.A561 1985)

Carlisle Indian School:

http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html

•Oral history accounts•Indian autobiographical accounts•Documentary records (letters of Indian students and parents)•Policy, practice, student experience

http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org

Self-Determination (See Burden of Indian Education Deloria pp. 176-185

•Indian Education Act of 1972

Grants to local Education Agencies

Improvement of educational opportunities – curricula, teacher training, fellowships,

grants for adult education, employment opportunities

•Indian Self-Determination and educational Assistance Act 1975

Federal government contracted services out to individual tribes for administration of schools

•Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978

Deloria - “Indian Education was never really conceived as the education of Indians using the strengths of Indian culture or tradition.” Most programs derived from national programs, Indians seen as the most needy of American minority groups (p. 182)

Discussion Points

• Pan-Tribal Identities - “Indianness Beyond Tribalness” (Strickland interviewed in “Another Wind is Moving”

• Evidence of Resilience

• What is Traditional Education? (Medicine, Deloria)

• Victimhood or agency? – Why go? Why did parents send children?