Update

Hello!  WIP - Sincerely, Nerdy NDN Lady

Boarding School Blues – Chapters 5 – 10

Chapter 5 - Loosening the Bonds

                         ***Photo credit: http://www.hanksville.org/sand/intellect/RapidCity1.html

This essay was written by Scott Riney. His topic is the Rapid City Indian School and details its beginning purpose to its minor evolution during the 1920’s. He likens the Rapid City Indian School to The Carlisle Industrial School for Indians. It was a very rigorous and militant environment and the policy of the school was to assimilate the Indian. So rigorous that the school’s administration decided that dancing, smoking, card playing and eventually social and athletics events needed to be restricted and sometimes prohibited. During the 1920’s (the Great Depression Era), the school became a public school and the curriculum and purpose evolved to a more caring and nurturing environment. Family and the welfare of the child were now the major focus. However, the structure of the national Indian School model was maintained. The Rapid City Indian School closed its doors in 1933.

Chapter 6 – Hail Mary

                      ***Photo Courtesy of Google Images

This essay was written by Tanya L. Rathbun. Her topic is, “The Catholic Experience at St. Boniface Indian School” (1890-1952). The school was conceptualized and initially funded by a nun named Mother Katherine Drexel. The US Government almost immediately procured the schools budget. However, the Catholic Administration remained leery of any Government involvement.

Mother Drexel’s purpose was to Christianize Native American children and this was reflected in the strict Catholic Curriculum and structure of the school. Essentially, it was church and god before academics or the US Government’s agenda for the Native American. Industrial Arts and Trades were not offered at the school. However, the majority of manual labor was done by the students.

During the 1940’s until its closing, the school began to take on orphans of varying cultures and eventually evolved to become a Catholic mission school.

Chapter 7 - Learning Gender

***Photo Credit: http://www.shermanindianmuseum.org/PictureGallery/pages/ChildcareTraining.htm

This essay was written by Katrina A Paxton. Her topic is, "Female Students at the Sherman Institute, 1907-1925." Her focus is to highlight the lack of sufficient opportunities for young women who attended the school during this particular time period. Learning opportunities were less adequate for the young women than the boys. The general attitude of the curriculum and the school at that time was, “the woman belongs in the home.” They were schooled in the domestic arts and were instructed that women must be, “pious, pure, obedient, selfless, meek, and clean.” (Trafzer, et al) They were even encouraged to use soft voices when speaking. This particular “way of being” was surely contradictory to many of the leadership structures and roles of certain tribes.

Chapter 8 - Through a Wide-Angle Lens 

***Photo Credit: http://www.wsharing.com/WSphotosTahlequahCS.htm

This essay is written by Margaret Connell Szasz. Her topic is, “Acquiring and Maintaining Power, Position, and Knowledge through Boarding Schools.” She writes that in one perspective, some boarding schools have served as places where Native American students could receive leadership skills. These acquired leadership skills then ushered some Native Americans to “self-determination.” She even points out that some of the Five Civilized Tribes created their own schools to serve the purpose of developing leadership skills and promoting the importance of education to enrich lives.  I enjoyed reading this chapter and viewing a new perspective. 

***Click on the title of this chapter and you will be linked to a page detailing the history of the Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. 

Chapter 9 - Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective

***Photo Credit: landofhope.wikispaces.com/Rabbit-Proof+Fence

This essay is written by Margaret D. Jacobs. Her topic is, “The Removal of Indigenous Children in the United States and Australia, 1880-1940.” She writes about the similarities of the Native American and the Australian Aboriginal people’s assimilation and boarding school eras. She in fact writes that Native children were not taken to boarding schools for the purpose of education, but rather to render them “useful” as a labor force for employers. Her term is “colonial control.” It was an interesting chapter to read.

Above is the poster for the movie called, "The Rabbit Proof Fence."  This movie is one story of the Australian Aboriginal experience.

Chapter 10 - The Place of American Indian Boarding School in Contemporary Society

Sherman Indian High School 22nd Pow Wow

***Photo Credit: flickr.com by danorth1

This essay is written by Patricia Dixon and Clifford E. Trafzer. The topic is, “The Place of American Indian Boarding School in Contemporary Society.” They focus on the role that Indian Boarding Schools now play in contemporary Native American society. They chose to focus their study on Sherman Indian High School students. It is noted that today, students attend Indian Boarding Schools for a variety of positive and negative reasons ranging from the escape of socioeconomic and social issues to the embracing of a culturally relevant curriculum and school activities. I personally am a supporter of certain Indian Boarding Schools and the roles they play in current times. Provided that they are run well overall.

***Click on the title of this Chapter and you will be taken to a source that details Sherman Indian School in brief. 

Boarding School Blues – “Putting Lucy Pretty Eagle to Rest” by Barbara C. Landis

Take the Tail “Lucy Pretty Eagle” was the daughter of Pretty Eagle and from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. At the age of ten she arrived at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania on November 14, 1883. Take the tail “Lucy” did not live for very long after her arrival to Carlisle and was among the 190 Native American children to be buried in the Carlisle Indian School’s segregated cemetery.

I have read conflicting reports concerning the “order” of her death and burial. This book places her as the thirty-second child and other more fabled accounts claim that she was the first to be buried at Carlisle. However, her name stone now lays in the first row on the first corner of the cemetery after its relocation in the 1920’s. It is not clearly known or documented how or why Take the Tail died.

Since Carlisle’s closing, the grounds were reclaimed by the US Army War College. Over the past one hundred years several variations of haunting and ghost stories have been created by non-Indians. In 1996, the building that was reported as having been a girl’s dormitory and the place that Take the Tail lived, has now been found to actually have been a matron’s dormitory; debunking any plausibility to the former matron’s tales.

Photo credit: http://home.epix.net/~landis/lpe.html - Looking west from the superintendent's quarters (now Quarters 2) the two-story teachers' quarters are on the left. Today, there is a plaque on the end of this building (Coren Apartments) mis-identifying it as the girls' dormitory of the Carlisle Indian School.
 
***Click on the title of the post and you be transported to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Archival Website and a page dedicated to the story of Take the Tail "Lucy Pretty Eagle."

The Man on the Bandstand (cont.)

   http://tinyurl.com/yj9dg6n - Click for a complete transcript of the book.

Aha! Ms. Burgess was revealed as the mysterious “Man on the Bandstand.” And the plot thickens… It was not surprising to learn of “his” identity. It seemed too obvious of a choice.
Many of the students were encouraged to remain on the East Coast after graduation, but very few did. In an effort to extend the influence of the “all knowing eye” of The Man on the Bandstand, Ms. Burgess decided to write a book. The book was titled, “Stiya” and was about a Pueblo girl’s return to her home reservation after completing her education at Carlisle Indian School.

The book was written in first-person and portrayed a sordid homecoming for the young Pueblo woman. “She” was disgusted with the “heathen” and “primitive” ways of her people and her family. One passage reads, “I rushed frantically into the arms of my school-mother, who had taken me home.” (Embe, Stiya: A Carlisle Indian Girl at Home-Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1891.) Many copies of the book were sent west to reservations in hopes of reminding the former students of all that they had been “taught” at Carlisle.

It was Ms. Burgess’s intent to “direct” and “control” the thoughts and minds of the children. Ms. Burgess, you see, believed in her cause. So did Mr. Pratt. This can and has been the way of many a missionary, conqueror, and others the world over. I believe that Ms. Burgess met her death with peace in her heart and the comfort of believing that her crusade was not in vein. But…that was her perspective.

Click on the title of the post to read a personal story about:

Embe. STIYA: A CARLISLE INDIAN GIRL AT HOME. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1891. Written by the printing supervisor at Carlisle, Marianna Burgess, aka "Embe", this little book describes the return of a Pueblo girl to her home after her indoctrination at the Carlisle school. It offers the fictionalized trials of a child longing to reform her tribe's traditional ways to the assimilated, Christianized lifestyle taught at Carlisle. Highly propagandistic, the book was sold by subscription through the Carlisle Indian School newspapers and circulated throughout the Indinan agencies. For a closer look at the content, see this essay by Leslie Marmon Silko. Out of print. (provided by http://home.epix.net/~landis/secondary.html)

Boarding School Blues - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is based on an essay written by Jacqueline Fear-Segal who is a professor of American Studies. Her focus is an attempt to unveil the power struggle and strategy used to control and regulate the happenings of daily life at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Carlisle had a periodical published that was called the Indian Helper. The author explains that the purpose of the paper and its "sugar-coated" stories was to win the hearts and minds of the public for the purpose of ensuring continued government funding. However, the main audience for the publication was the students. The Indian Helper featured stories about activities, events, and the progresses of the Indian students at the school.

Mysteriously, the paper was edited by the “Man on the Bandstand." There was a white bandstand in the center of campus and this was where Richard H. Pratt and others would "watch over" the campus and regulate daily happenings. The identity of the “Man on the Bandstand" was never revealed. HE remained an ominous and looming presence amongst the student population. In the recounts of school happenings, the “Man on the Bandstand” would interject many critique and opinion on how the students could improve.

I can only imagine how it must have been for a student to read such a paper. I would think that it might be something to look forward to. They would most likely be somewhat excited to see pictures of themselves and their friends. Reading intently with a smile on your face…and then…JAB! Woven through the article you would find sneakily “hidden” criticisms. “You can be better.” “…and don’t forget to…”  And there goes your smile. 

The Indian Helper was an unfortunate and clever example of an underhanded attempt to control the student population. Psychological warfare. One of many strategies used to subdue the Children of Carlisle Indian School.

Photo:  Lieut Richard Henry Pratt, Founder and Superintendent of Carlisle Indian School, in Military Uniform and With Sword 1879.  (Wikipedia credit)

***Click on the title of the post and you will be transported to a web page detailing the history of Carlisle Indian School written by Barbara Landis.  At the bottom of the page is a tab titled, "Virtual Tour."  Click on this and scroll down for an excerpt of the Indian Helper.

Boarding School Blues - Chapters I & II

"Late-nineteenth-century policy makers, convinced that the alternatives facing Indians were racial extinction or forced assimilation, were determined to effect the latter.  The mechanism for accomplishing this objective was education.  On and (especially) off-reservation boarding schools were deemed the ideal instruments for lifting Indian children out of the depths of "savagism" and setting them on the path to progress, that is, "civilization." (Trafzer, Keller, and Sisquoc, 2006)

Chapter one is titled, "Beyond Bleakness" and discusses a minimum of six possible reasons to explain why Indian children might have choosen to attend Indian Boarding Schools.  The chapter describes documented accounts of these possible reasons.  They are listed as follows:

1. "...a welcome escape from desperate economic and social conditions..."
2. "...learning the ways of the white man would enhance..opportunity to make a living wage."
3. "...it offered an oportunity for gaining firsthand knowledge about the world beyond the reservation."
4. extra curricular programs
5. "...day to day humorous moments..."
6. "...the capacity of students to create a social world of their own making."

Chapter two is titled, "We Had a Lot of Fun, but of Course, That Wasn't the School Part." 

"Writing to the commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1899, Rainy Mountain's superintendent, Cora Dunn, put the matter bluntly: "Our purpose is to change them forever."  Places like Rainy Mountain, to echo David Wallace Adams's insightful phrase, proposed to use education for extinction." (Trafzer, Keller, and Sisquoc, 2006)

Although life and schedules would be rigorous for Indian Boarding students, it was impairative to have a sense of humor and find creative ways to maintain your sanity.  "...activities relieved the monotony of school life and enabled students to maintain some sense of autonomy." (Trafzer, Keller, and Sisquoc, 2006)

I can only wonder what it would be like to be part of a "new generation" of Indians.  (And the first generation of acculturated Indians)  The ways of their parents would be no longer as the children of boarding schools began new lives after their graduations.  Hmmm...

***Click on the title of the post and you will linked to "American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many"
by Charla Bear.  This story and intervew which includes Floyd Red Crow Westerman was featured on National Public Radio on May 12, 2008.

Simply...Thank you!

I would like to thank Ms. Hamann for restoring this blog. I have recently experienced major technical difficulties and had all but given up. I appreciate your talent and would like to recognize your tenacity. Truly, these qualities are what make you unique. Graciously, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and look forward to continuing the semester with my peers.


Kara L. Four Bear