REL 140: Indian Boarding Schools Quiz

Boarding School- "Parented by Institution:

• Catholic "Religious orders" • No parenting skills • Intergeneration Trauma o Passed on to next gun

What happened when kids were taken from their native homes and to learn to be American

• Choose a name • Cut their hair → death and mourning • Clothing "Solider/ boots" • No native language → Learn English • Christianity • Scheduled days

Nuclear Family vs. T (Native family ways of all living together)

• Immediate family • Don't want them living with extended family (aunts, uncles...) • Most of them on ADC (Aid to Dependent Children) (welfare)- Cannot have abled-bodied man.

Trade

• Industrial • Domestic jobs

Before and After Pictures

• Progress from Savages to American • Obsolete culture • "Outing" program (Can they blend into society?) o But the people who they stayed with never treated them as equal o Racism and prejudice o Impact on children o Not being accepted in society o Being in the "Shadow world" o Not accepted at home

Resistance to learn to be American

• Refuse to learn English • Refuse to answer names • Refuse to go through treatment if they are sick • People wouldn't eat • Running away

Catholic Boarding Schools

• Set up boarding schools on Reservations • Sometimes family had to travel hours and hours to get to children in boarding schools on the other side of the reservation (family cant just drop in)

Tools: Cultural Imperialism

• Structural racism o Federal Policy (Indian schools in 1930's) • Stereotypes o Mass of others "Marked" o White supremacy

Facts

- 25 schools - Death from disease was common - Would put on Indian plays that was accepted by the white man. - Battle of Wounded Knee case thrown out bc. declared state of war.. Plenty Horse could not be tried because all soldiers would have to be tried. - "New Deal" closed Boarding Schools and Indians encouraged them to embrace culture again. - Children could no longer communicate with people. - Buffalo soldiers ordered to take children from reservations and if parents refused they loose federal funding. - Not made citizens until the 1920's

What is the meaning of the phrase, "Kill the Indians and save the man?"

- Americans are "supposed" to all be alike. Indians are different and they want them to just be the same as "Americans." - Means to take the Indian culture out and replace it with the white American man culture.

Why was assimilation of NAI after attending school a difficult task?

- By living in daily contact with actual civilization in their towns. The school made them good servants. faced rejection. - Never looked at as equals, look at as great servants. "Going back to the blanket" Many never got equal jobs, and would return home and not be seen again.

What were the primary and secondary purposes of the Carlisle School and other federal boarding schools?

- The purpose was to assimilate the Indians by teaching them English, religion, and other American culture. To show Americans that Indians could be civil.

How did these boarding schools negatively affect Indian children?

- They were taken from their families. Some of the children, when done at school, are neither Indian nor White making he or she an outsider where ever they went. - Some children ended up dying from being homesick, disease, starvation. The change was too much for them, The felt alone. Didn't understand the change.

What was the role of "before and after" pictures of the children?

- To show the progress of the indians. "You can see the progress in their faces..." - To show progress made from savage Indian to the proper white man values. To show outside people it could be done.

Indian Boarding School Themes

1. Never Smart enough 2. Brutally and somatic abuse 3. No model for parent behavior 4. Impact on character building 5. Intergenerational trauma 6. Wiping out Indian Territory 7. Coming to terms with abuse 8. Creating a balance

Acculturation

Cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also: a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact.

How did NA Indians respond to cutting an Indians hair? What else was included in the requirements for attending Indian schools?

Cutting ones hair was hard because it's a sign of mourning or death. To pick a new name and new clothing (military garments) Had all power taken from them.

What were the underlining assumptions of Indian Boarding Schools concerning Indian culture?

That no savage could be transformed to be a civil person.

Spiritual movement and a political movement all meshed together:

This is not just about civil rights or trying to bring people to consciousness about racism... It's saying that we also want the right to be who we are and at the root of that (Lakota) to be in the sweat lodge to have a vision quest to smoke a pipe if they want to. To have the freedom to do whatever they want, it's their right. And to be the spiritual people that we are to be able to do what spiritual thing we want (wear hair long)