Volume 1, Issue 7, 2018

The Experiment at Fort Marion: Richard Henry Pratt’s Recreation of Penitential Regimes at the Old Fort and its Influence on American Indian Education

Sarah Kathryn Pitcher Hayes, Seminole State College

Between the Atlantic Ocean and Florida Territory, to the . St. Augustine’s historic district stands While several nations occupied the fort , a large at various times, it was never taken Spanish fortress built in the sixteenth by force and never fell (“Fort Marion” century to protect Spanish occupied 2010). The National Park Service now St. Augustine from British forces. The operates the Castillo as a national fort withstood two sieges by the monument. Visitors to the monument British in the first half of the are struck by the ground’s ocean eighteenth century, and changed views and the fort’s towering coquina military occupation several times; it walls. Through the fort’s double was twice exchanged between Spain entrance lies the fort’s central and Great Britain, and in 1821 the courtyard, which is surrounded by British ceded the fort, along with all casemates that once served as guard 1

rooms, storage rooms, and a chapel. A prisoners-of-war under his care for staircase to the right of the entrance three years. Thirty-two Cheyenne leads to the terreplein and the four men, two Arapahoe men, twenty- diamond-shaped bastions that make seven men, nine this fort into the shape of a star. Upon men and one man made the the terreplein, visitors will find original long, frightening journey by wagon, cannons and several placards train and steamboat.i Among them describing how the fort’s unique were some of the most notorious: construction aided soldiers in battle. Making Medicine (Cheyenne), Lone The casemates on the first floor Wolf and White Horse (Kiowa). This currently house several exhibits paper will focus on these three years describing the fort’s history, design of the Castillo’s history, which I will and construction, the soldiers’ living henceforth call Fort Marion. quarters, the chapel, and the artillery housed and used during battles. There The fort in St. Augustine is are also casemates dedicated to the predominantly remembered as a history of the first Spanish period, the space built and used for war, and second Spanish period, the British rightly so. I give credit to the curators period, and the American occupation. of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument and the National Park The exhibit dedicated to American Service for dedicating the American occupation primarily focuses on the Occupation casemate to the story of United States’ use of the fort as a Richard Henry Pratt and the prisoner-of-war camp for Southwestern Indian prisoners-of-war. Southwestern American Indian The curators remember Pratt as “An prisoners between 1875 and 1878. At advocate for American Indian the end of the in 1875, education and civil rights,” and hundreds of Cheyenne, Comanche, mention Pratt’s “program of Kiowa and Arapaho chiefs and warriors assimilation” (American Occupation). surrendered to the United States at In the anti-Indian socio-political in present day Oklahoma. climate of the nineteenth century, Tasked with investigating the war Pratt believed that American Indian crimes of the surrendered was survival depended on American Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt’s Indians’ willingness to physically and investigation incriminated culturally assimilate into Euro- approximately 150 American Indians America. at Fort Sill, seventy-two of whom were arrested and transported to the fort in Pratt began his military career as a St. Augustine, which the Americans Union soldier. After the Civil War, the renamed Fort Marion. Pratt military stationed him in Indian volunteered to escort the warriors to Territory to help pacify growing Indian Fort Marion, where they remained hostilities against white settlers during 2

the Gold Rush. He quickly worked his earned many of them an education way up the military ranks, and in 1867 outside of the fort. Pratt’s seemingly he was promoted to second lieutenant successful experiment at Fort Marion in charge of the Tenth Cavalry, a earned him enough private donations regiment of (mostly) ex-slaves and federal funding to begin an Indian popularly known as the Buffalo education program at Hampton Soldiers. Pratt’s experience leading Normal and Agricultural Institute; the Tenth Cavalry, as well as with however, Pratt believed that American leading American Indian scouts, Indians had unique needs that informed his ideas regarding race and required an exclusively American education. Pratt’s experiences with Indian school, and he therefore slaves turned soldiers informed his opened the Carlisle Indian Industrial belief that nurture, not nature, School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in informed intelligence, and if placed in 1879. This transition from soldier to the right environment and given the jailor launched Pratt into his life’s work proper tools, American Indians, like in Indian education (Adams 1995). African Americans, could become valuable second-class citizens (Pratt While the National Park Service “Eleventh Report” n.d.). Much of and the curators of the Castillo de San Pratt’s writing, including his Marcos National Monument do an autobiography, Battlefield and excellent job telling the story of the Classroom, repeats this idea that Southwestern Indian prisoners-of-war, “savages” can become citizens, citing their story remains a minor part of the African Americans as success stories larger military history of the fort. and crediting assimilatory practices. Likewise, these three years also Pratt used his time at Fort Marion to remain a minor plot point in the experiment with his idea that “savage scholarship about Carlisle and the Indians” could be transformed into American Indian boarding schools. proper citizens through immersion in a While Pratt’s time at Fort Marion is European-style environment, acknowledged in histories of American education and labor. He provided the Indian boarding schools, most prisoners with the tools he believed scholars devote far more attention to could lead them to citizenship, namely Pratt’s later work founding and education in the English language, running the Carlisle School, labor, commerce and military drill. He deemphasizing Fort Marion as a cut the prisoners’ hair and dressed foundational period in Pratt’s thinking them in military regalia. The prisoners about Indian education. I assert that learned English quickly, attended the scholarship on both Fort Marion Christian services, sold their and the American Indian boarding handmade goods to tourists, and school should pay more attention to choreographed performances that the fort’s role as a laboratory for drew large audiences and eventually Pratt’s experiments in solving the 3

“Indian Problem,”ii because of how Spanish fort becomes a prisoner-of- Pratt’s use of the physical space of the war camp and the seed of the Fort informed the intellectual space of American Indian boarding school American Indian education. The system. Johnston argues that in late physical space of Fort Marion became seventeenth- and early eighteenth- what Norman Johnston (2000) calls a century Europe and nineteenth- “makeshift prison,” which allowed century America, castles (Europe) and Pratt to experiment with ideas of self- forts (America) were no longer needed transformation and citizenship made as blockades for defense and began to popular during the second prison be used as prisons. Because these reform movement; a movement that prisons were not built from the ground occurred parallel to Pratt’s tenure at up for the sole purpose of imprisoning Fort Marion. After examining how Fort people, the structures had to be Marion allowed Pratt the space to remodeled and altered over time to experiment with ideas and practices of suit their newly intended purposes. imprisonment and education, I Fort Marion had been constructed 200 analyze Pratt’s letters, currently years before Pratt’s arrival as a archived at the Beinecke Rare Book structure meant to keep opposing and Manuscript Library at Yale military out; therefore, Fort Marion University, to support my claim that had to be remodeled into a makeshift Pratt was indeed inspired by the prison, i.e. a space meant to keep regimes of the penitentiary during the people in. time he conceptualized his theories of American Indian education at Fort The United States military first Marion. By locating and analyzing used the fort as a prison camp in 1837 primary sources that illuminate Fort to imprison Seminole chief Osceola Marion’s important role as and his fellow warriors during the prison/school, by using spatial theory Second Seminole War, which the to read Fort Marion as a carceral American Occupation exhibit at the space, and by examining Pratt’s monument also highlights. However, letters to highlight how Pratt was some of these warriors escaped the inspired by the regimes of the fort through a nine-inch window penitentiary, this essay argues that placed fifteen feet above the ground in Fort Marion deserves an elevated one of the casemates. While the fort place in the memory of the Indian repelled the British and Spanish, it boarding school. proved weak fortification for its first American Indian prisoners. Because of Fort Marion as Makeshift Prison this escape, President Grant ordered Norman Johnston’s (2000) term United States military engineers to “makeshift prison” offers an especially secure the fort prior to Pratt’s and his useful way to analyze how an old prisoners’ arrival in 1875. Engineers fastened the windows with iron grating 4

and each casemate with a “heavy door soon inform American Indian and bolt…for padlocking.” Therefore, education. Furthermore, it allowed the casemates acted as secure cells Pratt to simultaneously practice because windows look into the modern penitential ideals of courtyard instead of the outside; At surveillance, self-surveillance, and the top of each door was a “narrow labor while also experimenting with slot” for ventilation, and plank floors and redefining the limitations of were installed in some of the imprisonment. After the Kiowa deaths, casemates for sleeping (Pratt 1964, Pratt made several changes to the 118). Colonel Gillmore, the man in prisoners’ physical appearances. He charge of securing the fort, wrote in a believed that altering his prisoners’ letter to his post that “a strong physical appearance would not only barricade [be] erected with thick improve their hygiene, but could planks, across the ramp leading to the influence their inward growth; a terreplein” (qtd. in Fear-Segal 2007, civilized appearance, environment and 15). According to Battlefield and exercise could reform his prisoners Classroom, engineers completed this into civilized selves. Pratt states in his task, for when Pratt arrived at the fort autobiography that he removed their “the ramp from the court to the chains, cut their hair and dressed terreplein had been boarded up, them in military uniforms in order to leaving a door with lock at the lower “get them out of the curio class” entrance so that their living was to be (1964, 118). Pratt had “before and in a large pen permitting no outlook after” photographs taken of the except toward the sky” (117). Living prisoners (and later the Carlisle in damp, unsanitary casemates, the students) to demonstrate their move from dry weather to the humid transformation from “savage” to Florida summer, and the prisoners’ “civilized.” The “after” photos often depressed outlook, proved disastrous show the prisoners standing in and deadly; three Kiowa died before formation, dressed in military uniform, the end of the first summer (Fear- resembling American soldiers. Some Segal 2007, 16).iii While the structure prisoners even hold rifles. Pratt of Fort Marion allowed for it to be believed that if the prisoners repurposed into a prison, the deaths resembled “civilized” Americans (and of the three Kiowa men, as well as who more civilized than an American numerous illnesses, proved that the soldier?), then the men could become fort was never meant to be inhabited civilized Americans. He taught them to for long periods of time. care for their clothing and their bodies like American soldiers and regularly The makeshift nature of the performed army drills for exercise. To prison-fort accorded Pratt the improve the air quality and the health opportunity to create a new regime of of the prisoners, Pratt allowed access Indian imprisonment that would also to the terreplein. Under his orders, the 5

prisoners built new sleeping quarters, themselves” (119-20). Allowing the a “large one-room shed” on the north prisoners to guard themselves side of the terreplein, and made beds exemplifies Pratt’s confidence that in out of scrap lumber and grass ticks the right environment and under the (1964, 119). Pratt not only began to right supervision, his prisoners could transform his prisoners’ physical become harmless enough to be given appearance, but also their physical guns and guard themselves. Pratt space, allowing them more freedom of attributes this transformation directly movement throughout the fort. No to his understanding of American longer were prisoners surrounded by Indian peoples as “good” from his four walls and only able to see the time with the Tenth Cavalry and their outside world by looking up, but they natural propensity for “obedience”; could now look out on the ocean and however, by narrating the prisoners’ the city of St. Augustine. self-surveillance after the description of their physical and environmental In his chapter about the prisoner- alterations, he also indirectly of-war camp built on Johnson’s Island attributes their docility to his imposed during the Civil War, David R. Bush changes. The changes Pratt made to (2012) implies that the two most the prisoners’ bodies, their access and important structural aspects of a their guard could only have taken prisoner-of-war camp were place within the makeshift prison, a surveillance and location, and I argue space where he could create his very that Pratt experimented with these own regime. two aspects at Fort Marion (63-4). Early on, Pratt dismissed some (and While Pratt attributes the eventually all) of the United States prisoners’ disposition to natural law military guard and appointed several and a modification of appearance and prisoners to guard themselves and environment, he does not attribute his their fellow prisoners. He argues that decisions to the penitential ideas of his time commanding American Indian power and surveillance that the scouts in “had given prisoners were subject to regardless of me confidence in their good qualities, their occupational position. However, I particularly when pledged to argue that Pratt’s alteration of the obedience” (1964, 119). After only six prison’s space and the prison months at Fort Marion, Pratt sent a experience still adhered to penitential formal request to the commanding notions of power and discipline, officer at St. Francis Barracks, about including the applied regimes of six miles from the fort, to “allow the surveillance, self-surveillance, and organization of the younger men into labor. These regimes had been company with sergeants and developing in the United States since corporals, to loan some old guns, and the first penitentiaries and elevated to use the Indians to guard surveillance as a means of discipline 6

and control. Regarding surveillance cleanliness (1964, 147). Prisoner- and self-surveillance, Foucault (1977) guards called roll, inventoried the argues that: stores, and worked alongside The major effect of the American soldiers of rank. Pratt Panopticon: to induce in assigned jobs and ranks to the the inmate a state on younger prisoners and provided conscious and permanent competition and incentives that visibility that assures the automatic functioning of “accentuated their ambition, precision, power. So to arrange diligence, and pride” (Lookingbill things that the surveillance 2006, 71). It did not matter whether is permanent in its effects, the guards at Fort Marion were even if it is discontinuous military or prisoner, inmates were still in its action; that the in a state of “permanent visibility that perfection of power should assure[d] the automatic functioning of tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that power” (Foucault 1977, 201). this architectural apparatus should be a Another way that Pratt machine for creating and implemented surveillance with little sustaining a power relation use of military guard was through independent of the person tourist visits. He welcomed visitors to who exercises it; in short, the prison in order to “correct the that the inmates should be caught up in a power unwanted prejudice promoted among situation of which they are our people against the Indians themselves the bearers. through race hatred and the false (201) history which tells our side and not theirs.” He saw these visits as While Fort Marion was certainly not a mutually beneficial, as “It was just as panopticon, and was more makeshift important to remove from the Indian’s prison than modern penitentiary, mind his false notion that the greedy Foucault’s ideas of surveillance still and vicious among our frontier inform how we understand the outlaws fairly represented the white intersection of surveillance and power race” (1964, 120). Some of these at Fort Marion. The idea that power is visitors were significant members of “independent of the person who American society, such as Harriet exercises it” pertains to Pratt’s Beecher Stowe, Bishop Henry Whipple practice of self-surveillance. While he and General Winfield Scott Hancock. continued to employ some military However, while Pratt frames these guards at first, he placed American visits as a dual lesson in cultural Indian guards in charge of daily relativism, as well as proof of his morning inspections, when prisoners’ success as a jailor, allowing visitors bodies, their quarters and their also added white bodies and eyes to workspaces were examined for the fort that could serve as an added 7

layer of surveillance.iv These prisoners were removed far from their home Moreover, the larger space of St. and imprisoned by a military that had Augustine acted as a “machine for oppressed and waged war on their creating and sustaining a power people for generations, only to be relation.” As time passed, Pratt openly observed by members of that seemingly eased the carceral environs same race of people. The presence of by giving the prisoners permission to Fort Marion’s visitors was not only a camp on Anastasia Island and to work lesson in peace but also a on farms, orchards and railways. They reinforcement of power. ran errands in town and sold their handmade goods to souvenir shops. Regardless of whether the Pratt even allowed a young Cheyenne prisoners were watched by military man to go on a boat ride with a group officers, tourists or fellow prisoners, of local youth. However, Pratt’s the fact remains that they were still impression of trust and benevolence prisoners subjected to constant relies on the spaces of the fort and of surveillance within the confines of a St. Augustine in that its geographical makeshift prison. In other words, the location on an eastern peninsula very idea of surveillance within the ensured against escape or rescue, and confines of the prison acted as a provided an environment where the constant reminder of their captive prisoners were always monitored by state. As Foucault might argue, the residents and tourists. Jacqueline Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne and Fear-Segal relates Pratt’s “leniency” to Arapahoe warriors were still confined the architecture of Fort Marion: “Pratt to the prison, and therefore the could be compassionate and lenient in architecture of the prison itself—the his treatment of the prisoners because thick coquina walls, case-mate cells, he was readily able to enforce his terreplein and bastions—was a power” (2007, 17). I argue that, for constant reminder of their captive the same reason, Pratt was able to condition. To re-emphasize the appear lenient toward his prisoners previously stated quotation by because the larger space of St. Foucault: “[the] architectural Augustine also acted as a space of apparatus should be a machine for imprisonment. Not only did the creating and sustaining a power prisoners know they were too far from relation independent of the person home to make a successful escape, who exercises it.” Foucault but they also knew that they were underscores a relationship of power in imprisoned in a town where, despite which the architecture, not the their physical transformations, they guards, maintains the power structure were discernible and thus monitored. because confinement within a prison- space reinforces the prisoners’ The location of Fort Marion in St. subordinate status. Augustine ensured prisoner 8

surveillance inside and outside of the fort. Whether or not Pratt allowed the The idea that the prison could act prisoners on the terreplein, on the as a space to rewrite citizenship, beach or in the town, they were rather than simply a space to confine constantly monitored in these spaces. and punish, did not originate with While the prisoners’ access to these Pratt but was a part of prison spaces may have projected a discourse since the turn of the semblance of freedom, the very fact nineteenth century. David Rothman that they were subjected to constant (1995) argues that controlling crime surveillance continued to confine the became a fundamental necessity to prisoners to a prison-space. America’s vision of the republic and thus America turned toward the The Penitentiary’s Influence on penitentiary to “transform the deviant Pratt’s Ideology into a law-abiding citizen” (117). Reformers believed that The makeshift prison of Fort “transform[ing] the deviant required Marion allowed Pratt to experiment surveillance, labor, religious with alternative methods of instruction, self-reflection and imprisonment based on his ideas that repentance.” America’s first modern American Indians simply needed to prison, Auburn State, opened in New learn the tools of civilization in order York in 1816, followed by Eastern to become civilized. As his role as State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in jailor and the prisoners’ roles within 1829. Both prisons relied on Fort Marion and St. Augustine architecture to maximize surveillance evolved, so did Pratt’s ideas regarding and solitude. However, by the end of American Indian education. Similar to the Civil War, public opinion how he used and altered the existing considered the reformatory prison a space of Fort Marion to suit his failure. The Auburn and Eastern State prisoners’ needs, he altered existing models, which relied on solitary cells, ideologies of the prison and of could not accommodate for education to fit what he thought were overcrowding. This overcrowding, the needs of American Indians and the along with resource shortages, abuse, needs of the American workforce. This and other problems, led prisons to section examines Pratt’s letters, prioritize cost-effectiveness over currently archived at the Beinecke personal reformation (Rotman 1995, Rare Book and Manuscript Library at 170). In 1867, Enoch Cobb Wines and Yale, to argue that the second prison Theodore Dwight published Report on reformatory movement and Indian the Prisons and Reformatories of the education policy inspired Pratt to use United States and Canada, Fort Marion as a space to rewrite commissioned by the Prison citizenship through the regimes of Association. The report revealed labor and education. numerous accounts of abuse and 9

cruelty toward prisoners and Notably, this second prison recommended a total overhaul of the reformatory period coincided with penitentiary system. Wines and Pratt’s experiment at Fort Marion. Dwight’s suggestion mirrored the Elmira opened only one year after rhetoric of reformers one-hundred Pratt and his prisoners arrived at Fort years earlier: prisons should prepare Marion, and the regimes of education, inmates for a non-criminal life. This industry, religion and military drill of return to prisoner reform became the both institutions remarkably focus of the 1870 National Congress of resembled one another. The shared Penitentiary and Reformatory timing and regimental resemblance Discipline, which declared that show that Pratt shared the philosophy prisoners could reform through a that these regimes could transform fostering of self-respect built through social deviants into citizens, and his education and industry (Rotman 1995, letters written in 1875 reveal that 172-3). Pratt considered the penitentiary the quintessential place for social deviants Six years after attending the to learn citizenship through labor. In a conference, Zebulon Brockway opened letter to Adjutant General Edward Elmira Reformatory in Elmira, New Townsend dated June 29, 1875, Pratt York. Elmira attempted to prepare requests the prisoners-of-war be young offenders for a lawful life transferred from Fort Marion to a through education. The institution penitentiary: provided general education classes, Is it not possible to industrial training, athletic and dispose of them [the religious instruction, and military drill. prisoners-of-war] at some of our Northeastern Rather than controlling prisoners Penitentiaries where through fear and punishment, Elmira facilities for learning trades sought to control prisoners through is offered and where they reward; excellence in classwork could can be kept at work. I will be rewarded with a reduced sentence. answer that such a course Thus, hard work and labor was one will meet with gratifying key idea of the first prison reform results. I have said Penitentiaries because movement that persisted in the they offer the greatest second. Elmira became the model diversity of facilities and penitentiary during this second reform Northeastern because of movement and influenced great perfection of reformatories in Michigan, industry, guarding them is Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, only a secondary Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana consideration. (1875a) (Rotman 1995, 174). This letter reveals that Pratt saw the northeastern penitentiary as the 10

model institution for his prisoners to American lifestyles, and joining learn American trades while remaining American communities. The under guard. At the time Pratt wrote penitentiary would not only keep the this letter, he had not yet allowed the prisoners confined, but could provide prisoners to guard themselves; yet, them with greater opportunities to this letter reveals his lack of concern learn a trade and potentially enter the regarding the prisoners’ behavior and American workforce upon release. implies that the prisoners would These letters reveal that Pratt willingly remain incarcerated in subscribed to the rhetoric of the exchange for learning trades. Pratt second prison reformatory movement continues to advocate for sending the that considered the penitentiary the prisoners-of-war to a penitentiary in quintessential place to train men for another letter to Townsend written a citizenship, particularly through labor. few weeks later on July 17, 1875: He believed that his prisoners-of-war We try in our state prisons would benefit from such training, and to keep criminals that the prisoners were just as employed and generally at capable of transforming into trades that eventuate in responsible, working Americans as any placing them in a position to earn a livelihood after white man. As I will show below, Pratt release, why do not do the not only thought of the penitentiary as same for these people, the model institution for training when they want it and individuals in citizenship, but he was they say they have never inspired by the penitentiary as he had any one to show them recreated the regimes of education how to work like the white and labor most exemplified by Elmira man and they say truly….If they are to be held in close and the second prison reformatory confinement it seems to movement at Fort Marion. me that some of our Northern Penitentiaries Pratt continued to promote the would be the place offering idea that American Indians could learn the greatest diversity of industrial labor through a penitential labor. This is not a good setting even after he left Fort Marion place to advance them, they are simply objects of and opened the Carlisle Indian curiosity here. There are Industrial School. Pratt writes in a no industries worth noting. letter to E.L. Stevens, Chief Clerk at (1875b) the Bureau of Indian Affairs, dated October 8, 1881: In both letters, Pratt focuses on labor Mr. Hayt prior to making as essential to American citizenship: his recommendation in knowledge of a trade would lead to 1879 was kind enough to the prisoners earning and talk this matter over with accumulating capital, adopting me and I gave him my 11

unqualifyed [sic] judgment prisoners Pratt had experience with on its favor, to get the and therefore the only prisoners on best results the which Pratt would be qualified to establishments should be advise Hayt. While the details of this as much within the limits of civilization as possible. letter are unknown, it clearly exhibits In my opinion they should that Pratt continued to consider the partake of the nature of a penitentiary the place for American penitentiary with the Indians to learn and practice industry appliances for mechanical and agriculture. Perhaps that is also instructions abundantly why Pratt donated $24, nearly $600 in provided and large today’s dollar, to a New York based agricultural advantages. I have no doubt that if prison reform society, the Volunteer properly managed all of Prison League, in 1902 (Pratt 1902). the wagons, harnesses and many of the Pratt’s letters to Townsend imply agricultural implements, that Townsend never responded to etc. etc. required for the Pratt’s pleas to relocate the Indian service could be Southwestern prisoners-of-war to manufactured by the prisoners. northeastern penitentiaries, so by March 1876 Pratt shifts his focus away While the context of this letter is from the penitentiary to industrial and unknown, and Stevens’ incoming agricultural schools. On March 21, letters missing, it appears that Pratt is 1876, Pratt again writes to Townsend reiterating advice given to proposing a number of prisoners be Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ezra enrolled in “some agricultural or other Hayt, regarding an “establishment,” labor school.” Pratt argues, “If this can possibly an Indian prisoner-of-war be done, and after three or four years camp as Hayt was occupied with the schooling they become able to make White River War in 1879. This themselves useful as helpers about “establishment” would resemble a their agencies and are so returned to penitentiary and supply manufactured their people the best results must goods for use by the Indian service, follow.” Pratt believed that educated probably on reservations. Pratt’s tribesmen could encourage the whole statement that this “establishment tribe to become civilized, and asks should be as much within the limits of Townsend “if private enterprise to this civilization as possible” mimics his end would be sanctioned” (1964, ideology that American Indians should 172). The idea that American Indians be immersed in civilization, whether in had the potential to not only prison or at school, and thus the transform themselves, but their whole “prisoners” he refers to are likely tribes, excited Pratt so much that he Indian prisoners because American proposed obtaining an education for Indian prisoners-of-war were the only 12

his prisoners regardless of here.” At this point, Pratt begins to government involvement. focus his correspondence on the development of his own education and Pratt copies this letter to General labor program. For example, Pratt William Tecumseh Sherman one outlines his program at Fort Marion in month later and it appears that his a letter to General H. J. Hunt dated plan regarding Indian education May 18, 1876: developed in this time. Pratt writes, “I It [the school] was can select nine or ten from the attended by an average of different tribes who are quite boys, 50 and was in every way a success. Military drill is and unmarried, who can be educated given sufficient to enable a and then made use of about their handling in [?] and to keep agencies, as I have suggested, with them set up. After greatest benefit. I can conceive of no adjournment of school better expenditure of effort for their they were encamped two people. The number I have suggested weeks at Matanzas, and will take an education rapidly. About since their return to the fort have been under thirty of the others can be successfully instruction in building a log taught” (1964, 173). As Pratt’s house. Your attention was experiment at Fort Marion evolves and invited to their general becomes increasingly successful, his appearance, to their post-Fort Marion plans for the industry in the prisoners become more specific. manufacture of canes, However, Pratt appears to be the only bows and arrows, polishing of sea beans, and person interested in his early plans for drawings from all of which Indian transformation as neither they realized considerable Townsend nor Sherman respond to money to sales of visitors. Pratt’s requests to enroll some of the They work at anything prisoners in an industrial or with much industry, the agricultural school. guard, the cooks, the baker, etc.

At this time, Pratt decides to take This letter reveals the beginnings of matters into his own hands and he Pratt’s experiment in education and recreates the penitential regimes of industrial training for American labor and education at Fort Marion. In Indians. Not only did he set up a a letter to Sherman dated May 1, school attended by the majority of the 1876, Pratt writes, “I believe I see prisoners, but he did his best to that my application for a thorough simulate industrial training through schooling for some of the young men the manufacture of goods and other will not meet with favorable action, labor. Most prisoners worked within and that whatever is done in this the fort as guards, called roll, direction, for them, must be done maintained the structure, or baked 13

bread. They also earned money selling bread from the mouths of those who their ledger art and hand-crafted were dependent upon such labor for bows, arrows and canes to tourists. their living.” In other words, the Early in their imprisonment, a local prisoners were so successful at selling curio hired the prisoners to polish “sea their wares that the local vendors beans,” a hard shell that could be petitioned Pratt to limit their business polished, made into jewelry and sold activities to the fort. Seemingly, Pratt to tourists. In just a few months, the successfully recreated the regimes of prisoners earned $1,600, which Pratt education and labor exemplified by let them keep, no doubt as a lesson in the second prison reformatory capitalism and finance (Pratt 1964, movement despite the limits of the 119). The following summer, Pratt and prison camp. the prisoners camped on Anastasia Island, where they found their own Regardless of the prisoners’ sea beans. This discovery led them to monetary success, Pratt continued to collect, polish, and sell the shells feel frustrated by the lack of directly to the Fort Marion tourists to opportunity for industrial and earn a higher dollar margin (125). In agricultural training in St. Augustine addition to polishing and selling sea and petitioned various military officials beans, Pratt hired the prisoners out to allow the prisoners to seek for multiple tasks around the St. opportunity elsewhere. In an April 8, Augustine area. They helped clear an 1877 letter to Colonel James W. orange grove, carried baggage for the Forsyth, Pratt writes: railroad, staked lumber for a sawmill, Mrs. H. B. Stowe, recently dug wells, moved a Sunday school here, was so much building, and, even excavated Indian interested in the advancement the younger burial grounds for the Smithsonian men have made, and in (129-30). their disposition to learn, that she is making an In 1876, Pratt wrote to General effort towards giving some Sheridan that the prisoners had of them privileges of already earned three to four thousand education at Amherst dollars selling their art and craft to Agricultural School, with Govt. aid, if that can be visitors. In fact, in a letter to General obtained, and if not, there John Eaton (1882), Pratt brags that by private means if the the men were such successful Govt. will allow it. To salesmen that “a very considerable satisfy her inquiries I number of the laboring class and submitted the question others of the community ask[ed] that and found that twenty I be stopped in the putting of the three, of the most promising, would elect to Indians out to labor in competition remain east for education, with other classes as I was taking rather than go home, if 14

such an alternative was the treaties at Medicine Lodge Creek offered. and Fort Laramie. These treaties, which shared much of the same Pratt also suggests enlisting prisoners language, promised peace between as military scouts. A fair wage as a the tribes and the United States scout would allow them to build a Government, formed reservation house and have a small farm where boundaries, and established agencies they could learn agriculture. While it that would provide an agent, appears that Pratt may have preferred workshops and schools. The United the prisoners enter an agricultural or States believed that setting industrial school upon release, and boundaries and encouraging farming that the prisoners also wanted to and education would lead these attend such a school, Pratt’s primary “hostile” tribes to civilization. In fact, focus fell on sustainable labor that the Treaty of Fort Laramie even would keep the men in a so-called promised Sioux individuals full civilized environment. citizenship if they “receiv[e] a patent

for [unsettled] land” outside of While Pratt prioritized labor, he reservation boundaries on the also subscribed to nineteenth-century condition that they homestead on and ideology (and policy) that the English improve the land over a set period of language would aid in the civilization time (Article VI). efforts of American Indian peoples.

Around the time that the army While the United States believed appointed Pratt jailor at Fort Marion, that land boundaries and agriculture the United States was actively were necessary for peace and implementing policies regarding on- civilization, government officials reservation Indian education. The thought that American Indians could United States Government, under only attain civilization through President Grant’s Peace Policy, education. Article VII of both the believed that teaching American Treaty at Medicine Lodge Creek and of Indian children English would solve Fort Laramie outline the specifications the “Indian Problem” by easing for on-reservation education: communication between American In order to insure the Indians and Euro-Americans, teaching civilization of the tribes, Euro-American values, and classifying entering into this treaty, American Indians as a homogenous the necessity of education group rather than individual tribes. For is admitted, especially by these reasons, the federal government such of them as are or mandated English education for all may be settled on said agricultural reservations: American Indian children (Spack and they therefore pledge 2002, 17), which they enforced themselves to compel through various treaties, most notably their children, male and 15

female, between the ages its military resources elsewhere, it of six and sixteen years, to could gradually eliminate the attend school; and it is reservation system and acquire Indian hereby made the duty of land, and it could gain a new working the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation class. While the treaties do not is strictly complied with; specifically mandate children to attend and the United States school, as implied by the sentence, agrees that for every thirty “who can be induced or compelled,” children between said they do assign the enforcement of ages, who can be induced education to the reservation agents. or compelled to

attend school, a house shall be provided, and a Pratt’s ideas on Indian education teacher competent to were set within the historical context teach the elementary of the Peace Policy and the branches of an English subsequent treaties at Medicine Lodge education, shall be and Fort Laramie, as he too believed furnished, who will reside education was the cornerstone of among said Indians, and pacification through civilization. He faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher. believed that his prisoners could The provisions of this become civilized, and thus controlled, article to continue for not through education and labor. Thus, by less than twenty years. the first winter Pratt had converted several casemates into classrooms These treaties marked a turning point and began offering English lessons. in the ways the United States Mrs. Anna Pratt and a group of five Government dealt with the “Indian local women taught the classes, Problem.” Rather than continuing to including Miss Mather and Miss Perrit acquire power and land through who ran a women’s boarding school in military force, the Peace Policy, St. Augustine during the Civil War. In enforced through these treaties, addition, a revolving group of women sought to “kill the Indian” through volunteered during the winter season assimilation/civilization and saw (Pratt 1964, 121). The women put up education as the ultimate way to blackboards, decorated the casemates “insure the civilization of the tribes.” with the alphabet and spelling cards, As Jacqueline Fear-Segal argues, and taught lessons in speaking, these treaties exemplify how reading and writing the English “education had been made an integral language (Stowe 1877). Pratt confirms part of an aggressive policy of the popularity of the classes in his pacification” (2007, 5). Pacification autobiography and explains that the through education, if successful, could women taught up to six classes benefit the United States in several simultaneously at the program’s ways: the United States could expend height. On some Sundays a Christian 16

minister would provide religious industrial or agricultural education instruction to the prisoners. Bishop because they want to be “useful” to Henry Whipple writes to the editor of America and their own people. Stowe the New York Daily Tribune of how he asks, “Is here not an opening for “preach[ed] to them every Sunday, Christian enterprise? We have tried and upon weekdays I told them fighting and killing the Indians, and stories from the Bible” (Pratt 1964, gained little by it. We have tried 163). As previously discussed, feeding them as paupers in their education at the fort also consisted of savage state, and the result has been industrial labor whenever Pratt found dishonest contractors, and invitation an opportunity. For example, Pratt and provocation to war. Suppose we hired a local baker to teach a try education?” Stowe calls for a re- Cheyenne prisoner how to bake bread appropriation of government funds for for meals. Likewise, Pratt bought the American Indian education and equipment to build log houses so he concludes her letter by asking: “Might could teach the prisoners how to make not the money now constantly spent their own European-style homes (Pratt on armies, forts and frontiers be 1876 Letter to Philip Sheridan). better invested in educating young men who shall return and teach their Harriet Beecher Stowe owned a people to live like civilized beings?” vacation home on St. John’s River and visited Fort Marion with her good While the federal government did friend, Miss Mather. Stowe wrote a not reallocate its funding, it did number of editorials regarding Pratt’s eventually permit Pratt to open his project at the fort. These editorials own school in the then-abandoned highlight the prisoners’ Army barracks in Carlisle, transformations from “savage” to Pennsylvania. On November 1, 1879, “civilized” and credit Pratt’s Pratt opened The Carlisle Indian unorthodox prisoner-of-war camp in Industrial School, the first federally this transformation. In an article funded, off-reservation Indian published in The Christian Union in industrial school. Carlisle’s first 1877 and republished in Battlefield students consisted of ninety-eight and Classroom, Stowe uses Fort boys and thirty-eight girls, about two- Marion as an example of how thirds of whom were recruited from education can solve the “Indian Dakota Territory to be held as Problem.” Stowe illustrates the “hostages” for the good behavior of prisoners’ dramatic transformation their tribes (Pratt 1964, 220). The from the savages she saw travelling to remaining students were recruited Fort Marion on the St. John’s River in from Indian Territory by former St. 1875, to the civilized men she now Augustine prisoners. Once at the visits in St. Augustine. She argues school, students were bathed, dressed that the young prisoners ask for an in uniform, and their hair was cut. Half 17

of each student’s day consisted of experiment with the ideology that academic education, while the other American Indians could assimilate into half focused on manual labor training. American society if they were only In the summers, Carlisle hired out taught how to look and behave like many students to nearby homes and civilized Americans. While Pratt was farms to learn through immersion, a inspired by his own experiences in the system Pratt called “outing.” Carlisle military and with African American became the model for subsequent scouts, my archival research has American Indian boarding schools. revealed that Pratt was also inspired Twenty-five off-reservation boarding by the regimes of the reformatory schools opened by 1902, and on- prison. The makeshift prison of Fort reservation boarding schools and day Marion allowed Pratt to turn the fort schools continued to increase, into a laboratory where he could begin spreading from the east coast to this “program of assimilation” by with enrollment peaking in experimenting with the philosophy of the 1970s (Adams 1995, 57). The off- the prison reform movement: through reservation boarding schools affected the right environment, surveillance, generations of American Indians, as it labor, and education, a social deviant sought for a century to erase the could transform into a proper culture and language of whole American citizen. Or in the case of the communities of peoples. As scholar prisoners at Fort Marion, the most Brenda Child asserts, “for better or “hostile” American Indians could worse, the schools became part of our transform from “savages” to “civilized” histories” (1998, 4). and “useful” men. Pratt took the lessons learned at Fort Marion with

him to the Carlisle Indian Industrial Pratt’s experiment at Fort Marion is School, to where he removed remembered quite briefly at the American Indian children from the exhibit in the American Occupation “savage” influence of their families casemate at the Castillo de San and the reservations in order to Marcos National Monument: “Pratt assimilate a new generation into a began a program of assimilation. He Euro-American way of life. believed that the adoption of white Thus, Fort Marion should be culture, language and religion were remembered as an important nexus, the American Indians’ only chance. An where the ideologies of the military, advocate for American Indian American Indian education and the education and civil rights, he sought prison reform movements converged to find a way to accomplish his goals, and conceived the concept of the off- and his actions led to the beginning of reservation boarding school system; a the American Indian schools concept.” system that transformed the lives and Pratt’s tenure at Fort Marion gave cultural consciousness of generations Pratt the time and space to 18

of American Indian peoples. Elevating Pratt and the Southwestern prisoners’

tenure at Fort Marion between 1875 and 1878, and emphasizing the influence of the prison reform

movement on Pratt’s ideology and experiments at Fort Marion, gives scholars a unique perspective on the

beginning of a foundational period of American Indian education and history.

Notes

i One Comanche woman and her child their visit. This literature also acted as (Pe-ah-in and Ah-kes), and one a form of surveillance, as it allowed a Cheyenne woman (Mochi) also large population of Americans to also accompanied the men. The Army look in and observe Pratt’s never considered them prisoners of experiments at Fort Marion. Amelia war. Katanski (2005), in writing about Carlisle’s newsletter articles written by ii The term “Indian Problem” refers to Pratt, writes that “the newspaper the “problem” of how to settle and acted as a rhetorical panopticon, expand on a land already inhabited by encouraging student self-colonization indigenous peoples. through writing” (16). While the Fort Marion prisoners presumably never iii Ih-pa-yah, Co-a-bote-ta and Manan- saw the articles written by their ti visitors, Pratt did and republished many of them in his autobiography. iv Many visitors also wrote articles and Therefore, Pratt and the prisoners letters to the editor of prominent were subjected to this surveillance. magazines and newspapers about References

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