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University M k ra ilm s International 300 M. / E t a ROAD. ANN ARBOR. Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW. LONDON WC1 R 4F I. FNGLAND

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WALKE*-«C:.EIL , PEARL L«rc THE CAPLISL J: ^K.\i SCHjI'L! A STUDY L'F Accuirj*a m ■ r .

THE AMERICA. U-iVcP. !TY, PH.L, 1979

CDP R • 177* . *LKLF-^C‘ l IL, PEARL LEE University M io d film s international joon zeebrcad.ann arbor, mi 48106

@ 1979

PEARL LEE WALKER-MCNEIL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL:

A STUDY OF ACCULTURATION

by

Pearl Lee Walker-McNeil

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Anthropology

Signatures of Committee:

Chairman , ' f t p ' l l

m of the College /T

<3 / f 7 f J yjfl C_^ {_$-£**■______Dateite 7]

1979

The American University Washington, D.C. 20016

THE AMERICAS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

S ' b ? ?

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE

Long before this writer was in a position to give attention to

this type of research, unanswered queries about Carlisle Indian School

flashed across her mind. These questions were prompted by popular publi­

cations for the young reader about Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indians

in library books brought home by her 15-year-old son. Her curiosity was

piqued because she could not answer questions about the Olympic award

problem put to her by her son. Thirteen years later, in a class on

"Problems in Southwest Anthropology," a chance remark by the professor

regarding the unused Carlisle Indian School materials at the National

Archives struck a responsive chord and rekindled the earlier curiosity.

Visits to the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution,

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Interior Library, the

Library of Congress, and participation in a Southwest Region Summer In­

stitute for Indian School personnel and meeting relatives of Carlisle

alumni convinced the writer that the Carlisle Indian School was an ex­

citing and worthwhile research project. An answer to the Jim Thorpe

Olympic award problem was suggested by the materials on the Carlisle

Outing System, but that problem is not the subject of this dissertation.

At The American University, Washington, D.C., I am deeply in­

debted to a patient and long-suffering dissertation committee consisting

of Professors Philleo Nash, John J. Bodine, and William L. neap. At the

Bureau of Indian Affairs, I am especially grateful to Dr. S. Gabe

Paxton, Jr., Director of the Office of Indian Education Programs, for

ii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. arranging my introductions to the administrators of Albuquerque Indian

School, Chilocco Indian School, Haskell Indian Junior College, and the

Southwestern Inf /dan Polytechnic Institute. At each school, I was re­

ceived by a gracious and thoughtful faculty and staff and given their

wholehearted cooperation and assistance in all aspects of the research.

At Bishop College, Dallas, Texas, my indebtedness to President

Milton K. Curry, Jr., is beyond measure. He not only encourages the

members of his faculty and staff to continue their studies for the high­

est degrees in their respective fields, he offers financial assistance

and study leaves from duties at the College for that purpose.

Many helpful suggestions were made by Dr. William S. Willis, a

fellow Dallasite, friend, and former professor of anthropology at South­

ern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. I am grateful to Dr. and Mrs.

Willis for their continuing moral support through the years.

For the tedious preparation of the first draft of the manuscript,

I wish to express my sincere thanks to Mrs. LaVon St. Claire of Dallas,

Texas. Special appreciation is reserved for Mrs. Shirley Simpson of

Washington, D.C., for her faithful and competent assumption of the task

of the final typing and processing of this manuscript.

And, finally, to our four young adults, Jesse Jai, Genna Rae,

Kenneth Ross, and Brenna Jean, I must acknowledge an indebtedness that

beggars description. They have been thoughtful and patient, loving and

supportive as their widowed mother entered the world of work and returned

to the halls of higher learning. For their understanding, I am eternally

grateful.

— Mrs. Jesse Jai McNeil, Sr.

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE...... ii

LIST OF T A B L E S ...... vi

LIST OF F I G U R E S ...... vii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

The P r o b l e m ...... 2 Education: A Cultural Process ...... 3 The S e t t i n g...... 5 Carlisle Indian Industrial School: A Model ...... 6 Hypotheses ...... 7 Definition of Terms...... 7 Methodology ...... 8 Organization of the Re p o r t ...... 11

Chapter I. THE HISTORICAL SETTING ...... 14

Colonization and Christianization ...... 14 Mission Schools: Education and Civilization ...... 30 The Government, Indians, Civilization, and Education . . 49 Footnotes...... 68

II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...... 69

Theoretical Considerations ...... 69 On Indian Policy and Education ...... 76 Writings about Carlisle Indian School ...... 82

III. RICHARD HENRY PRATT IN HIS SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT ...... 84

Biography in B r i e f ...... 85 Pratt, the S o l d i e r ...... 86 Pratt, the Prison-Keeper (1875-1878) 99 Pratt, the Counselor-Teacher ...... 105

IV. CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL: ACCULTURATION UNDER DURESS .... 110

Geographical Location and Physical Setting ...... 115 Living Arrangements ...... 117 Physical Attire and Personal Appearance ...... 118 Language and Communication...... 121 Time-Use Schedule for Students ...... 123

iv

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Formal Education Program ...... 127 Vocational Training Program ...... 130 Physical Fitness Program ...... 131 School Discipline and Democracy ...... 133 Religion and Community Relationships ...... 136 Extra-Curricular Activities ...... 139 Public Appearances and Public Relations ...... 149 F o o t n o t e s ...... 158

V. THE OUTING SYSTEM: INVOLVEMENT AS A METHOD OF SECOND- CULTURE LEARNING...... 159

Origins of Outing Concept ...... 161 The Carlisle Outing System— Common-Sense Theory in O p e r a t i o n ...... 165 Second Hypothesis Validated ...... 196 Conclusion...... 211 Footnote...... 213

VI. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL ON FEDERAL POLICY IN INDIAN EDUCATION ...... 214

Carlisle Role Reviewed ...... 215 Observations: Four Schools Studied ...... 222 Findings, Summary, and Conclusions ...... 243 Footnote...... 248

APPENDIXES A. THE LUCE R E P O R T ...... 249

B. THE METHODIST COMMITTEE REPORT ...... 253

C. REPORT ON PRATT-ARMSTRONG COOPERATION IN INDIAN EDUCA­ TION— 1878-1880 257

D. CARLISLE REPORT NO. 1 - 1880 ...... 267

E. TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY...... 275

F. CONSTITUTION AMD BY-LAWS OF THE INVINCIBLE DEBATING SOCIETY ...... 277

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 281

v

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES

1. McKenney School Report ...... 55

2. The Pratt Years, 1880-1904 ...... 197

3. Post-Pratt Years, 1905-1918 199

4. Non-Reservation Schools and Morgan's Long-Range Planning, 1891 . 221

vi

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES

1. Outing Letter Form I ...... 172

2. Outing Letter Form I I ...... 173

3. Outing Letter Form I I I ...... 177

4. Outing System Regulations ...... 179

5. Letter Forwarded by Mrs. Morris to Superintendent Pratt . . . 181

6. Outing Patron's Report Form ...... 183

7. Outing Agent's Report F o r m ...... 185

8. Letter to Patrons Concerning Students' Correspondence with Their Families...... 188

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

In the United States, White American thinking about American

Indians has had an interesting development. It has moved from being

particularized as "the problem of Indians" during colonial times, to

"the Indian problem" during westward expansion, to "the problems of the

Indian" during the Roosevelt New Deal era and through the 1950s, and

back to "the Indian problem" in the late 1960s to the present, including

the brief period of the Red Power stimulus/response scenario.

In various periods in United States history, this development has

been romanticized in lit rature in terms of American Indian stereotypes

from the Noble Red Man to the ignoble savage. During the Enlightenment,

the reports from the New World concerning the nobilit' and freedom of

the native "child of nature" captured the imagination of political

philosophers like Rousseau. The early stories from the North American

continent lent credence to their theories about the perfectibility of

men in a simpler society. Although the Hiawatha image was fine for

Europeans and even northeast coast White Americans, the pioneers moving

westward and the farmer-colonists of the southeast needed a stereotype

that would justify the conquest of the South and the establishment of

settlements on the moving Western Frontier; and so, in the minds of the

pre-plantation owners and the frontiersmen, was created the war-whooping,

savage, heathen Indian.

The Christian ethic of the Puritans required that this land be

"won" and thi heathen be civilized and thus "saved." Even from the

1

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halls of Congress came this presumption of White America's "manifest

destiny" evidenced in an 1867 Senate report ascribing a rather rapid de­

crease in the Indian population as being due to "the irrepressible con­

flict between a superior and inferior race when brought into the presence

of each other" (39th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Report No. 156,

January 1867). In the nineteenth century, when the United States govern­

ment sought to move American Indians onto reservations, the Noble Red

Man with his egalitarian, classless society, as he was viewed in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, became a shiftless, lazy Indian.

The English Colonial settler, for whom hunting was a sport, had no cul­

tural model that would enable him to recognize the Indian's hunting as

work to support his family and tribe. For the White American pioneer

operating from the Jeffersonian proposition that "those who labor in the

earth are the chosen people of God." there was no place in this land for

a hunting and gathering society.

The Problem

The conquest of the world's frontiers has always given rise to

conflicting demands not only on the human relationships between the pop­

ulations involved but also on its settlement and subsistence patterns.

According to Franz Oppenheimer (1922), "political formulation and eco­

nomic exploitation" are basic to "state-building," and, therefore, new

land and settlement institutions are incidental to conquest and subju­

gation. The state, in actuality, is a social institution imposed by a

victorious power group upon a defeated powerless group having as its

purpose the dominion of the former over the latter. Such dominion, in

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Oppenheimer1 s view, had "no other purpose than the economic exploitation

of the vanquished by the victors" (1922:15).

In the conquest and exploitation of a pioneer region and the

process whereby the land is alienated from the aboriginal population and

brought under the control of invaders, it matters not whether they are

settlers, traders, or missionaries; the elementary process of competi­

tion and conflict of differing culture groups living in the same terri­

tory are laid bare. The land changes hands. Those who have come to

possess it and to convert it to what they believe to be more valuable

purposes seek not only to create an authority mechanism to impose new

conditions for living in the territory but also to enforce the new ar­

rangement. A network of institutions with authority is absolutely es­

sential to the indoctrination about, and the maintenance of, a high

level of efficiency in the new arrangements. Educational institutions

are a part of such a network.

Education: A Cultural Process

Education itself is a cultural process. Preliterate societies

have always appreciated the need to transmit to the young that which is

fixed and traditional. With or without schooling, at some point in

childhood every person is formally educated. The history of American

Indian education in the United States under White American supervision

is a record of the non-recognition of, and a misunderstanding about,

these two facts.

In early times when two different ethnic populations met, one

presumed superiority over the other; and having thus defined its own

status, it assumed the role of "the advanced people" and shaped its

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concept of education in relation to its objective: to colonize and con­

vert,- teach and acculturate the adults it encountered. In terms of

European expansion, experiences in the Old World had generated within

the colonizing immigrants a belief in, and enthusiasm for, the power of

education to create something new. For them, perpetuating the best of

the old was important; but it was not a significant consideration in

reference to the indigenous peoples of the New World, namely, American

Indians.

The consequences of racial/cultural contact situations involve

the social processes of communication and exchange, as well as the cul­

tural process of transmission and transformation, each being weighted

differently in different stages of the contact experience. In the case

of race and culture contacts in the United States, Anglo-American cul­

ture is judged to be standard; and members of all subjugated groups are

expected to learn through the schooling process what the dominant popu­

lation of White Americans learns, or is presumed to have learned, at

home. Not only that, institutionalized education in the United States

assumes that it can equip individuals of subordinate culture groups to

participate in the dominant culture without preparing them to manage the

frustrations attending alienation from their respective families (and

cultures) of orientation. It then compounds the problem by erecting

barriers to full participation in the mainstream of American life.

Growing out of the Black American experience, the perceptiveness of

Charles S. Johnson in this regard is worth noting. Said Johnson (1943:

632) :

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When peoples of different .cultures come together there is accultura­ tion, in which there is a constant struggle between disintegration and integration. Basically this is education. Education, thus, is more than the transmission of culture from one generation to another. It is this transmission and it is also transformation of peoples who are more or less in conflict. Under these circumstances the whole process may become painful, because it may lead to the disintegra­ tion of the culture of one or more of the groups in contact.

In the United States, from the viewpoint of White Americans and European

immigrants, the way of life of American Indians was inferior and, there­

fore, an obstacle that must be removed if civilization were to advance.

It seemed necessary to nullify the culture-learning process (encultura-

tion) that had already taken place in the lives of the Indian children

in an effort to mold them into a special image more amenable to the dic­

tates of the dominant culture. This focus characterized early federal

government Indian policy, and the non-reservation boarding school was

its chief vehicle.

The Setting

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) now operates the largest

boarding school system in the world. According to the Statistics Con­

cerning Indian Education, Fiscal Year 1974, the Indian school-age popula­

tion (ages 5-18) was 208,939. Enrollment in Federal Boarding Schools

was 32,456, with an additional 3,384 living in dormitories but attending

public schools. There are 77 boarding schools and 19 dormitories.

There are ten reservation dormitories and nine peripheral or bordertown

dormitories, mainly Navajo. There are three post-secondary schools:

Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, established in 1884, which became

Haskell Indian Junior College in 1970; the Institute of American Indian

Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, founded in 1962; and Southwestern Indian

Polytechnic Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico, built in 1971.

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The subject matter of this dissertation is an exploration into

education as an acculturative instrument of the federal government for

dealing with American Indians in the United States.

Carlisle Indian Industrial School: A Model

The current boarding school model had its origin in Carlisle,

Pennsylvania, the site of the first federal off-reservation boarding

school, established at an abandoned cavalry barracks by Captain Richard

H. Pratt in 1879. The policies and programs initiated at the Carlisle

Indian Industrial School literally dominated the national scene in In­

dian education in federally-operated schools for over three decades.

The School was closed in 1918, and the army barracks were returned to

military hospital use after World War I.

The educational program of the Carlisle Indian School made that

institution, especially during the Pratt administration, an enculturative

as well as acculturative agency of the federal government. The scores

of government-operated non-reservation boarding schools established for

American Indians after 1879 were founded on the Carlisle model. Except

for the sheer abrasiveness of the term and the process connoted, I would

be inclined to call this a study in deculturation, meaning the process

operating in situations where units of a population are torn from their

natal society and cultural context by removal (American Indians) or en­

slavement (American Blacks) and required to participate in the economic

life of the dominating society which entails enculturation into the ways

of that society on its own terms.

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Hypotheses

There are two hypotheses for this research. They are:

1. The federal program for American Indian education in the United States had its genesis in a policy of forced acculturation exemplified in the founding and operation of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918.

2. That the Carlisle Indian School Outing System, as a second-culture learning strategy, was critical to the implementation of the boarding school program of forced acculturation.

Definition of Terms

For purposes of this study, the writer has used a modified defi­

nition of acculturation and introduced definitions for the forced accul­

turation and Outing System.

Acculturation refers to the process of new culture-learning which takes place within a culture of a population or a social system in response to the impact from another culture, cul­ tures, or population.

The acculturation process has two characteristics: social— that is, the

restructuring of relationships between members of the society with each

other and with the contact group; and individual— the adjustment of per­

sons to the changing socio-cultural milieu in which one must operate

subsequent to emergence from the contact experience.

Forced acculturation refers to the imposition of religion, ideologies, and behavioral patterns by the dominant society upon a subordinate one.

The program of enforced culture change may be directed toward individual-

level or group-level transformation.

The Carlisle Indian School Outing program was known as General

Pratt's inspired innovation in Indian education.

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The Outing System was an extended-education program that re­ quired Indian students to spend a period of their school life away from the school, living with and employed by a White middle-class family in a rural area or small town, receiving current wages, attending public school, and gaining experience in practical self-support in preparation for induction into civilized life.

The word "civilized" is not italicized or placed in quotation marks in

the definition because its pejorative implications were not recognized

or understood at that period in this country's history. It was used

very much as anthropologists used "primitive" in pre-World War II days.

Methodology

This dissertation is an ethnohistorical monograph with a field­

work component. In addition to the usual archival materials, the classi­

cal anthropological techniques of interview and participant observation

were utilized.

The National Archives, the Department of Interior Library, the

Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library

of Congress in Washington, D.C., hold all the necessary data for the

ethnohistorical research on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and

for the reconstruction of the socio-political milieu in which it was

founded, flourished, and was finally terminated. The bibliographical

resources used included the customary categories: primary sources— un­

published and published; secondary sources— books, periodicals, and news­

papers , as well as unpublished manuscripts including some rare documents

available only on microfilm; photographs of personnel and program fea­

tures at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The student registra­

tion data sheets and record books, enrollment/attendance cards, and

progress folders are available with cross-reference by tribe. Other

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helpful records included substantial, though incomplete, files of dormi­

tory daily reports, infirmary records, "outing" notations, and letters

of both patrons and students; student newspapers and yearbooks; the min­

utes (always in perfect Palmer method penmanship) of the several debat­

ing societies and other student organizations; correspondence between

the school and former students; and the voluminous transcript of the pro­

ceedings in the Congressional Investigation of the school in 1914. From

these data, the school and its evolving program in its historical, geo­

graphical, and ideological setting was reconstructed in preparation for

an analysis of the acculturative processes in operation.

The fieldwork for the study involving four present-day boarding

schools in the Southwest sought to identify and describe synchronic

models that could be used in interpreting changing Indian education pol­

icy. The diachronic model represented by Carlisle enabled this investi­

gator to recognize in the historical records of the three schools con­

temporary to Carlisle early similarities in policy and program. Dis­

cernible also were certain functional modifications in curriculum, dic­

tated by geographical location and the attitudes of the surrounding com­

munity of Whites. The fieldwork schools are:

1. Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, Chilocco, Oklahoma, established in 1884 and a 1974 enrollment of 390 students— all boarding.

2. Albuquerque Indian SchoolAlbuquerque, New Mexico, estab­ lished in 1884 and a 1974 enrollment of 432 students— all boarding.

3. Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, established in 1884, which received junior college accreditation in 1970, with a 1974 enrollment of 1,067 students— all boarding.

4. Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico, established in 1971 and a 1974 enrollment of 1,169 students— 985 boarding and 184 daytime enrollees.

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In addition to the school visits, I was able to participate in a

three-week Summer Institute for American Indian teachers and staff

workers at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, Oklahoma, in

1975. The Institute offered four hours of college credit (graduate or

undergraduate depending on successful completion of specified assign­

ments) for its participants and was sponsored jointly by the Bureau of

Indian Affairs and the University. There were 73 participants represent­

ing 21 different tribes employed at 10 Indian schools located in Arizona

and Oklahoma. There were three non-Indian participants including my­

self. The teaching faculty was non-Indian except for one of the instruc­

tors in Arts and Crafts. The guest speakers and consultants were promi­

nent Indians from the Choctaw, Cherokee, and Creek Nations. The title

and course description follow:

EFFECTIVE HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS - The study is designed to increase professional qualifications of men and women who work closely with American Indian children. Structure and content-. Formal and in­ formal course work utilizing an interdisciplinary approach concen­ trated in the area of effective human communications, counseling techniques, and the modification of human behavior [emphasis mine].

It was at this intensive workshop of full-day and two-hour evening ses­

sions that I met the friends and relatives of several Carlisle alumni,

and since then I have been able to communicate with 18 who are over 70

years of age. Those who have been able to send me letters in their own

handwriting all use the near-perfect Palmer Method penmanship with only

slight variations that individualization of handwriting over the years

finally brings. I have had one comprehensive interview session with one

alumna of the Class of 1917. My correspondence has enabled classmates

to locate each other, and a booklet is being discussed to be entitled

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"Carlisle As I Remember It" to be written by as many as can send mate­

rial to my informant and her Carlisle roommate. The former would type

the manuscript because, after graduation from Carlisle, she was sent by

her "outing" family to West Chester Normal to take a business course.

Their hope is a publication in 1979, the 100th Anniversary of the found­

ing of Carlisle, and, if possible, a reunion at Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

or Washington, D.C., as some of them sang in an operetta performed for

President Wilson's inauguration.

The workshop and these subsequent contacts have helped me to

understand Carlisle and Richard Henry Pratt from the Indian point of

view.

Organization of the Report

Chapter I contains a detailed historical background of signifi­

cant events and key personalities in the development of education among,

and for, Indians in North America from Don Juan de Ohate's contact with

San Gabriel Pueblo in 1598 to 1882, when the Congress of the United

States authorized the appointment of a federal Superintendent of Indian

Schools. This rather exhaustive account is necessary to a full under­

standing of how the Carlisle Indian School came to be and to recognize

that the seeds for the hard questions that would plague the Bureau of

Indian Affairs for generations could be discerned in the 1600s. More­

over, in terms of humanitarian spirit and democratic idealism, General

Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of Carlisle, had much in common with

three of the most outstanding pre-Revolutionary War pioneers in educa­

tion for the American Indian: the Reverend John Eliot, founder of the

first boarding school for Indians in 1654; the Reverend John Sergeant,

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who established in 1736 the first coeducational program for Indians which

included an "outing system" arrangement similar to the Carlisle system,

considered by some to be Pratt's most distinctive contribution to Indian

education; and the Reverend Eleazer Wheelock, who founded Moor's Charity

School (which became Dartmouth College) and whose 1762 progress report on

the first seven years of his school, its expanding program, its graduates,

and their achievements sounded very much like General Pratt's first ten-

year report on Carlisle.

Chapter II presents the review of relevant literature.

Chapter III is biographical and portrays Richard Henry Pratt in

his sociocultural context and illustrates how certain of his early life

and career experiences influenced his philosophy of Indian education.

Chapter IV records the history of the Carlisle Indian School and

addresses itself to the first hypothesis.

Chapter V describes the Outing System and addresses itself to the

second hypothesis.

Chapter VI reviews Carlisle's educational efforts as an instance

of forced acculturation and comments on its significance in federal

policy in Indian education.

As the title indicates, this is a study in acculturation and

education. In the contact period and the onslaught of European civiliza­

tion on American Indian tribal cultures, the process of acculturation

proceeded along two parallel tracks— "good will" and economic gain. The

"good will" agents, mainly missionaries, placed emphasis on education.

But the transformation of living conditions, of ideas, beliefs, and social

forms attending acculturation is much more comprehensive than an ordinary

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process of education. Under normal circumstances, education is the

transmission of cultural experiences from one generation to another; but

under conditions of culture contact and culture change (acculturation),

there is by implication not only the transmission of one particular sys­

tem but the welding together of two systems. In the case of the United

States, the latter process was impeded, or at least complicated, by two

factors— race and sociocultural level of development. General Pratt

sought to obscure the one and obliterate the other. His problem and

that of the "good will" reformers of the nineteenth century was an in­

complete conceptualization of the component parts in the education process

which, according to Bronislaw Malinowski (1941), are: (a) biological

heredity and cultural heritage— one’s birthright; (b) the molding of per­

sonality— one's schooling; and (c) the rewards at the end of the educa­

tional process— one's charter of citizenship in society (Malinowski in

C. S. Johnson 1943:24-24). Pratt was obsessed with the idea of forcing

White Americans to feel responsible enough to accept these unacceptable

Red people. An American Indian birthright seemed inconsequential when

the goal was to make this "undigested lump of humanity" digestible to

White Americans.

Some understanding of this perception of people about other

people made manifest in the problems of American Indian education in the

United States prompted this research project.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I

THE HISTORICAL SETTING

The history of federal education for American Indians is the

history of a conflict between two approaches to the process of accultura­

tion— "permissive," with or without guidance, and "forced." The theoreti­

cal basis for these earliest of behavior-modification programs moves

from a focus on the missionary imperative of the Christian church in

colonial times to the Darwinian and Spencerian views on the evolution of

man and society popularized in the white man's burden-native uplift

theme of the nineteenth century. The national goal was a total re-molding

of the native population and the maintenance of a measure of cultural

stability while a new economic and social order came into being.

Colonization and Christianization

Mission-educators deserve credit for the earliest concern for

the educational welfare of Indians. The raison d'etre of the Spanish

conquest was the sense of obligation to civilize the barbarians of North

America (Spicer 1962:281). There were successes and failures, but some

commendation is due these missionaries for their creativity in address­

ing themselves to their stated aims: "to Christianize and civilize" the

Indian. The chief colonization companies came from Spain, France, and

England. Just as there have been distinctive philosophies underlying

the colonial policies of Spain, France, and England, so there developed

three significantly different approaches to the education of Indians.

14

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Vestiges of these various experiments still appeared even after the

separation of church and state in the United States in mission school

education on March 2, 1917, when federal funding of religious groups was

discontinued (Statutes at Large 39:988). A brief description of these

three approaches might be helpful in understanding and evaluating speci­

fic training programs as they appear in later periods in different geo­

graphical areas of this country and, particularly, with reference to the

focus of this work which is the non-reservation boarding school.

Roman Catholic missionaries came from both Spain and France.

Protestant missionaries came from among the English-speaking colonists

and from Great Britain. The sixteenth and seventeenth century Catholic

missionaries came primarily from two religious Orders: the Franciscans

(founded in 12Q9), the older, service-oriented followers of St. Francis

of Assisi; and the Jesuits (founded in 1534), the newer, intellectually-

oriented, special emissaries, and loyal servants of the Pope. In the

case of the Spaniards, both Orders participated with the civil hierarchy

in colonizing the New World. This fact is mentioned because without the

benefit of the research of anthropologist Edward H. Spicer (1962), Mary

Elizabeth Layman's (1942) comprehensive history of Indian education is

confusing at points since it gives the impression that the distinctive

programs of the Franciscans and the Jesuits were to be correlated with

the nationalities of the missionaries and their homelands as much as

with the philosophy of their respective Orders and their orientations

with regard to the education and proclivities of preliterate peoples.

Nevertheless, frequent references will be made to Layman's work and ex-

pecially her perceptive analysis of the methods and program of the

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Spanish, French, and English colonizers. Her insights are significant,

and her unpublished dissertation was cited in one of the interim reports

of the Special Subcommittee in Indian Education of the Committee on

Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, as "worthy of publica­

tion" and by far the "best and most comprehensive general history . . .

covering the period from 1542 to 1942" (Berry 1969:6).

The Franciscans worked in the Greater Southwest following up the

rivers from Chihuahua and Sonora through what is now west Texas and

southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The mission was a settle­

ment, more or less, which attached itself to the native village. The

missionaries made up the teaching staff to provide the Indians with in­

struction in agricultural skills, such as land clearance and soil care;

construction of irrigation ditches; plowing, planting and harvesting of

crops, and the threshing of grains. Other instruction included introduc­

tion to new arts and crafts— the making of clothing, soap, and candles;

and the teaching of occupational skills such as carpentry, blacksmithing,

and masonry. The Franciscans were concerned with promoting a more seden­

tary life among all Indians and with exposing them to the Spanish con­

ception of more efficient methods for managing their environment and

resources. Consequently, academic subject matter was only important

for moral and religious instructional purposes.

If the available general histories of Indian education, pub­

lished and unpublished, infer that the missionaries founded the pueblos,

it could be that the authors were unaware of works on the prehistory of

the Southwest. An excerpt from Dozier's The Pueblo Indians of North

America (1970) is offered here as pertinent information related to the

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historical setting of this particular research and the historical back­

ground out of which the government Indian education policy evolved. The

late Edward P. Dozier was a native of Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico,

and professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. "The term

Pueblo," explained Dozier (1970:36),

was applied by the Spaniards to Indians living in compact villages who carried on a predominantly agricultural subsistence economy. . . . The major villages along the Rio Grande had been there for perhaps . . . 200 years when the Spaniards entered the Southwest (1970:39).

Of the colonial period and colonization, he writes (1970:46-47):

The contract for the colonization of New Mexico was . . . awarded to Don Juan de Onate in 1595. The recruiting of settlers, soldiers, servants, and other tasks of organizing the expeditionary force required three years before the colonizing party could begin the journey north. The party finally left southern Chihuahua on January 15, 1598, and reached the Pueblos late the same year. Head­ quarters were established at the Tewa pueblo of Yuqueyunque, which Onate renamed San Gabriel. This pueblo was across the river from present-day San Juan; the site has been recently found and partially excavated by the University of New Mexico. In 1610, the seat of the provincial government was moved to Santa Fe, which remained the pro­ vincial headquarters during the Spanish period as well as during the short interlude of Mexican rule. Indeed, Santa Fe has continued to serve as the territorial and State headquarters under United States administration. Onate quickly embarked on a vigorous program of "civilizing" and Christianizing the Pueblos. Father Alonzo de Benavides, who directed the missionary program early in the seventeenth centnsry f ^sported ip. his Memorial of 1630 that 60,000 Pueblo Indians had been converted and that ninety chapels had been built in as many villages. Onate dealt brutally with any pueblo that resisted his program. Early in his visits to the pueblos to obtain their submission, he encountered resistance at Acoma, and in a skirmish with the Indians, his field officer was killed. Onate retaliated by burning the pueblo and killing a large number of the Indians. For those who survived, he ordered one foot amputated from each man over twenty-five years of age and imposed a fine of twenty years of personal service. The men between twelve and twenty five years escaped with twenty years of service. All the women over twelve years of age were likewise doomed to twenty years of servitude. Onate considered his action as a warning to the other Pueblos that a rebellious act of any kind would be dealt with promptly and severely. . . .

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Onate thus launched his colony by demanding strict obedience and submission to Spanish rule. . . . Both the missionaries and the secular authorities had definite plans and policies of how the Pueblos should be converted and how the labor and other resources of the Indian should be used for the benefit of a small elite amo: g the settlers. . . .

The French-speaking Jesuit missionaries came into the northern

part of the continent via the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and

the Mississippi. Their financial support from Louis XIV carried with it

a stipulation that one of the instructional goals should be to "educate

the children in the French manner." Morris (1954:34) reports that the

French government was interested in using the missionaries as political

ambassadors to the Indian tribes in France's conquest of the continent:

"The early French missionaries travelled from tribe to tribe making

friends with the Indians, learning their languages, preaching to them

and giving them religious instruction."

A related observation by Adams (1946:12) indicates that the fur

trade, not civilization or education, was France's primary concern.

"French policy in Indian relations," avers Adams,

grew directly out of economic interest in the fur trade, and poli­ tical interest in winning Indian allies against England. France looked upon the superb skill of the native trapper and hunter and their relatively undisturbed hunting grounds as real economic assets.

In contrasting the approaches to Indian education by Franciscan

and Jesuit missionaries in North America during colonial times, Layman

(1942:25-27) discerns the seeds of some of the hard questions which were

to plague the United States government for years to come. Anthropologi­

cally speaking, the following statement is pregnant with errors; but if

the reader can bear in mind the archaeological research and writings on

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North American prehistory (Spicer 1962; Dozier 1970) which correct the

inaccuracies of the historical record available to Layman, the quotation

is insightful— ethnocentrism and all.

There are a number of points of contrast between education provided for the Indian by the Franciscans in the Southwest and that given by the Jesuits in the North. The Franciscans gathered their Indians into pueblos or native villages surrounding the mis­ sions, thus keeping families intact and instructing the young In­ dians in Indian community living. The Jesuits, on the other hand, took the children away from their parents in order to educate them at schools far distant from their homes. The Franciscans instructed their Indian neophytes in arts and crafts which they could employ in making a living. The Jesuits limited their instruction to religious and academic training. The result of Indian education as realized by the Franciscan friars was the settling of the people in pueblos and preparing them for a better Indian community life. The Jesuits, though they played a very important part in influencing the religious, the educational, and the social life of the French part of the colo­ nies, did relatively little toward transforming the society of the Indian population. . . . (I)f at the close of the eighteenth century a traveler had journeyed from [a] Jesuit frontier mission to [a] Franciscan pueblo, he would have been impressed with the apparent success of the Franciscans in the realization of their educational aims for the Indians in contrast to the almost complete failure of the Jesuits to attain their educational purpose, [i.e.] the educa­ tion of the Indian "in the French manner." In the experience of these religious orders, issues of Indian education which are highly controversial even today were taking shape. "Shall the Indian be trained in the white man's civilization or as the perpetuator of the best of his own culture?" "Shall he be educated in his own community or at a point distant from his people?" "How shall the responsi­ bility for his training be divided between church and state?"

Spicer (1962) also contrasts the work and the methods of the

missionaries of the two religious Orders, but in sociolinguistic terms.

His monumental work, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico,

and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, ex­

amines the contact conditions and influences resultina from the conquest

of the Indians of the Southwest by the three successive conquerors, the

Spaniards, the Mexicans, and the Anglo-Americans. The Spanish-speaking

Jesuits were responsible for the recording of many Indian languages.

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Not only was a time allowance provided on location for native language

study, these missionaries were required to learn Nahuatl, the language

of Central Mexico. It was important that they arrive on the mission

field speaking other than Castilian Spanish. The knowledge of Nahuatl

facilitated their learning of the languages of Sonora and Chihuahua,

which they recorded, and was helpful in their efforts to compile vocabu­

laries and grammatical analyses of local dialects for incoming mission­

aries. The Franciscan missionaries were satisfied to move up from Old

Mexico into the new territory in small bands carrying converted Indian

families with them as interpreters. Spicer observes that (1962:327-28):

It was recognized by the Jesuits that effective preaching and teaching depended not only on training children in Spanish and de­ veloping interpreters, but on missionaries themselves learning the Indian languages. There is good evidence that the Jesuits sought to make all missionaries proficient in whatever language was spoken by the people among whom they worked. . . . In New Mexico the Franciscans never placed as much store in this technique as the basis for preaching and teaching. The Franciscans did not produce studies of the Eastern or Western Pueblo languages and obviously did not work in them as systematically as the Jesuits did in their areas. . . . [I]n the early 1700's the dominant indi­ viduals in the Franciscan hierarchy had formulated a definite policy of eliminating the native languages as quickly as possible. It be­ came the policy to have missionaries use exclusively the Spanish language and to prohibit Indians from using the native language in their presence. In other words, in order to gain an understanding of Christianity it was believed necessary that they gain an under­ standing of Spanish— a principle at complete odds with the Jesuit contention that Christianity could be taught in any language and was best learned in one's native language. The Franciscans in this manner increasingly set up barriers between themselves and the bulk of the Indian population. When the Jesuits were expelled, this left missionary work entirely in the hands of the Franciscans and hence the employment of native languages in teaching and preaching lapsed.

Despite their superior understanding of the importance of com­

municating with the natives in their own language, the Spanish-speaking

Jesuits never made friends with the Indians. Unlike the French-speaking

Jesuits in the northeastern part of the continent, the Spanish Jesuit

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Order was an authoritarian, non-democratic, bureaucratic organization

pyramiding up from missionaries to a single head of the Order at Rome

(Spicer 1962:293). This may account in part for the expulsion of its

missionaries from the Southwest in 1767. The reason for the detail in

these historical sketches resides in the fact that the experiments and

the experiences are a recurrent theme in the administration of federally-

sponsored Indian education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This will become more apparent as this study progresses. The victors

in the conquest of the continent were the Anglo-Americans. A very brief

note on the English Colonial period and colonization east of the Missis­

sippi will follow; however, details of significant Protestant-related,

selective educational experiments will be reserved for the discussion of

mission schools.

The Anglo-Saxon period of colonization in the New World also

began on a religious note. The Charter of James I, issued to the Vir­

ginia Company on April 10, 1606, commended the group on its

Desires for the furtherance of so noble a Work, . . . in propagating the Christian Religion to such People as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages living in those Parts to human Civility and to a settled and quiet Government (Fletcher 1888: 23) .

A third Charter, dated March 12, 16.12, emphasized the need for "reclaim­

ing of People barbarous to Civility and Humanity."

The Protestants were dedicated to the cause of Christianizing

and civilizing the Indians, but the British government had no such inter­

est. Unlike Spain and France, Great Britain never considered including

colonials, anywhere, as eligible for English citizenship. "Throughout

the period preceding the formation of the United State," writes Spicer

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(1962:344), "the British failed to conceive of an empire which would in­

clude the Indians as an integral part of its citizenship." England

dealt with the Indians of North America as individual nations from whom

it procured land and resources by treaty, purchase, or conquest and with

whom it negotiated in the interest of its settlers.

The English colonial period was complicated in its relationships

with the Indians because of the interlacing of diverse economic, politi­

cal, and religious interests. Adams (1946:14-15, 24) analyzed the situ­

ation thusly:

The differing religious and political leanings and the varying economic interests of the English colonists roughly divided the In­ dian education program into three parts. The southern provinces of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia which were agricultural, were occupied mainly by Anglicans and Royalists. New England, which lay in the region of the fur trade, was settled by the Puritan supporters of Cromwell. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, which were also within the fur trading region, were settled by Anglicans, Puritans, and other religious bodies. All the colonists wanted land on which to establish homes, and the encroachment of settlement frequently provoked Indian resentment and armed protest that ended local pro­ grams in education.

The first concern for Indian education per se began in Virginia.

Support for religious and secular training was, for the most part, a

philanthropic enterprise within the private sphere; however, according

to Morris (1954:17), the Virginia Company offered ten pounds (£10) for

each Indian child taught in a private home. As a total investment, this

was minimal, as was participation in the project, because Indian families

are traditionally averse to separating their children from the family for

educational purposes. The most celebrated instance was that of teacher

John Rolfe, friend of Captain John Smith, who tutored Chief Powhatan's

daughter, Pocahontas, whom he later married.

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Although the first Assembly of the Virginia Colony which met in

the choir loft of the church at James City (later Jamestown), July 30,

1619, had "made provision for the protection of the Indians from injury

and injustice" (Fletcher 1888:25), the settlers pressed for more land,

"failing to consider that the savage occupant of the soil was a man hav­

ing a sense of right and wrong, and believing in self-protection as fully

as his white neighbors" (Fletcher 1888:25). The tenuous peace main­

tained by the Smith-Powhatan-Rolfe friendship and marriage alliance went

undisturbed until Chief Powhatan's death, which was followed by an up­

rising instigated by his brother in 1622 (Adams 1946:15-16). Reflecting

on the total situation, ethnologist Alice Fletcher writes (1388:25-26):

The Indians, finding their claims to fair dealing frequently set at naught, their lands appropriated to strangers, and their lives threatened, counselled how they might rid the country of a people who threatened destruction to the original inhabitants. Open battle was unknown to them. Ambuscade and surprise were bred of the forest experience. Viewing the circumstances from the native's standpoint it is not surprising that the Indians determined to exterminate the English; nor is the manner in which it was attsnpted strange, even in the history of our own race. At the same time of day on March 22, 1622, three hundred and forty-seven colonists fell at the hands of the Indians. . . . The massacre of . . . 1622, put an end to many friendly relations and projects. The Indians were disenfranchised, and the races be­ came irreconcilably opposed to each other; henceforth the laws of war became the defense of covetousness.

These oppressive conditions could only breed grievances and de­

spair among the Indian tribes. Generally speaking, for Whites, Indians

were Indians, tribal membership notwithstanding. And whereas, among

Indians, tribal alliances based on kinship and marriage were not uncom­

mon, inter-tribal coalitions in terms of an open warfare military organi­

zation for mutual protection against a common enemy (the colonists) were

as difficult for the Indian mind to perceive them as would have been the

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concept of Indianness in the 1950s in the United States. Hostility and

warfare between the Indians and the settlers spread. The peace that was

finally accomplished by the Virginia Assembly in October 1646 provided,

in part, that: (1) the Chief(s) acknowledge that his title and land came

from the King of England; (2) that a yearly tribute of 20 beaver skins be

paid "at the time of the going away of the geese"; (3) that Indian chil­

dren under 12 be permitted to live with the English; (4) that Englishmen

be forbidden to hunt in Indian territory; (5) that under penalty of

death, Englishmen were prohibited from entertaining or concealing an

Indian, restrained from killing any Indian messenger— identifiable by

striped coats provided them from Fort Royal in the North and Fort Henry

in the South (Fletcher 1888:27).

Despite some safeguard in English Law, as the Colonies grew

stronger, the Indian tribes grew weaker in their ability to resist en­

croachment by the pioneers. One price of the intermittent hostility was

the decreasing interest in education for the Indians. Adams (1946:16)

recounts that from 1622 to 1693, "education was provided only for chil­

dren held as hostages or taken into homes as slaves." On this point,

Fletcher (1888:28) quotes from the Statutes of Virginia among the Laws

enacted by the Assembly, March 1656:

If the Indians shall bring in any children as gages of theire good and quiet intentions to us and amity with us, then the parents of such children shall choose the persons to whom the care of such children shall be intrusted and the countrey by us theire represen­ tatives do engage that wee will not use them as slaves, but do theire best to bring them up in Christianity, civility and the knowledge of necessary traders; and on the report of the Commissioner of each respective countrey that those under whose tuition they are, do really intend the bettering of the children in these particulars, then a salary shall be allowed to such men as shall deserve and require it.

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The colonies grew stronger. By 1653, they were demanding hos­

tages from the Potomaks and northern tribes "to be civilly treated" and

"brought up in English literature" (Fletcher 1888:29). By 1679, it had

become legal to enslave Indians. Again reporting from the Statutes of

Virginia, Fletcher (1888:31) quotes tne law which declares who shall be

accounted slaves:

Whether Negroes, Moors, Molattoes or Indians, who and whose parentage and native country are not Christians at the time of their first purchase of such servant by some Christian, although after­ wards, and before such their importation and bringing into this country, they shall be converted to the Christian faith, and all Indians which shall hereafter be sold by our neighboring Indians, or any other traficing with us for slaves are hereby adjudged, deemed and taken to be slaves to all intents and purposes, any law, usage, or custome to the contrary notwithstanding.

The acts for the enslavement of Indians and the legal restraints

on trade proved to be disadvantageous economically to the colonial mer­

chants; and by 1691, all trade restrictions were removed. Thereafter it

was lawful to trade "at all times and all places with all Indians whatso­

ever" (Fletcher 1888:31). At the same time (1691), the Virginia Colony

Assembly made illegal any marriage between a white person and an Indian

and, in 1695, declared that all children should follow the condition of

the mother whether bond or free. The latter act, as well as the slavery

acts of 1676-1679, was mainly directed at Negroes in the Colony; conse­

quently the 1691 trade restriction repeal legislation became the basis

for an 1808 Supreme Court decision to the effect "That no native American

Indian brought into Virginia since the year 1691 could, under any circum­

stances, be lawfully made a slave" (Fletcher 1888:31-32). Of course, in

Virginia as elsewhere, there were Indians who were never enslaved because

they were never captured.

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The Maryland area of the seventeenth century was inhabited by

local tribes whose peace and security were ofttimes threatened by more

powerful tribes in the vicinity; therefore, the Anglican and Roman Cath­

olic settlers were acceptable as possible protectors. It is reported

that the favorable treatment of the aboriginal population, including the

purchase of desired lands by the settlers, was probably related to the

philosophical and the Christianizing efforts of the Jesuit missionaries

(Oswalt 1973:56.). It is a fact that the Maryland Colony charter of

1632 was described as "being animated with a laudable and pious zeal for

extending the Christian Religion"; therefore, the early relations between

the colonists and the Indians were amicable (Fletcher 1888:36-38). The

Indian women taught the English women the art of bread-making from

maize, and the Indian men shared with the English men their vast knowl­

edge of where and how to scout the forest for game and even joined them

in the chase. The increasing number of settlers was attended by unfair

dealings and the usurpation of Indian lands. The Indian hostility that

resulted prompted the Maryland Assembly to enact various laws to protect

the Indians, including one in 1704 to prohibit trespassing and timber

cutting on Indian land. Nevertheless, relations continued to deteriorate.

By 1711, the Nanticoke Indians were confined to a reservation; and by

1717, Indians, slave or free, were declared incompetent to give evidence

in court. So despite more favorable initial contacts between the races

in Colonial Maryland, the situation, in the final analysis, was little

different from Colonial Virginia. "The Indian's claims to his land were

in a measure verbally respected by the law," concludes Fletcher (1888:

38) ,

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but he was manoeuvered out of it, and the law evaded. The person of the Indian was liable to capture and slavery, and he was disqual­ ified from civilized pursuits and remanded to hunting wolves and bringing pelts to the trader. Little or no effort was made for his education. During the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries we read of no schools being founded for the benefit of the natives.

It was not be be expected that fairness to the aboriginal popu­

lation would characterize the behavior of the Virginia and Maryland

settlers because, for the most part, they came to the New World to seek

their fortunes. The pledge of concern for the spread of Christianity

among the Indians was little more than a directive from the Mother

Country as a condition for the granting of the colonizing Charter. It

is now evident, however, that history has greatly romanticized the dedi­

cation and commitment of the New England colonists with regard to their

desire to treat the Indians like brothers. That commitment was short­

lived.

When the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock (1620) and the Puritans of

Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629) met the Atlantic Indian tribes of the

Algonkin-speaking family, there seems to have been, at the outset, some

mutual interest in amity (Wissler 1966:68-84; Underhill 1971:74-82;

Oswalt 1973:560-62). Wissler states that there is archaeological evi­

dence that the Massachusetts-Rhode Island-Connecticut area of New Eng­

land was fully inhabited along the seacoast in prehistoric times; but by

historic times, the Algonkin tribes had retired into the forests where

their principal foods were wild game and maize from their gardens supple­

mented by occasional trips to the sea to fish. The New England tribes

and villages listed by Wissler as being associated with the English set­

tlements were Abnaki, Penobscot, Massachuset, Poktumtuk, Pequot, Wam-

panoag, Narraganset, Mahican, and Mohegan. Among the friendly Indians

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coming out from the forest to greet the Pilgrims were Squanto and Chief

Massosoit of the Wampanoag confederation. From the friendly Indians,

the settlers learned to plant corn fertilized with fish heads; the art of

clambake, corn pone, planked shad, and beans cooked for 24 hours in a

warm place without a fire. Underhill (1971:74) quotes a Plymouth Colony

journal as saying, " [W]e . . . walk as peaceably in the woods as in the

highways of England. We entertain them familiarly in our houses and

they, as friendly, bestowing their venison on us."

The Pilgrims and the Puritans came to the New World seeking free­

dom and relief from religious oppression, and the pleasant relations with

the Indians confirmed their conviction about their divine mission being

the propagation of the Gospel. They took seriously their first letter of

instructions from Governor Cradick which read:

And we trust you will not be unmindful of the main end of our plantation by endeavoring to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel; which, that it may be speedier and better effected, the earnest desire of our whole company is that you have diligent and watchful eye on our own people, that they live unblamable and with­ out reproof, and demean themselves justly and courteous towards (the Indians), thereby to draw them to affect our persons and consequently our religion; as also to endeavor to get some of their children to train up to reading, and consequently to religion whilst they are young; herein to young or old to omit no opportunity to bring them our of that woeful state and condition they are now in (Fletcher 1888:39).

Concrete evidence of the desire for exemplary behavior among

themselves occurred in 1634, when the General Court of the Colony of

Massachusetts ordered some residents in Charlestown, whose swine had

destroyed corn belonging to some Indians, to pay damages (Fletcher 1888:

40). In 1641, a body of laws was compiled prohibiting slavery except for

"lawful Captives taken in just Wars," and Fletcher declares that re­

peatedly Massachusetts’ highest courts have held that "No child born

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here since 1641 was ever held by law a slave. . . . that freedom was the

child's birthright" (Fletcher 1888:42). In 1644, the General Court

again ordered the county courts to "take care that the Indians in the

several shires shall be civilized, . . . have them instructed in the

knowledge and worship of God" (Fletcher 1888:43). However, those

noble pronouncements, the vows of friendship, and the civilizing/

Christianizing plans began to take on less significance as the colonists

sought to quiet an insatiable yearning for more farmland. On this point,

Wissler (1966:79) writes:

tLj-' might have been peaceful if the white man had been content to stay near the sea, but soon as he began to yearn for more farm­ land.- then to clear away the forest and to destroy the game. He urged the Algonkin to move back into the forest with each advance of his own, but there was a limit to the retreat of the New England Algonkin. His powerful enemies, the Iroquois, held the country west of the Hudson, so a fight to the finish was inevitable if he tried to cross that river.

To protect their homeland, the Indians fought back using ambush methods

unfamiliar to the English settlers. Many colonists began to believe

themselves to be the best of God's children and that the removal of

Satan's agents, the Indians, by whichever method, disease or warfare,

was an act of Providence on their behalf. Among the notable exceptions

to this point of view were practicing Christians such as Roger Williams,

who lived and worked among the Narraganset tribe; Thomas Mayhew of

Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket; and the missionary-educators, John

Eliot, John Sergeant, and Eleazer Wheelock. They were, by and large,

unpopular and unsupported by the new Englanders and were forced to depend

on philanthropy from old England and Scotland. It is their work and sub­

sequent denominational mission schools that presaged the federal education

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system for American Indians. These mission schools are discussed in the

next section of this background chapter.

Mission Schools: Education and Civilization

According to Clark Wissler (1940/1966:73), the archaeological

record indicates that when the first Europeans set foot on the Atlantic

seaboard, the Algonkin tribes were a Stone Age people. There is also

evidence that by the time the colonists arrived, a few of the Indians had

learned to speak some English from the British fishermen who preceded

the pilgrims and the Puritans (Morris 1954:20). Given the condition of

the tribes and the stronger religious motivation of the New England

colonists, it is not surprising that civilization, education, and reli­

gion are intertwining themes in the history of the relations of the

English settlers and the Indians in the New England states. Protes­

tantism requires that the prospective Christian be able to read and ac­

cept the Bible; therefore, from the outset, the mission task among Amer­

ican Indians involved education for literacy as well as training in

religious knowledge. The civilization emphasis entailed indoctrination

about, and preparation for, the agricultural, industrial, and trade

skills which characterize the Protestant work ethic, as well as the

Puritan ideas of "right walking" which involved a series of prohibitions

against idleness, fornication, women with loose hair or cut hair or un­

covered breasts; wife-beating, the killing of lice between one's teeth,

and other such non-niceties (Brasser 1971:78-79). In other words, the

preeminent project and process of Christianization became coincident

with the process of education and/or civilizing the aboriginal popula­

tion. For this study, three classic examples customarily mentioned in

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the literature and one little-known Methodist manual-labor school from

the early nineteenth century are illustrative.

John Eliot (1604-1690)- first boarding school

Among the first to utilize an enlightened approach to the propa­

gation of the Christian message was Essex-born, Cambridge University-

trained (class of 1623), teacher-clergyman John Eliot (1604-1690). He

journeyed to New England in 1631 and in 1632 accepted the pastorate of

the First Church at Roxbury, Massachusetts, a charge he held until his

death (Fletcher 1888:47). Pastor Eliot was of the mind that Indians

could not be persuaded to give up their "heathen ways" until they could

hear the gospel in their own language. He established a school for In­

dians in Roxbury around 1632 or 1633 and began to study the language and

customs of the tribes. He took a young man from the village of Natick

into his Roxbury home for more intensive tribal language study for pur­

poses of translation. By 1653, the Cambridge press had printed his first

Indian Catechism. Finding it impractical to print in London books for

Indians in America, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New

England sent a complete printing press with publishing equipment and

supplies to the New England colony in 1653. Eliot's published transla­

tions during the next 36 years included two editions of the Catechism,

two editions of the Bible (3,000 copies, plus 500 extra copies of the

New Testament); an edition of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted (1,000

copies), the Psalter (500 copies); an Indian Grammar, and several edi­

tions each of The Practice of Piety and an Indian Primer (Fletcher 1888:

48-56). Regarding Eliot's Bible translation, Oswalt (1975:23) writes:

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The first landmark in American Indian linguistics was the publica­ tion in 1653 of a Bible which had been translated into Massachuset, an Algonkian language, by the missionary John Eliot; in 1666 he published an Algonkian grammar.

The teaching and preaching visits of John Eliot and his friends

to Nonatum, a settlement of Indians near Roxbury, in the fall of 1646

were so well received that by December, the Indians under the leadership

of Chief Waban (whose son was being educated at an English school) "of­

fered all their children to be instructed by the English, and lamented

their inability to pay anything for their education" (Fletcher 1888:49).

Moreover, the General Court of Massachusetts Colony provided a tract of

land and some public funds which Eliot used to provide agricultural imple­

ments to encourage farming; to induce the building of ditches, walls, and

better wigwams; and to promote the learning of trades. About this initial

venture in education, civilization, and Christianization, Fletcher (1888:

49) wrote:

Among the articles they carried to market for sale were brooms, staves, baskets, cranberries and fish. The women learned to spin, and Eliot took it upon himself to see that they were supplied with spinning wheels. The Indians desired a form of civil government, and the General Court ordered that one or more of the magistrates appointed should hold a court quarterly and adjudicate all civil and criminal causes, not being capital, concerning Indians only; and that the sachems were empowered to bring any of their people before his court. They aiso held among themselves a monthly court for the trial of inferior causes. . . . (A)11 fines collected were to be used for building school-houses or for other purposes of public benefit.

Fletcher(1888:50) points out that Eliot's successes generated little

sympathetic support from the colonists:

The people near at hand ridiculed his schemes and sought to thwart all measures for the protection of Indians by contemptuous treatment and injustice in trade. . . . In religious matters the English re­ sented the recognition of a church composed of natives. It was deemed derogatory to English pride, self-respect, and the dignity of

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Puritan institutions, and as tending toward an equality not to be welcomed.

Nevertheless, John Eliot persisted. London philanthropists supported

him; and, in 1649, the British Parliament established the Society for

the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. In 1652, the Massachusetts

General Court enacted an order which provided that

any Indians who became civilized might acquire land by allotment in the white settlements on the same terms as the English. . . . [and] [W]hen a competent number of Indians shall be capable of a township, upon their request unto the General Court they shall have grants of land . . . for a plantation as the English have.

Under the ordinance, Eliot took a small colony of Indians and established

the town of Natick according to the following procedure (Fletcher 1888:

50-51):

Three wide streets were laid out, one on the south and two on the north side of the Charles River. An arched foot-bridge, resting upon wooden abutments weighted with stone, was thrown across the stream. The bridge was 80 feet long and 8 feet high, and proved to be a substantial structure. Separate lots were set off for each family, and each dwelling was to have a garden patch. Orchards were planted, clearings made, and fields cultivated, and all of these were inclosed by wooden or stone fences. The meeting-house was 50 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 12 feet high. It was built of square timber, hewn by the Indians under the supervision of John Eliot, and carried on their shoulders from the forest to the building site. All the work was done by Indian labor, except two days service by an English carpenter. The house was two stories; the lower served as a school room on week days and as a place for worship on Sunday. The upper room was used by the Indians to store their pelts and other salable articles; one corner was partitioned off as the missionary's apartment. A circular palisade, flanked by a ditch, surrounded the meeting-house, making it a kind of fortress. . . . The form of government chosen by the Indians under John Eliot's in­ fluence was that proposed by Jethro to the Israelites. Accordingly they met together and chose one ruler of a hundred, two rulers of fifties, and ten rulers of tens. . . . In the school and in the homes industries were taught. The girls learned to spin and weave, and cleanliness was exacted in all houses. The boys became carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths. Basket-weaving and the making of shingles and clapboards were carried on, the people having built a sawmill in 1658, the third erected in America. The people became thrifty, and gathered about them horses, cattle, swine,

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and fowls. They were diligent and reverent in their attention to religious duties, attending the two services on Sunday and at other times during the week.

Indeed, they fulfilled all the requirements for civilization, but the

colonists were reluctant to accord them civilized status. Pastor Eliot

had to prevail with the White, Protestant elders to acknowledge the con­

versions of the Indians to the Christian faith and to accept duly con­

stituted churches of native members. It was not until 1660 that the

first church of Indian members was officially recognized. Daniel Gookin,

friend of John Eliot, and Massachusetts Superintendent for Indians from

1656 until his death in 16S6, was aware of these problems as revealed by

an unpublished manuscript dated December 1677 but not made public until

1836. Wrote Gookin (Fletcher 1888:45-46):

. . . (R)ooted race prejudice stirred the English blood. Their [the Indians'] occasional assumptions of equality, induced by their com­ mon Christian profession and observances, made the Indians offensive. . . . The Indians observed and felt all these things, and it is not to be wondered at that they sometimes gave the whites reason to dread their proximity.

The financial support of the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel in New England plus the parcel of land allotted by the General

Court of Massachusetts enabled Eliot and his helpers to continue to es­

tablish colonies of converts throughout the territory. By 1674, there

were 14 towns of "Praying Indians" with an estimated aggregate popula­

tion of 1,150 Christian converts. However, at certain seasons, the popu­

lation of the villages greatly increased by the "temporary sojourn of

Indians who led a more or less wandering life" and, at every opportunity,

pastor John Eliot preached to these also (Fletcher 1888:50-53; Hailman

1904:4; Underhill 1971:77).

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In each village, there was established a community school staffed

with a bilingual teacher, usually Indian. The effort to maintain schools

for praying towns' Indian children was "hampered by the lack of competent

teachers, the Indian usually not being sufficiently versed in letters,

and few English being found with patience to learn the Indian language"

(Fletcher 1888:53). Concerning Eliot's great emphasis on education,

Daniel Gookin wrote (Fletcher 1888:54):

. . . (H)e took great care, that schools should be planted among the praying Indians; and he taught some himself to read, that they might be capable to teach others; and by his procurement, some of the choice Indian youths were put to school with English schoolmasters, to learn both the English, Latin, and Greek tongues.

He founded the first boarding school for Indians in 1654 by establishing

Indian College located at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and associated with

Harvard College. (The original charter [1638] for Harvard College, Cam­

bridge, stated as one of its objectives, "The education of the English

and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and Godliness.") Harvard

Indian College was a two-story, brick structure, 30 feet long and 20 feet

wide, and built to accommodate 20 students for lodging with study rooms.

The cost of approximately £400 was borne by the London office of the

Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. One

baccalaureate degree was conferred upon an Indian scholar, Caleb, who,

soon after, died of consumption at Charlestown. In essence, Fletcher

(1888:54-56) says that the rigorous academic program, the change to a

completely sedentary life, followed by dietary and health problems made

the classical higher education a hazardous venture for Indians. More­

over, during those days, Harvard University regulations required that

only Latin should be spoken on campus; and Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had

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to be mastered along with other studies. For Indian students, this meant

the mastery of two foreign languages— English and Latin— simply to satis­

fy the entrance requirements. Indian College was not a success, and the

building later became the Harvard University printing press.

"After a quarter of a century," summarizes Morris (1954:25),

"Eliot's work was swept away when a long series of encroachments and

abuses by white people brought on King Philip's War. The Praying Indians

were caught in the middle of this struggle. They were killed on both

sides, seized and enslaved or driven away." King Philip's War (1675-76)

was the struggle between the settlers and the Indians. King Philip, the

designated leader of the Narraganset tribe, was the son of Massasoit, the

chief of the Wampanoag tribe who had joined Squanto in welcoming the

Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620. According to Brasser (1971:79), "Four

Praying Indian Towns survived, . . . and continued for a long time in

Massachusetts." Modern Mashpee, Massachusetts, is a surviving town.

John Sergeant (1710-1749) - Education for Girls Included

Eliot's exemplary achievement was followed in 1734 by the work

of the Rev. John Sergeant (1710-1749), a Yale College tutor, who accepted

the offer by the Commissioners for the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel of £100 per year for the support of a missionary to work among

the "Moheaken or Hcusatonic Indians" living in the vicinity of the site

that became Stockbridge, Massachusetts (Fletcher 1888:90). Although John

Sergeant is mentioned in a sentence or two in other sources, viz., Hail­

man (1904:5), Morris (1954:28), and Berry (1969:9), it is Fletcher (1888)

who carries the only significantly detailed account extant of his work

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in Indian education. The reason this fact is pertinent to this study is

that Sergeant's education program included the prototype of Pratt's "out­

ing system" discussed in Chapter V of this dissertation. Because John

Sergeant seems to have been the first to sense the importance of the

education of Indian girls, and because for the most part philanthropists

of the day donated for the education of Indian boys only, he placed In­

dian girls in white families some distance from their homes but provided

classes for them at the Stockbridge school. Concerning this project, a

reporter for the Boston Post Boy, September 3, 1739, wrote (Fletcher

1888:91):

I have lately visited my friends in Stockbridge and was well pleased to find the Indians so improved. I saw several young women sewing, but I was in special gratified to find them improved in learning. Several of them have made good proficiency and can read in their Bibles, and some can write a good hand.

Regarding the significance of the education of Indian women, a friend of

Sergeant, one Dr. Coleman wrote in 1743 (Fletcher 1888:91):

Another thing suggested by Mr. Sergeant, and a most wise and necessary one in the present case, is his taking in girls as well as boys, . . . I must needs add . . . that this proposal is a matter of absolute necessity wherein we are not left at liberty either as men or Christians; for there cannot be a propagation of religion among any people without an equal regard to both sexes; not only because females are alike precious souls, formed for God and religion as much as the males, but also the care of the souls of children in families and more especially in those of low degree lies chiefly upon the mothers for the first seven or eight years.

Beginning in 1736 and continuing even after Sergeant's death in

1749 and up to the time the Stockbridge school was abandoned in 1754, a

Mr. Hollis of London (nephew of the benefactor of Harvard College) sup­

ported the educational program for young men. He regularly renewed his

request that 12 boys "be totally maintained at my expense, with food and

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raiment, education and the like" (Fletcher 1888:92). The letter accom­

panying his 1743 donation indicated some sympathetic understanding by

Hollis of the need for the education of girls but stated an unwilling­

ness for his contributions to be so utilized. The note read: "N.B. -

I would have none but boys educated for me, but it may be well if a num­

ber of girls could be educated on the account of some others" (Fletcher

1888:92).

The Indians cleared and donated 200 acres of land for a boarding

school which was built with funds from a subscription headed by the Prince

of Wales. The building was 38 by 36 feet and had "three fine rooms on

one floor and two convenient rooms besides, with a large cellar under

it" (Fletcher 1888:92-93). The Hollis benefactions at one time covered

the support for 36 Indian boys per year at the school. Fletcher points

out that by 1743, one of the first 12 Hollis students had qualified to

be a school teacher among the Indians. Several of these young men even­

tually completed their studies at Dartmouth; and the record shows one,

Jacob Nawwamptonk, to be the constable that in 1751 convened the town

meeting in Stockbridge to vote on the Rev. Jonathan Edwards as a possible

successor to the late Mr. Sergeant and to discuss his salary and the

manner of his support including arrangements for the "one-hundred slay­

loads of fire-wood" to be carried to his dwelling-house. The Indians

were to provide 80 loads and the English 20.

It is apparent that the fundamental teachings for community liv­

ing operative during Sergeant's brief years of labor as a missionary-

educator at Stockbridge persisted for approximately two decades, 1734 to

1755. At the time of his death (1749), the town of Stockbridge had an

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Indian population of 218 persons in 53 families with 20 occupying En-

glish-style homes. Timothy Woodbridge, Missionary Sergeant's assistant

and co-teacher at the school from 1735 on, reported an enrollment of 55

scholars in 1749 with an average attendance of 40. In addition to teach­

ing and the overall supervision of the educational program, John Sergeant

preached four sermons per Sunday, two in an Indian language and two in

English, and translated most of the New Testament and parts of the Old

Testament into an Indian language. Besides the Mohegans (and/or the

Mahicans), the Indians living in Stockbridge eventually included remnants

of the Mohawk, Wappingers, Matabesecs, Wvantonocs, Oneida, and Tuscarora

tribes. The pattern of one minister serving this mixed congregation of

Indians and Whites continued until the Revolutionary War, after which the

Indians were removed to Oneida territory. In the late nineteenth century,

the survivors of this multi-tribal population became known as the Stock­

bridge Indians and were living in Wisconsin (Fletcher 1888:90-94; Brasser

1971:82).

Eleazer Wheelock (1711-1779) - Moor's Charity School and Dartmouth

The third pioneer missionary-educator was Eleazer Wheelock

(1711-1779), another Yale University-trained clergyman. He founded and

operated Moor's Charity School for Indians at Lebanon, Connecticut, from

1754-1767. Not only was this school the forerunner of the multi-tribal,

non-reservation boarding school, but it also became the nucleus for

Dartmouth College established in 1769 at Dresden and finally located at

Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1770, under a special university charter

granted by John Wentworth, governor of the province and with the

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blessings of the Earl of Dartmouth for whom it was named. The Dartmouth

College Charter carried the following note concerning Wheelock and Moor's

Charity School (Fletcher 1888:94n):

The Reverend Eleazer Wheelock of Lebanon, in the Colony of Connecticut in New England aforesaid, now Doctor of Divinity, did on or about the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty- four at his own expense, on his own estate and plantation set on foot an Indian charity school, and for several years through the assistance of well-disposed persons in America, clothed, maintained and educated a number of the children of the Indian natives with a view of their carrying the gospel in their own language and spread­ ing the knowledge of the great Redeemer among their savage tribes, and hath actually employed a number of them as missionaries and school masters in the wilderness for that purpose: . . . the design reputable among the Indians insomuch that a larger number desired the education of their children in said school, and were also dis­ posed to receive missionaries and schoolmasters in the wilderness more than could be supported by the charitable contributions in these American colonies.

Moreover, the Dartmouth Charter stated that that institution was created

"for the education and instruction of youths of the Indian tribes of this

land, in reading, writing, and all parts of learning which shall appear

necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing the children

of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of

English youths and any others" (Fletcher 1888:98). Thus Moor's Charity

School and Dartmouth College were associated from the outset as parts of

a continuing concern for the promotion of Indian education, and Dartmouth

was committed to a policy of racial inclusiveness.

The school was housed in a two-story building located on two

acres of land donated by Colonel Joshua Moor, hence its name. The upper

floor was used as lodging for the boys and the lower floor as classrooms.

According to Adams (1946:18-19):

Students were enrolled from the distant Iroquois and Delaware tribes, while a few came from New England. The boys were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, English, Greek, and Latin. . . .

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Indian girls lived in English homes in the neighborhood to learn housekeeping and sewing, and went to school one day a week to learn to read and write. The girls, too, were to be missionaries and it was hoped their influence would prevent the boys from reverting to tribal ways when they returned to the people.

The school was generously supported by the Scotch Society for Propagating

Christian Knowledge; therefore, missionary training was stressed. In

Fletcher's opinion (1888:95), Wheelock believed that:

The most feasible plan of educating the Indians . . . to be one in which educated natives should unite with foreigners in giving instruction, and . . . the girls should be trained in home employ­ ments. Among the reasons assigned in favor of this scheme were the deep-seated prejudice against the English occasioned by sharp and unjust bargains; the greater usefulness and less expense of native missionaries; their better understanding of Indian temper and cus­ toms; the respect and attention they would command; the friendship which would arise between the scholars of different tribes and ex­ tend through them to their families; the assistance they would be to English missionaries; the absence of difficulties in matters of lan­ guage; and the uselessness of attempting English schools in many regions.

Accordingly, in 1762, a progress report by Wheelock on his school for the

period December 18, 1754, to November 27, 1762, delineated some features

of his educational program that presaged certain curriculum objectives

and enrollment practices present in nineteenth and twentieth century

planning for Indian education. Excerpts from the account carried by

Fletcher (1888:96) follow:

. . . And for some time I have had twenty-five, three of the number English youth. One of the Indian lads, Jacob Wooley, is now in his last year at New Jersey College [Princeton University] .... Two others are sent here by the Rev. Mr. [David] Brainerd, and are designed for trades; one for a blacksmith (a trade much wanted among the Indians), and is to go to his apprenticeship as soon as a good place is ready for him; the other designed for a carpenter and joiner, and learned to read and write. . . . Several of my scholars are considerably well accomplished for schoolmasters, and seven or eight will likely be well fitted for interpreters in a few years more. And four of this number are girls, whom I have hired women in this neighborhood to instruct in all the arts of good housewifery, they attending the school one day a week to be instructed in writing,

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etc., will they shall be fit for an apprenticeship, to be taught to make men's and women's apparel, etc., in order to accompany these boys, when they shall have occasion for such assistance in the busi­ ness of their mission. And six of them are Mohawks, obtained pursuant and according to the direction of the honorable General Assembly of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and are learning to speak, write, and read English: And the most of them make good proficiency therein.

Among the 62 Indian scholars under Wheelock's tutelage during the Lebanon

period of the existence of Moor's Charity School, 1754-1767, were 18

women. Moreover, two of the male Indian leaders, Joseph Brant, Mohawk,

and Samson Occom, became internationally known. Being the brother of

the Indian wife of Sir William Johnson (Superintendent of Indian Affairs

for New York and noted Anglican), Joseph Brant (1742-1807) had educa­

tional opportunities in America and England; but for his own sons, he

chose the Wheelock school in "grateful remembrance of the founder, . . .

to whom, under God, he owed his elevation above the savage" (Fletcher

1888:100). Joseph Brant was chief of the Mohawks; became an officer in

the British Army during a visit to England in the early period of the

Revolutionary War; and, in due course, was elevated to the chieftianship

of the entire confederacy of the Six Nations. The Reverend Samson Occom

(1723-1792) became a dynamic preacher; and, when the Charity School fell * upon hard times, young Oc'-’o m accompanied the Reverend Nathaniel Whittaker

to England and Scotland on a fund-raising campaign. Samson Occom at­

tracted tremendous crowds in the principal cities, preached between 300

and 400 sermons during his visit from February 1766 to July 1767, and

was responsible for the collection of some £12,000 for Indian education

and civilization in the American colonies. A London board of trustees,

with the Earl of Dartmouth as chairman, was created to manage the £9,000

collected in England while the £3,000 solicited in Scotland was deposited

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with the Scotch Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. Both

funds were used over the years for Indian education through the Moor's

Charity School/Dartmouth College complex up through 1922. Dartmouth's

most distinguished alumnus was Dr. Charles A. Eastman, Sioux, Class of

1887.1

From Colonial times to the period of the political and economi-

cally-expedient Removal Act of 1830, the credit for the abiding (non-

Indian) concern for the educational welfare of Indians must go to the

Church with its institutions, its resources, and its small corps of

practicing Christians commanding the attention of private philanthropy.

This study does not cover the work of the renowned Choctaw Academy (1825-

1842) and other efforts of American Indians in their own behalf.

For a period during Removal, all schools for Indians were sus­

pended; but the American Board for Foreign Missions merely turned its

educational work in the direction of field investigations to compile

information that would aid the denominations in school planning whenever

their work could be resumed. The suggested pattern that emerged was the

combination of academic training and practical arts or the manual-labor

school.

First Manual-Labor School - 1839

The Methodist Episcopal Church established the first Indian

Manual-Labor School west of the Mississippi in 1839 at the Fort Leaven­

worth Indian Agency district "near the mouth of the Kansas river, and

the western line of the State of Missouri, in the country of the Shaw-

nees" (Indian Commissioner's Annual Report, 1840-44:19). Pertinent

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passages from the report by Commissioner T. Hartley Crawford to the

Secretary of War, the Hon. J. R. Poinsett under the date, November 28,

1840, follow:

The progress made in building up this place of education is very gratifying. Two three-story brick buildings have been erected, and are nearly finished; one of which is intended for the farmer, and the other to receive the male pupils; a third, for the females is under way. There are also houses for the principal of the school and the blacksmith, and a blacksmith's shop, barn, stables, &c.; and between five and six hundred acres of land are under fence and in cultivation, that yielded during the past season an abundant crop, from which it was thought sales to the amount of $1,500 might be made this fall. The spirit manifested in thus reclaiming the wild woods has been extended to much more important work ofmental cul­ ture. There are now some fifty scholars at this school, in about equal proportion of boys and girls; the former run from six to eighteen years of age, and give decided evidence of remarkable improvement. They can nearly all read, many can compose and write sentences, and a number are acquainted with the rule of three. They are taught out of school to split wood, plough, mow, &c.; and, when all the appli­ ances are ready for use, will learn the mechanic arts. The girls have made the same average progress in letters and aretaught the various branches of housewifery. I have great pleasure in making this statement, as furnishing the strongest evidence I have yet seen of the probability of success, after all our failures, . . . to work a change in Indian habits and modes of life; while it is con­ clusive proof that these sons of the forest are our equals in capacity. It shall be my business, as it is my duty, to extend to this promising, . . . flourishing institution, all the aid the department can legally render. When the outline of the plan shall be filled up, it is supposed 200 scholars can be accommodated, at a yearly expense not exceeding $70 each. The institution is so very popular, that applications for admission have been, and are, constantly rejected from necessity, the accommodations being now rather too contricted for those who are there. They are well clothed and well fed, and their proficiency shows they are well instructed.

The school was situated in Shawnee territory, but it was a multi-

tribal enterprise. At the close of the first year of its operation, the

records showed that 72 children from ten different tribes had been in

regular attendance for one month or more. They came from the following

tribes: Shawnee - 27; Delaware - 16; Peoria - 8; Pottawatomi - 7;

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Kansas - 5; Kickapoo - 3; Chippewa - 2; Grosventre - 1; Munsee - 1; and

Osage - 1. During that first academic year, 1839-40, there were 49 full­

time students in the two schools— 24 boys in the male school and 25 girls

in the female school. Based on time of registration and achievement,

each school was divided into four classes (grades). Under the date of

September 18, 1840, the teachers reported their progress as follows

(Supplement, Commissioners's Annual Report, 1840-44:147):

st In the Male School 1— class - 8 read very intelligibly in English, are well ac­ quainted with first rules in arithmetic, the geography of the United States, and answer questions readily on the globe. 2— class -6 spell and read easy lessons, and have a tolerable knowledge of the first tables in arithmetic. 3£^ class - 9 spell in two syllables, read easy lessons, and have learned a number of useful tables. 4£*1 class - 1 Chippewa just commences, but can read a little. , In the Female School s t -- 1— class - 5 read well in English, are familiar with the tables and first rules of arithmetic, and also with the geography of the United States. 2™^ class - 6 read easy lessons, and can draw maps of the United States in a rough way. 3£^. class - 11 spell tolerably well, read easy lessons, have learned many useful tables, and can answer some simple questions in natural philosophy. 4 ^ class - three just begin [sic] to read.

In submitting the required report to Major R. W. Cummins, Indian

Agent for the Fort Leavenworth agency, the Methodist superintending com­

mittee discussed program details and plans, and expressed confidence in

the experiment. The document reads in part:

We now have house-room for about 80, and have told the Indians that we will take that number in next month. They have frequently in­ quired of us, lately, to know when we could take more children; we anticipate no difficulty in procuring any number that we can find room for. The children are employed six hours a day at work, and six hours at school. The boys worked on the farm until this time, though we now have two mechanic shops in operation, and shall put a part of the boys in them at the beginning of the next session. The girls

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have been employed during the past year, when not in school, at sundry things— attending to the domestic part of the institution, &c. We have not yet had house-room sufficient to make arrangements for them to be employed in spinning and weaving, but expect to do so. The children work readily. The girls, under the direction of their teachers, do all the cooking and work for the whole school, for about twenty mechanics and other hands employed at the institu­ tion, make their own clothes, the clothes for the boys, and also frequently make clothes for the mechanics and others. We have four teachers employed— two to teach the children when in school, and two to teach them when at work; a farmer, who takes charge of the farm and stock; and his wife superintends the cooking; and also a principal of the institution, but, as he is a practical mechanic, his time has been chiefly employed in conducting the build­ ing during the past year. The crop on the farm has been very good during the past year. We suppose that we have raised about 2,000 bushels of wheat, 4,000 bushels of oats, 3,500 bushels of corn, 500 bushels of potatoes, with a reasonable portion of other vegetables. We have about 130 cattle, 100 hogs, and 5 horses. . . . [We believe the school] . . . is much better adapted to the wants of the Indians in this part of the country than any other plan yet tried (Supplement, Commissioner's Annual Report, 1840-44:148).

For complete, reliable information, Commissioner Crawford did not

depend solely on the reports of his agents nor those in charge of the

Manual-Labor School. He sent an independent investigator to make an un­

announced, informal visit to the school to observe and evaluate the work.

The full report of John B. Luce to the Hon. T. Hartley Crawford on

November 11, 1840, is carried in Appendix A. It is also interesting to

note that the Secretary of War, J. R. Poinsett, not only read the offi­

cial narrative report from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to his

superior but the accompanying documents as well. The Commissioner's An­

nual Report carried a potpourri of documents from school staff reports,

territorial superintendents' reports, to letters and special communica­

tions regarding Indian affairs. This fact is significant for this dis­

sertation because it is in this historical period that the first refer­

ence is found regarding the use of an abandoned military post for

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educational purposes. It appears that one Captain William Armstrong,

Superintendent of the Western Territory, had written Commissioner Craw­

ford suggesting that the abandoned army barracks at Fort Coffee would be

an ideal location for a second manual-labor school. On July 11, 1840,

Crawford's reply (see Appendix B) was not only one of enthusiastic agree­

ment with Captain Armstrong, but also carried a detailed outline of

program, procedure, even precautions related to the venture. Secretary

of War Poinsett picked up on this interchange in his report to President

Martin Van Buren and the 26th Congress. That portion of Secretary

Poinsett's message dealing with this issue is quoted from the Congres­

sional Globe, December 4, 1840 (Vol. IX, 1841:13):

. . . Convinced that, if any great and general reform is ever to be effected among the Indians, it must be by means of education, every exertion has been made to promote it; . . . b y adapting a system intended to embrace the establishment of primary schools over the whole Indian territory, and of institutions of a higher order at suitable points, designated with a view to the convenience of the Indians, and of easy access. Fort Coffee, on the Arkansas river, which has been abandoned as a military post, has been selected for one of these establishments. This situation possesses very decided advantages; and the system by which it is proposed to improve them has my full approbation. For the details of the plan, I refer to the accompanying report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and particularly to his instructions for carrying it into effect, ad­ dressed to the Superintendent of the Western Territory.

In the same presentation, the Secretary made laudatory mention of the

Methodist Episcopal Church. "While on this subject [education],1' averred

Poinsett,

it affords me great gratitude to be able to speak in terms of merited praise of the Methodist manual labor school in the Shawnee country. The labors of that sect, so distinguished for their Christian zeal in the cause of Indian civilization, are likely to be crowned with success; . . . The Department would be happy to promote similar es­ tablishments on the part of other religious sects, equally zealous, . . . and equally disposed to advance their moral culture (Congres­ sional Globe, Vol. IX, 1841:13).

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By 1844, the abandoned army barracks at Fort Coffee, Arkansas, had been

assigned to the Methodists and a second manual-labor school had been es­

tablished in two units: Fort Coffee Academy for Boys and New Hope Academy

for Girls. The government had become serious about the business of In­

dian education and was seeking a partnership with the church, for there

was no choice but to rely on the experience and expertise of religious

organizations for their interest in "civilization through education"

dated back to sixteenth-century Indian-White contact and the well-trained,

understanding Jesuit missionaries from Europe.

Conclusions

From these early efforts, we can draw at least ten conclusions

that have significance for The Carlisle Indian School.

First, the documentary evidence from John Eliot (1646) to the

Methodist Manual-Labor School (1840) strongly suggests that some Indian

parents had a sincere desire to give their children an English-type

education.

Second, Indians were serious about contributing substantially to

the support of their own education as evidenced by their willingness to

donate and clear land for building and assist with building construction

and teacher support.

Third, there was great interest in the White Man's industrial

skills— carpentry, masonry, blacksmithing, spinning, weaving, etc.

Fourth, the Indian community was gratified with the trained In­

dians who returned to assist their own people as bilingual teachers and

interpreters.

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Fifth, the more gifted Indian youths were given special prepara­

tion, encouragement, and financial support for higher education in Amer­

ica and Europe.

Sixth, there was an interest in the education of Indian girls as

early as 1739 (the school at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, under John

Sergeant).

Seventh, there were groups of Indians who were not averse to in­

corporating selected features of the English life style into their own

mode of living.

Eighth, the precursors of Pratt's "outing system" and the multi-

tribal, non-reservation boarding school with the English language as its

lingua fvansa existed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America

prior to the founding of Carlisle Indian School in 1879 or the Indian

advanced education program introduced at Hampton Institute in 1878.

Ninth, missionaries, generally, did not denigrate the tribal

languages but followed a bilingual policy in education.

Tenth, officialdom— that is, high level government officials— and

religious workers harbored kindred concern for the education of Indians as

human beings. But for the pioneer (the settler), education was a device

for teaching the Indian how to get along with less land— thus leaving

more land for White settlement purposes. Such an attitude could only

lead to a program of forced acculturation. The federal government's

journey in this direction is the subject of the latter third of this

chapter.

The Government, Indians, Civilisation, and Education

Official Indian policy in the United States can be divided,

roughly speaking, into five periods: (1) the treaty period— 17"’8-1871,

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(2) the reservation period— 1871-1887, (3) the allotment-citizenship

period— 1887-1934, (4) the reorganization period— 1934-1953, and (5) the

self-determination period— 1953 to the present. The historical records

show that during each of the first three periods education has been used

as a tool to interpret, implement, rationalize, and/or justify public

policy in Indian affairs. In the foregoing pages, the record also shows

that the educational need of Indians has been the one problem area in

which the public, through the years, has shown sincere interest, marked

sensitivity, and great responsiveness. Inasmuch as British philanthropy

had sustained the mission schools prior to the Revolutionary War, it is

understandable that the cause of Indian education would suffer during the

War and the years immediately following the establishment of the American

republic. Official recognition of the revived interest in the education

of Indians came only in the first session of the 15th Congress of the

United States when on January 22, 1818, the House Committee on Indian

Affairs reported (American State Papers, Vol, 11:151):

We are induced to believe that nothing which it is in the power of Government to do would have a more direct tendency to produce this desirable object (civilization) than the establishment of schools at convenient and safe places amongst the tribes friendly to us. . . . I n the present state of our country one of two things seems to be necessary. Either that those sons of the forest should be moralized or exterminated. Humanity would rejoice at the former, but shrink with horror from the latter. Put into the hands of their children the primer and the hoe, and they will naturally, in time, take hold of the plow, and as their minds become enlightened and expand the Bible will be their book, and they will grow up in the habits of morality and industry, leave the chase to those whose minds are less cultivated, and become useful members of society. The committee believe that increasing the number of trading-posts, and establishing schools on or near our frontiers for the education of Indian children, would be attended with beneficial effects both to the United States and the Indian tribes, and the best possible means of securing the friendship of those nations in amity with us,

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and, in time, to bring the hostile tribes to see that their true interest lies in peace and not in war; . . .

With obvious economic and political policy implications, the second ses­

sion of the 15th Congress, on March 3, 1819, enacted legislation to pro­

vide "for the civilization of the Indian tribes adjoining the frontier

settlements" (United States Statutes at Large, Vol. 3:516-17). As passed,

the act authorized the President to employ persons to ? nstruct Indians

and carried the first general appropriation for Indian education:

Be it enacted by the Senate and the Bouse of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled, That for the purpose of provid­ ing against the further decline and final extinction of the Indian tribes, adjoining the frontier settlements of the United States, and for introducing among them the habits and arts of civilization, the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized, in every case where he shall judge improvement in the habits and con­ dition of such Indians as practicable, and that the means of instruc­ tion can be introduced with their own consent, to employ capable persons of good moral character, to instruct them in the mode of agriculture suited to their situation; and for teaching their chil­ dren in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and performing such other duties as may be enjoined, according to such instructions and rules as the President may give and prescribe for the regulation of their conduct in the discharge of their duties. Sec. 2 And be it further enacted, That the annual sum of ten thou­ sand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this act; and an account of the expenditure of the money, and proceedings in execution of the foregoing provisions, shall be laid annually before Congress.

Given the fact of Indian title to the Western territory, a central tenet

of the Government's Indian policy was that of encouraging the native

American to become "civilized" settled farmers, thereby requiring less

land for their livelihood; consequently, more land would be available

for White Americans.

Concerned for the most prudent use of the Civilization Fund,

President James Monroe addressed a circular letter to those individuals

and societies, primarily missionary organizations, "that had been

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prominent in the effort to civilize the Indians, offering the coopera­

tion of the Government in their various enterprises" (Cohen 1942:240).

The letter, dated September 19, 1819, read, in part:

. . . [I]t will be indispensable, in order to apply any portion of the sum appropriated in the manner proposed, that the plan of educa­ tion, in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, should, in the instruction of boys, extend to the practical knowledge of the mode of agriculture, and of such mechanic arts as are suited to the condition of the Indians; and in that of the girls, to spinning, weaving, and sewing. It is also indispensable that the establish­ ment should be fixed within the limits of those Indian nations who border on our settlements. Such associations or individuals who are already actually engaged in educating the Indians, and who may desire the cooperation of the Government, will report to the Department of War . . . (American State Papers, 11:459).

It should be noted here that the use of military force to control In­

dians was also an aspect of United States government policy in Indian

affairs. The new Constitution, Article I, Section 8, in 1789, conferred

upon Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and

among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Congress, in

turn, delegated that power to the newly created War Department and ap­

propriated money to defray the expenses of an Indian Department. It was,

therefore, entirely appropriate that, in 1819, President Monroe should

assign to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun the responsibility for the

administration of the Civilization Act and therewith the supervision of

the Civilization Fund.

In his capacity as overseer of Indian affairs, Secretary Calhoun

displayed remarkable perception with regard to the limitations of the

Civilization Fund in meeting the educational needs of Indian children.

For example, on March 19, 1819, following the passage of the Civilization

Act, he wrote Michigan territory Governor Lewis Cass and, anticipating

Chippewa land cessions, urged him (Cass) to try to persuade the Chippewas

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to have the annuity set aside for the support of schools for their chil­

dren rather than request a regular cash payment to the nation. Governor

Cass was successful, and henceforth "it became the policy of the govern­

ment to place in removal treaties, . . . provisions for paying a part of

their annuities in support of schools or setting certain lands to be sold 2 (and) the money placed in a permanent school fund" (Layman 1942:131).

Thus, in addition to the Civilization Fund, substantial sums of money

and tracts of land were reserved for Indian education by the tribes them­

selves as they ceded their lands to the government and moved west of the

Mississippi hoping to escape the path and the pressure of White settlers.

President Monroe was unalterably opposed to forced removal? but amid the

clamor of Georgia and North Carolina for the extinguishment of Indian

title lands from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, his plea for prepara­

tion and education for removal was scarcely heard. In his annual message

of December 7, 1824, he said:

. . . To remove them from it (their present territory) by force, even with a view to their own security and happiness, would be re­ volting to humanity and utterly unjustifiable. Between the limits of our present States and Territories and the Rocky Mountains and Mexico there is a vast territory to which they might be invited with inducements which might be successful. It is thought if that terri­ tory should be divided into districts by previous agreement with the tribes now residing there and civil governments be established in each, with schools for every branch of instruction in literature and the arts of civilized life, that all the tribes now within our limits might gradually be drawn there . . . (Schmeckebier 1927:31).

Calhoun sought to execute the President's Indian Policy; and,

on March 11, 1824, he created within the War Department an Office of In­

dian Affairs and appointed as its head, Thomas L. McKenney, Superinten­

dent of Indian Trade from 1806 until the trading office was abolished in

1822. McKenney's new duties included the administration of the

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Civilization Fund; annuity appropriations; and other monies for Indian

education; and, in a limited way, the overall supervision of the agencies

related to Indian schools. In 1825, McKenney submitted a report on

schools in Indian country and the religious agencies that had responded

to President Monroe's circular letter of 1819 (Table 1). The total re­

ceipt? for the year from all sources for the 52 schools was $202,070.41.

Of that sum, $13,620.41 came from the Civilization Fund; $11,750.00 from

Indian annuities and under provisions of Indian treaties; and the bal­

ance from the cooperating religious organizations and private contribu­

tions.

The increasing work load of the War Department's Indian Office

with its total staff of three persons (McKenney and two clerks) prompted

him to prepare a bill authorizing Congress to create officially an "Of­

fice of Indian Affairs" with a "General Superintendent of Indian Affairs"

to be appointed by the President and to whom would be assigned all the

Indian relations that rest with the Secretary of War (Tyler 1973:52-53).

Although that bill died in committee, the wisdom of the proposal was fi­

nally recognized when Lewis Cass, Secretary of War under President Andrew

Jackson, prevailed upon the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to intro­

duce the measure in the 22nd Congress. On July 9, 1832, an Act of Con­

gress authorized the President to

appoint, by and with the consent of the Senate, a Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who shall, under the direction of the Secretary of War, and agreeable to such regulations as the President may, from time to time, prescribe, have the direction and management of all Indian affairs, and all matters arising out of Indian relations (Statutes at Large 4:564).

A subsequent Act of June 30, 1834 (Statutes at Large 4:735), involved

the reorganization of the field agencies, etc., into one Department of

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TABLE 1

MCKENNEY SCHOOL REPORT

Number Tribes of By Whom Established Schools

Choctaw 11 American Board of Foreign Missions

East and West Cherokee 9 Five by American Board of Foreign Missions; two by United Brethren; and two by Baptist General Convention

Seneca 3 Two by United Foreign Mission Soci­ ety; one by Baptist General Conven­ tion

Chickasaw 2 One by Cumberland Mission Board; one by Synod of South Carolina and Georgia

Oneida 2 One by Baptist General Convention; one by Protestant Episcopal Church

Osage 2 United Foreign Mission Society

Ottawa 2 One by Baptist General Convention; one by Western Mission Society

Chippewa 1 United Foreign Mission Society

Creek 15 Baptist General Convention

Missouria [sio] 1 Jesuit

Passamaquoddy 1 Society for Propagating the Gospel, etc.

Pottawatomie 1 Baptist General Convention

Tuscaroras 1 United Foreign Mission Society

Wyandotte 1 Methodist Episcopal Church

SOURCE: American State Papers II 1825:587, 669.

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Indian Affairs under the Commissioner and the Secretary of War. The Act

of 1832 officially created the Bureau of Indian Affairs to which Presi­

dent Jackson appointed Elbert Herring as the first statutory Commissioner

of Indian Affairs. The only amendment to this action came on March 3,

1849, when the "Home Department of Interior was established" and the

"Bureau of Indian Affairs passed from military to civil control" (Cohen

1942:10-11).

The educational policy of the period was directed toward the

"civilization" of the Indian through agriculture and "mechanic arts."

Thomas L. McKenney, in his 1826 annual report, urged an increase in the

Civilization Fund appropriation arguing that schools were more effective

than the military in achieving peaceful relations with the Indian. He

wrote:

Hundreds of Indian children are turned away for the want of ability on the part of the Superintendent to receive them. Numerous applications for assistance, and from the most respectable societies, are now on file in this office, to which it has not been possible to return any other answer than the fund appropriated by Congress is exhausted. It is recommended that the sum be increased.

Moreover, this first head of the Office of Indian Affairs was convinced

that

. . . The vast benefits which the Indian children are deriving from those establishments [schools]; . . . go further, . . . towards securing our borders from bloodshed, and keeping peace among Indians themselves, and attaching them to us, than would the physical force of our Army, if employed exclusively towards the accomplishment of those objects.

Then, foreseeing the problem of the returned student, his report con­

tinues :

In order to meet the discouragement arising from the educated children being thrown back into uneducated settlements, it is recommended that sections of land and agriculture and other imple­ ments be given them, by which they may earn their living and become

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an intermediate link between our own citizens and our wandering neighbors, softening the shades of each and enjoying the confidence of both (American State Papers, 19th Congress, 2nd Session 2:507- 508) .

It shall be found later in this study that the latter opinion was also

held by Richard Pratt.

Both Presidents Monroe and John Quincy Adams had followed a

policy of voluntary emigration. However, Indian removal became a cam­

paign issue in 1828, and the election of Andrew Jackson as President

brought an abrupt change in removal policy. During the first session of

Congress in the Jackson Administration, the Removal Act was passed on

May 28, 1830. In essence, it authorized the President "to change lands

in the east for lands in the west, to give a perpetual title to the lands

so exchanged, to pay for the improvements upon the old lands, and to give

aid and assistance in the emigration" (Schmeckebier 1927:33). It is in­

teresting to note that no words in the act even suggested that the In­

dians should be removed by force, and "Section 7 provides nothing in the

act should be construed as authorizing or directing the violation of any

existing treaty" (Schmeckebier 1927:33). It is not necessary to recount

here the ensuing conflict of the state of Georgia with the Cherokee Na­

tion and the missionaries working among the Cherokees; nor the confron­

tation between President Jackson and Chief Justice John Marshall; nor

the Cherokee "Trail of Tears." Suffice it to say that Elbert Herring,

the first statutory Commissioner of Indian Affairs, harnessed the removal

policy "with the benign influences of education and instruction in agri­

culture and the several mechanic arts . . . as the . . . sole chance of

averting Indian annihilation" (Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual

Reports 1831:72; 1832:160).

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The rationalization given for removal was that the uncivilized

mode of life of the Indians blocked the new nation's economic and social

progress in the colonized territory. The irony of the situation was that

among the targets for removal were some of the most advanced Indian

tribal groups on the continent— the Southeastern tribes, namely, the

Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. In his diary

under the date of January 8, 1824, John Quincy Adams mentions a visit to

Mr. Calhoun by a delegation from the Cherokee Nation,

. . . the most civilized of the tribes of North American Indians. They have abandoned altogether the life of hunters and betaken themselves to tillage. . . . [The] men were dressed entirely ac­ cording to our manner. . . . [And] spoke English with good pro- nounciation [sic] and one with grammatical accuracy (Morris 1954:56).

Calhoun once remarked that one of the reasons for Cherokee resistance to

land cessions was the fact of the high degree of education. Morris

(1954:56-57) presents an appropriate analysis of the situation when he

writes:

The southern Indians had fine plantations, slaves, and well furnish [sic] plantation houses. They sent their children north to school and engaged attorneys to represent them in the courts. They had their own governments, maintained their own schools and had compulsory attendance laws. . . . [T]he Cherokee were civilized and prosperous, . . . had their own written language. . . . They were farmers, had their own representative form of governments and courts, and held permanent property. They wrote their own state papers and reasoned as logically as white diplomats. The Cherokee schools were of the (at the time) up-to-date Lancasterian type. . . . [T]he principal Cherokee chiefs owned property worth from fifty to a hun­ dred thousand dollars.

Again, as noted earlier in this chapter (p. 34), here is a population

that meets all the requirements for full participation in a democratic

society but was unacceptable to the White Americans of that day.

Within ten years after the passage of the Removal Act of 1830,

it was estimated that some seventy thousand Indians had been transferred.

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Schools were suspended during the major part of the period; but govern­

ment interest in the education program continued, and the mission society-

government educational plan emerged with four emphases: (a) the introduc­

tion of the concept of manual-labor school (see p. 43); (b) the encour­

agement of tribal schools, sponsored and operated by the tribes them­

selves; (c) establishment of a practical training program for adults;

and (d) the continuance of mission schools. Meanwhile, the 1S45 Morion

experiment in Utah, the California Gold Rush of 1849, the Homestead Act

of 1862, and the transcontinental railroad of 1869 all converged to ac­

celerate the westward movement of Whites. The attitude in Indian-White

relations changed from the seventeenth and eighteenth century concern

about "the problem of Indians" to the nineteenth century desire to elimi­

nate "the Indian problem." An investigation of the Indian Peace Commis­

sion of 1867 discovered an all-too-prevalent conviction that extermina­

tion was an acceptable goal in Indian-White relations. In 1864, John

Evans, Governor of the Colorado territory (1862-1865), expressed his

opinion that Washington, D.C., knew that the third Regiment of Colorado

troops had been raised "to kill Indians and Indians they must kill"

(Peace Commission Report, 1868:14) Shortly afterward, there followed

the Fort Lyon Massacre of November 29, 1865, by the first Colorado Cav­

alry under Colonel Chivington— which conflict scarcely has a parallel in

White American barbarity against Indians. According the the Peace Com­

mission's report, the retaliatory Indian war that ensued "cost the Gov­

ernment thirty million dollars." Said John Collier, BIA Commissioner

from 1933-1945 (1940:3), "[I]t cost our Government a million dollars for

every Indian slain in battle."

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For the impatient American pioneers going West, there was no

time for the Government's program "to civilize" Indians. Frontier citi­

zens had little respect for the Government and less for the Indians, so

removal treaties were broken and boundaries disregarded. The broken

treaties forced the more numerous and powerful Indian tribes to use vio­

lence to survive. "While the government recognized the validity of the

Indian title," wrote Schmeckebier (1927:5), "it was often powerless to

enforce the rights of the Indians against frontier settlers, and many

conflicts resulted from the unlawful trespass by the whites and the re­

course to force by the Indians."

After the Gold Rush of 1849, White Americans discovered that the

distant West that had been consigned to the Indians needed the creative

hand of civilization. Indian removal policy became impractical; and the

segregation of Indians by tribes on isolated, reserved "islands" scattered

amid settled communities of non-Indians was contrived as a viable alter­

native. The first attempt to segregate the Indians on reservations was

made in California in 1853. On March 3, 1853, an appropriation act

authorized the President to establish not more than five reservations of

no more than 25,000 acres each (Statutes at Large 10:238; Schmeckebier

1927:43-44). That the new reservation policy was contemplated was indi­

cated by the instructions given the Indian Peace Commission of 1867 by

President Andrew Johnson and Congress when the Commissioners were sent

out and articulated in the January 15, 1868, report of the Commission to

the President, which read:

. . . [The] collecting at some early day all the Indians east of the Rocky mountains on one or more reservations, and with that view it was made our duty to examine and select "a district or districts

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of country having sufficient area to receive all the Indian tribes occupying territory east of said mountains not now peacefully re­ siding on permanent reservations under treaty stipulations, &c." It was required that these reservations should have sufficient arable or grazing lands to enable the tribes placed on them to sup- 1ort themselves, and that they should be so located as not to inter­ fere with the established highways of travel and the contemplated railroads to the Pacific Ocean. The subsequent action of Congress will be necessary, . . . to dedicate the district or districts so selected to the purpose of exclusive Indian settlement (Peace Com­ mission Report, 1868, p. 2 in Interior Library Miscellaneous Docu­ ments Relating to Indian Affairs, n.d., Vol. IV:3298).

Ostensibly, the Government's objective was the cessation of

frontier Indian-White hostilities and the improvement of the economic

circumstances of the Indians by the use of the reservation system and

education. From another standpoint, Adams (1946:43-44) declares that a

"twofold purpose of the reservation was the provision for Indian settle­

ment on a defined area of land suitable for agriculture, and the strength­

ening of government control over Indian and white encroachment for mutual

protection."

The first annual report of Francis A. Walker, Commissioner of

Indian Affairs, 1871-1873, under President Grant, was both understanding

and critical of public response to the policy. In 1872, he wrote sym­

pathetically of the plight of the Indians (Commissioner's Annual Report

1872:8):

. . . Every year's advance of our frontier takes in a territory as large as some of the kingdoms of Europe. We are richer by hundreds of millions; the Indian poorer by a large part of the little that he has. This growth is bringing imperial greatness to the nation; to the Indian it brings wretchedness, destitution, beggary.

In the same annual report, Commissioner Walker is rather caustic as he

discusses the function of the reservation system (Annual Report 1872-3:

13) :

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. . . (T)he Indians should be made a comfortable on, and as uncom­ fortable off, their reservations as it is in the power of the Gov­ ernment to make them,- that such as them as went right should be pro­ tected and fed, and such as went wrong should be harassed and scourged without intermission. . . . Such a use of the strong arm of the Government is not war, but discipline...... The reservation system affords the place for thus dealing with tribes and bands, without the access of influence inimical to peace and virtue. It is only necessary that Federal laws, judicious­ ly framed to meet all the facts of the case, and enacted in season, before the Indians begin to scatter, shall place all the members of this race under strict reformatory control by the agents of Govern­ ment. Especially is it essential that the right of the Government to keep Indians upon the reservation assigned to them, and to arrest and return them whenever they wander away, should be placed beyond dispute. . . . The reservations granted heretofore have generally been propor­ tioned, and rightly so, to the needs of the Indians in a roving state, with hunting and fishing as their chief means of subsistence, which condition implies the occupation of such territory far exceed­ ing what could possibly be cultivated. As they change to agricul­ ture, however rude and primitive at first, they tend to contract the limits of actual occupation. With proper administrative management the portions thus rendered available for cessation or sale can be so thrown together as in no way to impair the integrity of the res­ ervation. Where this change has taken place, there can be no ques­ tion of expediency of such sale or cession. The Indian Office has always favored this course, . . . and it can be confidently affirmed that the advantage of the Indians has generally been served thereby.

Schmeckebier (1927:66) offers a one-sentence summary of the overall sit­

uation: "Reservations existed before and after this period [that is,

1871-1887], but the predominant characteristics of those years were the

segregation of the Indians on reservations, the issuance of rations, and

the endeavor to exercise complete control by thii agents." This state­

ment fails even to hint at the social disorganization incurred in the

journey from sovereign nation to a ward of the United States government,

especially since paternalism is a kind of extermination of personal and

social dignity. Pratt was an opponent of the reservation system.

Despite the aforementioned blurred temporal parameters (pp. 49-

50), formal history records the Reservation Period as 1871-1887, or from

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the end of the Treaty period to the beginning of the Allotment period.

The reservation period, in this writer's opinion, was not so much a seg­

ment in space and time as it was a series of changes in the quality of

life and the status of the Indian. Large populations of the more aggres­

sive Indian tribes were provided with rations for subsistence to keep

them off the warpath. Believing that Indians could be "civilized" (or

"Americanized") through farming, the Government furnished tribal groups

with agricultural implements, seed, horses, and cattle. They were en­

couraged in the direction of self-government (Euro-American style) by

the establishment of courts with Indian judges to deal with minor cases

on the reservation within the tribe. And there were increased appropria­

tions for educational purposes with emphasis on manual training, animal

husbandry, and farming.

With respect to treaties and reservations, Caleb B. Smith, a

Civil War era Secretary of the Interior, had enunciated an emerging new

policy and suggested its implications for education program planning.

Extracts from the Interior Secretary's statement carried by his Commis­

sioner of Indian Affairs, William P. Dole, in the latter's annual report,

left no doubt as to the new guidelines (Annual Report 1862:7-9):

It may well be questioned whether the government has not adopted a mistaken policy in regarding the Indian tribes as quasi-independent nations, and making treaties with them for the purchase of the lands they claim to own. They have none of the elements of nationality; they are within the limits of the United States and must be subject to its control. The rapid progress of civilization upon this conti­ nent will not permit the lands which are required for cultivation to be surrendered to savage tribes for hunting grounds. Indeed, whatever may be the theory, the government has always demanded the removal of the Indians when their lands were required for agricul­ tural purposes by advancing settlements. Although the consent of the Indians has been obtained in the form of treaties, it is well known that they have yielded to a necessity which they could not resist. . . .

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. . . A radical change in the mode of treatment of the Indians should, . . . be adopted. Instead of being treated as independent nations they should be regarded as wards of the government, en­ titled to its fostering care and protection. Suitable districts of country should be assigned to them for their homes, and the govern­ ment should supply them, through its own agents, with such articles as they use, until they can be instructed to earn their subsistence by their labor.

Historian Henry E. Fritz (1963:19) intimates that, officially, the move­

ment for Indian assimilation began in this period and perhaps with Caleb

Smith:

It was obvious to these keen observers [Caleb Smith et al.] that the only practical and humane answer to the Indian problem was to assimilate the Indians into Anglo-American culture. . . . Here were a Stone-Age people, culturally separated from their white neighbors by more than three thousand years of accomplishment. Here was a primitive society about to be destroyed through the onslaught of one organizationally and technologically superior to it. Here were 325,000 individuals who were required within a few decades to adopt political, social, and economic institutions which had taken western European civilization thirty centuries to develop. The alternatives to adjustments were cruel and undesirable: either death or parasital existence upon a reservation.

Indeed, as the Dole report indicated, Interior Secretary Smith had left

no doubt as to his position on treaties, reservations, and instructions

for reservation life; and, accordingly, administrative policy in all

three areas received legislative response in Congress and the process of

the federalization of Indian education began to be formalized.

The act of March 3, 1871 (Statutes at Large 16:566), marked the

end of the treaty system but brought to the reservation period a new

status problem for the body politic and the Indian. The termination of

the formalized treaty-making process did away with two legal concepts

of Indian tribes, namely (a) the colonial period "independent sovereign

nations" concept, and (b) Chief Justice John Marshall's "dependent,

domestic nations" concept; but it left no place for the Indian in the

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formal political structure of the United States. Except for special acts

on special occasions for special Indians, the individual Indian "was

neither citizen nor alien, and no process was provided by this (1871) or

any earlier act by which the great mass of Indians might become citizens"

(Schmeckbier 1327:58-66). Moreover, because by birth his allegiance

would be to his tribe, the Supreme Court of 1884 ruled, in essence, that

not even the Fourteenth Amendment could apply. It was the absence of

this type of information and his disdain for such particulars that kept

Richard Henry Pratt (Chapter III) in conflict with some segments of the

nation's political leadership and led to the discrediting of his leader­

ship in Indian education.

The Civil War and the Emancipation Proda:-.*- ;ion left the aboli­

tionists as reformers without a cause, and many of -hem turned to the

Indian question. Indians were in the process of being established on

Western Reservations. The report of the Indian Peace Commission clearly

indicated that attention to the problems of permanent policy in the ad­

ministration of Indian affairs was required. The principal questions

needing some answers are listed by Cohen (1942:17) as follows:

Should treaty making be abandoned? What was the role of the mili­ tary? Should the Bureau of Indian Affairs be transferred back to the War Department? How should the Indian Service be recognized so as to overcome charges of dishonesty and inefficiency? What was the best technique for individualizing and controlling the Indian? What were the present rights and future prospects of the Indian?

The treaty-making was abandoned; but accompanying that very ac­

tion was a concern for "the present rights and future prospects of the

Indians," since the Act of 1871 (Statutes at Large 16:566) also provided

that no pre-1871 treaty lawfully made and formally ratified should be

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invalidated. Therefore, appropriations available under treaty stipula­

tions continued in force; and, in 1870, Congress voted to supplement

the $140,000 in tribal funds with an annual appropriation of $100,000

beginning with the fiscal year of 1871 (Schmeckebier 1927:58, 70). This

supplementary appropriations Act of July 15, 1870 (Statutes at Large 16:

150) specified that the $100,000 was for the support of industrial and

other schools among Indian tribes not otherwise provided for.

It became obvious that as the Indian had become a ward of the

Government, the education of the Indian must become a function of the

national government and not primarily the work of religious bodies sup­

plemented by government funds. A report resulting from an authorized

survey by the Board of Indian Commissioners in 1869 revealed an Indian

population of 235,899 distributed among 73 agencies serviced by thirteen

different religious bodies (Fritz 1963:76-79). During the same period,

according to Adams (1946:44-45), there were 109 schools accommodating

approximately 4,600 students. Commissioners of Indian Affairs persisted

in their annual request for additional funds for educational purposes.

An Act of February 14, 1873 (Statutes at Large 17:461), repealed

the appropriation section of the Civilization Act of 1819, discontinued

the annual $10,000 allotment that had gone to mission societies, and

made available to the religious organizations from the government spe­

cific payments established by individual contract and based on a set sum

per child enrolled in each church-sponsored school. This action was de­

signed to bring Indian education under the control of the Indian Office;

and from 1873 on, the educational program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

came to be the planning, building, and total supervision of government

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schools. There ensued "an era of almost feverish activity in the es­

tablishment of strictly government schools: first, day schools, then

boarding schools and industrial schools" (Hailman 1904:8). This rapid

growth in the educational program and the accompanying increase in fed­

eral appropriations warranted more centralized administration of Indian

education and so the Act of May 17, 1882 (Statutes at Large 22:70, 434),

authorized the creation of the position and the appointment of a Super­

intendent of Indian Schools. With this move, the federalization of the

Indian educational system was complete. Henceforth its budget consti­

tuted at least 50 percent of the total national budget for the Indian

Office and dominated all other aspects of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In the 1880s, all Indian reform organizations emphasized univer­

sal education as imperative from the viewpoint of Whites and desirable

in the thinking of many Indians. The Board of Indian Commissioners ex­

pressed both ideas in its Twelfth Annual Report (1880:7-9):

As we must have him among us, self-interest, humanity, and Christianity require that we accept the situation, and go resolutely at work to make him a safe and useful factor in our body politic. As a savage we cannot tolerate him. . . . The only alternative left is to fit him by education for civilized life. . . . The In­ dian, . . . already sees the importance of education; . . . He sees that knowledge possessed by the white man is necessary for self- preservation...... The nation learned by costly experience that "it is cheaper to feed than to fight the Indian," and the same common sense teaches "it is cheaper to teach than to feed them." . . . If the common school is the glory and boast of our American civilization, why not extend its blessings to the benighted chil­ dren of the red men of our country, that they too may share its benefits and speedily emerge from the ignorance of centuries? . . .

Obviously, the national leadership of the period did not per­

ceive that Western civilization might not be the consummation of human

history and that Americanization might not be a synonym for civiliza­

tion. It was in this political climate and social milieu that the first

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multi-tribal, non-reservation, federally-operated boarding school for

Indians was founded at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1879. Against this

historical background and into this historical setting came the founder

of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Richard Henry Pratt, a "self-made"

man and career Army officer turned educator, whose philosophy was to

shape Indian educational policy in substantive ways for the next four

decades. It was against this backdrop that Captain Pratt projected his

policy of forced individual-level acculturation— which policy in variant

forms persists in some aspects of contemporary Indian education. It is

this forced acculturation that is the focus of this research and this

dissertation.

Footnotes

"'"Charles A. Eastman (1858-1939) , was the son of Many Lightnings, one of the leaders of the 1862 Sioux outbreak in Minnesota and among the prisoners exiled to Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, for .three years under Pratt's waraenship. While there, Many Lightnings changed his name to Jacob Eastman and along with several other of the St. Augustine prisoners was returned to the Sioux reservation but found life unbearable there because they were forced to remain dependent in order to receive any assistance from the Indian Bureau even to re-establish themselves after the long prison sentence. Many Lightnings and this small group of half-acculturated misfits decided to seek another area and walked 130 miles to the eastern line of Dakota territory near the Big Sioux River, became farmers, built houses and a church (Presbyterian). It was in this community that Charles Eastman (Indian name: Ohiyesa) grew up. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1887 with a medical degree and be­ came the physician for the Pine Ridge Sioux Agency. In 1891, he married Elaine Goodale, a White American school teacher at the Pine Ridge Reser­ vation. Both Dr. and Mrs. Eastman served at Carlisle Indian School from 1899-1900. Dr. Eastman was the author of Indian Boyhood (1902), The Soul of the Indian (1911), and From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916) .

2 The payment of annuities in connection with treaty-making began in 1790 with an annuity of $1,500 as a consideration for certain land cessions made in a treaty with the Creeks at New York on August 7, 1790. The oldest provision for annuity payments yet in force is contained in the treaty with the Six Nations signed at Canandaigua, New York, on November 11, 1794 (Tyler 1973:41).

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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

The literature pertinent to this research project falls into

three categories: theoretical works on acculturation, publications on

the history and development of government Indian policy with particular

reference to education, and unpublished histories of the Carlisle Indus­

trial Indian School. A selective review of relevant material follows.

Theoretical Considerations

In the 1879-1880 report of the Bureau of Ethnology, an article

by C. C. Royce of the Smithsonian staff appeared in the introductory

section under the title "Investigations Relating to Cessions of Land by

Indian Tribes to the United States," in which the term "acculturation"

was used by the author and described as "the effect of the presence of

civilization upon savagery." Royce wrote (1880:xxviii):

The great boon to the savage tribes of this country, unrecog­ nized by civilized men, has been the presence of civilization, which, under the laws of acculturation, has irresistibly improved their culture by substituting new and civilized for old and savage arts, new for old customs— in short, transforming savage into civilized life.

Writing in the main body of the report under the general caption "Limi­

tations to the Use of Anthropological Data," J. W. Powell, Director of

the Bureau of Ethnology, referred to the "various processes of accultura­

tion." Powell's concern for cautious continuing research is indicated

by the following excerpts from his sub-section entitled "History, Cus­

toms and Ethnic Characteristics" (1880:76-77):

69

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When America was discovered by Europeans, it was inhabited by great numbers of distinct tribes, diverse in languages, institutions and customs. This fact has never been fully recognized, and writers have too often spoken of the North American Indians as a body, sup­ posing that statements made of one tribe would apply to all. This fundamental error in the treatment of the subject has led to great confusion. It will be seen that to follow any tribe of Indians through post-Columbian times is a task of no little difficulty. . . . Three centuries of intimate contact with a civilized race has had no small influence upon the pristine condition of these savage and barbaric tribes. The most speedy and radical change was effected in the arts, industrial and ornamental. . . . Customs and institutions change less rapidly. Yet these have been much modified. Imitation and vigorous propagandism have been more or less efficient causes. Migrations and enforced removals placed tribes under conditions of strange environment where new customs and institutions were necessary, and in this condition civil­ ization had a greater influence, and the progress of occupation by white men within the territory of the United States, at least, has reached such a stage that savagery and barbarism have no room for their existence, and even customs and institutions must in a brief time be completely change, and what we are yet to learn of these people must be learned now. But in pursuing these studies the greatest caution must be ob­ served in discriminating what is primitive from what has been ac­ quired from civilized man by the various processes of acculturation.

The reciprocal nature of acculturation is brought out in one of Powell's

statements within the sub-section on "Language" (1880:80-81):

The history of man, from the lowest tribal condition to the highest national organization, has been a history of constant and multifarious admixture, absorption, and destruction of languages with general progress toward unity; of the diffusion of arts by various processes of acculturation? and of admixture and reciprocal diffusion and customs, institutions and traditions. Arts, customs, institutitons and traditions extend beyond the boundaries of language and serve to obscure them, and the admixture of strains of blood has obscured primitive ethnic divisions, if such existed.

Even in this early period there seems to have been the suggestion

of two conceptualizations of acculturation: (a) as condition and (b) as

process. However, it is clear that Powell himself recognized that ac­

culturation as process was operative apart from simple diffusion, i.e.,

the direct or indirect transfer of cultural traits of any type without

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necessitating the subordination of the receiver by the donor on an

inter-tribal level as well as between the aboriginal population and the

colonists. These early works are pertinent to this project not only

because of the 1879-1880 references to the concept of acculturation but

also because from the writings of Powell and Royce, one can discern the

social milieu and intellectual climate prevailing at the time Platt

emerged from the War Department as an innovator in Indian education.

The first time the American Anthropologist carried an article

with acculturation in the title was in the October-December 1932 issue

(34 n.s.:4:557-69). This "Festschrift" contribution by Richard Thurnwald

honoring Geheimrat Hans Virchow bore the title "The Psychology of Accul­

turation" and introduced the subject with this sentence: "Acculturation

is a process, not an isolated event." Later in the article he described

it as the "process of adaption to new conditions of life." Thurnwald was

the first scholar to analyze the concept in terms of varying processes

with special emphasis on the attending socio-psychological problems.

Thirteen years later,• A. Irving Hallowell (1945) dealt in depth with the

latter in an essay, "Sociopsychological Aspects of Acculturation," which

appeared in a book, The Science of--Man in World Crisis, edited by Ralph

Linton.

These works were followed by personality and culture studies

more specifically related to Indians: Laura Thompson, Personality and

Government (1945); Gordon MacGregor, Warriors without Weapons (1946);

and Alan R. Beals with George and Louise Spindler, Culture in Process

(1967). The writer found these studies valuable in understanding the

differential impact of some of the Carlisle school practices on the

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individual students and some of the reactions to Richard Henry Pratt's

policies by Indian leaders on reservations.

In light of the culture contact situations in both Africa and

the New World, studies in acculturation, regardless of what they were

called, were a natural consequence. The Boasians began such studies by

attempting to reconstruct culture history among North American Indian

tribes. Analysis by description of cultural traits and by inference

soon led to the question of why things happened. In 1936, the term

acculturation was defined in the Redfield-Linton-Herskovits "Memorandum

for the Study of Acculturation" which appeared in the American Anthro­

pologist (38 n.s.:149-52). The definition with an accompanying note

read:

Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups. (Note: Under this definition, acculturation is to be distinguished from culture-change, of which it is but one aspect, and assimilation, which is at times a phase of acculturation. It is also to be dif­ ferentiated from diffusion, which, while occurring in all instances of acculturation, is not only a phenomenon which frequently takes place without the occurrence of the types of contact between peoples specified in the definition given above, but also constitutes only one aspect of the process of acculturation.)

Beyond the definition, the Memorandum per se was a comprehensive outline

for the study of acculturation drawn up, as the Committee stated, to be

"a first step toward clarifying the problem and to serve as an aid in

the classification of studies already made."

As if to promote debate of discussion of the Memorandum, Hersko-

vits (1937) almost immediately published Acculturation: The Study of

Culture Contact, in which he presented some of the difficulties of the

definition, the problems inherent in studies of culture contact/culture

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change, a review of several available acculturation studies, and sugges­

tions for further research. The 1936 definition is of little value for

this researcher in terms of the primary focus on the forced individual

acculturation in an alien setting; but the outline delineates many areas

of this investigator's concerns, for as Herskcvits points out, "the

study of cultural change . . . cannot be attempted without a vivid sense

of the historically dynamic nature of the phenomenon" (1937:25). He

observed that information from historical documents had been neglected

and should be exhaustively analyzed in reference to "the case of contact

between European and non-European peoples" where such material would

prove to be "important in indicating the manner and intensity of the con­

tact, and, in some instances, even the types of persons who were influ­

ential in it" (1937:26).

The Herskovits' elaboration of the 1936 Memorandum with illus­

trations from the literature was followed in 1940 by Linton's volume,

Acculturation in Seven American Indian Tribes, an expository work based

on the Memorandum but prepared by its eight authors following an agreed-

upon outline which, among other things, added to the 1936 statement the

factor of the influence of firsthand contact with other aboriginal groups.

Linton also found shortcomings in the definition, but his running com­

mentary on the seven ethnographies and his three concluding chapters

analyze the acculturation concept in all its possible ramifications.

That portion applicable to this study related to the "continuous first

hand contact" aspect although, even as this is written, it is apparent

that defining "continuous first hand contact" is itself rather nebulous.

Nevertheless, the following statements by Linton are relevant for this

investigation (1940:501-2):

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Most of the phenomena which have continuous first hand contact as a prerequisite can be grouped under one or the other of two heads: (1) those associated with directed culture change, and (2) those associated with social-cultural fusion. . . .

Linton is not happy with the phrase "directed culture change" and less

enthusiastic about "enforced culture change" but goes on to say:

There is enforced culture change whenever modifications in a so­ ciety's environment make modifications in its culture necessary to survival. Directed culture change will be taken to refer to those situations in which one of the groups in contact interferes actively and purposefully with the culture of the other. This interference may take the form of stimulating the acceptance of new culture ele­ ments, inhibiting the exercise of preexisting culture patterns or, as seems to be most frequently the case, doing both simultaneously.

The process of directed culture change can only operate in those contact situations in which there is dominance and submission.

In discussing the status of acculturation theory and studies at

the Wenner-Gren Foundation symposium held in New York, June 1952, Ralph

Beals reviewed such debate as had taken place after the 1936 Memorandum

and suggested that the role of force had been approached orally but not

in print and stated that "in such discussions, force is (was) broadly

treated to include not only overt or naked force but pressures resulting

from deprivations, introduction of compelling new goals, or psychologi­

cal pressures arising from sentiments of inferiority and superiority."

"A corollary type of approach," averred Beals, "is the suggestion that

acculturation be confined to situations in which one of the groups in

contact, for whatever reasons, loses complete freedom of choice or free­

dom to accept or reject new cultural elements" (1962:380-81). Why this

verbal debate, so pertinent to the American experience in terms of the

aboriginal population and the European invaders, was never pursued in

print remains a mystery; but it may be suggested that the answer resides

in the realm of the sociology of knowledge. At any rate, it is exactly

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on this point, i.e., "naked force" and deprivation against groups and

psychological pressures and punitive measures against individuals, that

this researcher finds the current definitions and connotation of the

concept of acculturation deficient.

After reviewing almost a generation of scholarly debate on cul­

ture change phenomena which American anthropologists labeled "accultura­

tion" and British anthropologists referred to as "culture contact,"

Beals asserts that both definitions and usages "are varied and unsatis­

factory." He concluded that "it seems clear that a re-examination of

the subject is in order, particularly with respect to the reciprocal as­

pects of acculturation, its relation to the problem of assimilation, and

the propriety of extending the term to studies of contact between groups

within a culture and to the studies of migrant groups" (Beals 1952:383).

In 1953, a re-examination of the problem took place at the So­

cial Science Research Council Summer Seminar on Acculturation and re­

sulted in the 1954 statement entitled "Acculturation: An Expository

Formulation." The new definition is of less value to this investigator

than the 1936 one, to wit:

Acculturation may be defined as culture change that is initiated by the conjunction of two or more autonomous cultural systems (SSRC: 1954).

In terms of the encounter between the European colonial economic power-

prone value system and the aboriginal population and its value system in

America during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries,

"autonomous cultural systems" is hardly a valid concept.

The widespread use of the term assimilation in the history of

American Indian policy requires that some attention be given to the

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comprehensive work Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race,

Religion, and Rational Origins by the sociologist Milton M. Gordon

(1964). His differentiation between "behavioral" and "structural" as­

similation and his discussion of cultural pluralism are especially ger­

mane to this study. Gordon's behavioral assimilation entails the absorp­

tion of the cultural behavior patterns of the "host" society and empha­

sizes primary and personal relationships. If the "early-learning hypo­

thesis" of Edward M. Bruner (1956) and the "boundary-maintaining mech­

anisms" proposed by the SSRC (1954) are operational in American Indian

cultural systems, it is doubtful that Gordon's structural assimilation

was ever a goal for Indians— a desirable option, perhaps, but nothing

more.

On Indian Policy and Education

A number of historical works and official reports since World

War I have provided useful background information for research into the

historical events that led to the founding cf Carlisle Indian School and

its unique program which set in motion the particular acculturative process

under study. Brief reviews of ten such works follow.

L Harvey Roy Pearce - The Savages of America: A Study of the Indian and the Idea of Civilization, 1953.

This book is a socio-historical study of the encounter between Euro-

Americans and Native American up to 1850 and the prevailing ideology of

progress and civilization. Interestingly enough, it was re-published in

1965 with no obvious revisions except a frcntispieoe carrying the 1828

Webster's Dictionary definitions of Civilization, Savage, and Savagism-

In the Department of the Interior Library, it was catalogued under

"Savagism and Civilization."

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2. Henry E. Fritz - The Movement for Assimilation, 1860-1890, 1963.

With the accelerated westward movement of the 1850s and the need for the

government to protect travelers, new settlers, and the railroads, fed­

eral Indian policy had to be flexible enough to meet numerous new crisis

situations. Fritz portrays Grant's "Peace Policy" as a "phase of Prot­

estant movement for the assimilation of Indians which culminated in the

passage of the Dawes Act; ..."

3. Francis Paul Prucha - Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the "Friends of the Indian," 1880-1900, 1973.

With Prucha's editorial comments, this book is a collection of 47 pieces

from "a group of earnest men and women who unabashedly called themselves

'the friends of the Indian.'" The author has selected speeches, confer­

ence papers, journal articles, etc., from these persons who dominated

American Indian policy during the final decades of the nineteenth cen­

tury. In describing the sincerity of these Christian reformers who

brought the Dawes Act into being, Prucha writes (1973:1):

They had great confidence in the righteousness of their cause, and they knew God approved. . . . With an ethnocentrism of frightening intensity, they resolved to do away with Inaianness and to preserve only the manhood of the individual Indian.

4. Theodore W. Taylor - The States and Their Indian Citizens, 1972)

and

5. S. Lyman Tyler - A History of Indian Policy, 1973.

These two books are reviewed together for two reasons. First, they are

both commissioned studies under the authority of the Bureau of Indian

Affairs. In speaking of the effort in 1968 to persuade Taylor and Tyler

to undertake the task, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton

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affirms the need in these two statements:

Although much has been written about Indians and the Federal govern­ ment, there has been limited attention to the relationship of the Indian to local and State governments (Taylor 1972:v).

and

While much is contained in libraries about Indian culture and cus­ toms, there has been no authoritative account of Federal Indian policy from the colonial period to the present (Tyler 1973:v).

He describes these works as being designed to remedy the "gap" in such

"source materials available to students in a cross-section of fields."

He even speaks of the works as being documents to be studied by "Indian

Youth" for, said Secretary Morton, "Indians today are a young group of

Americans. . . . They must read what has happened and when they shape

policy— and shape policy they will— we hope they will do so with addi­

tional insight" (Tyler 1973:v). Given these objectives, the second rea­

son for a joint-comment on these books is that it is unfortunate that at

least two Indian scholars could not have been found to collaborate with

the authors. The works would have sounded less like bureaucratic apolo­

getics and could have avoided some misinterpretations of the data. Two

examples will suffice. The chapter on the Indian Tribal removals from

Georgia, Alabama, and Missouri in the 1830s states that: (1) nineteenth-

century White settlers had for a time "ample, fertile accessible and un­

claimed regions" (emphasis mine); and (2) "The denunciation [of the re­

movals] has continued [I presume he means to this day] in face of the

fact that the Five Civilized Tribes sometimes prospered in Indian Terri­

tory" [emphasis mine] (Tyler 1973:62-63). Dr. Taylor's chapter on "The

Indian Potential" makes this salient observation: "Without necessary adap­

tation to the non-Indian world, the Indian either has to be subsidized or

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perish" (Taylor 1972:146). Both books, however, carry useful chronolog­

ies, appendixes of statistical tables, charts, and maps. Tyler's work

has a superb 28-page bibliography.

6. Laurence F. Schmeckebier - The Office of Indian Affairs: Its History, Activities, and Organization, 1927.

One hundred years after the Secretary of War established the Office of

Indian Affairs, the Institute for Government Research requested an eval­

uation of its program. The result is an invaluable historical account

including educational affairs with existing weaknesses delineated.

7. Lewis Meriam - The Problem of Indian Administration, 1928.

In 1926, Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work directed that an exten­

sive survey of the social and economic conditions among American Indians

be made by the Brookings Institution for Government Research. The resul­

tant comprehensive report, prepared by survey director Lewis Meriam and

associates, formed the basis of the reformulation of Indian policy evi­

denced by the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Chapter IX deals with

education, including the boarding school movements, in critical detail.

Nevertheless, one of its first recommendations was that the Indian Ser­

vice be recognized and made an efficient educational agency. In the

broadest sense, it should have primary concern for the "social and economic

advancement of the Indians, so that they may be absorbed into the pre­

vailing civilization or be f j t,+-ed to live i n the presence of that civil­

ization at least in accordance with a minimum standard of health and de­

cency" (Meriam Report 1928:21). General Pratt had propounded that prin­

ciple in the 1870s and was committed to it to his death.

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8. William A. Brophy and Sophie D. Aberle - The Indian: America's Unfinished Business3 1966

The 1953 House Concurrent Resolution 108 in the 83rd Congress, known as

the Eisenhower "termination" policy, brought an abrupt reversal of fed­

eral Indian policy requiring a new appraisal of the status of Indian af­

fairs. The Fund of the Republic, Inc., established in 1957 the Commis­

sion of the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American In­

dian under the chairmanship of President O. Meridith Wilson of the Uni­

versity of Oregon with former Commissioner of Indian Affairs William A.

Brophy as executive director. The abbreviated preliminary report with

recommendations appeared in 1961 and was followed in 1966 by the first

printing of the book which, in 1972, was in its fifth printing. The re­

port records the relationship between the federal government and American

Indians and is an extensively detailed document on problems in the areas

of economics, education, health, and administration of justice. How­

ever, the following "Prattonian" pronouncement appears in an introduc­

tory section sub-titled "Facts about Indians":

What the members of this underprivileged race require for self- reliant participation is more and better education, improved economic assistance, better health, and more carefully designed preparation for the responsibilities of the white man's way of life (Brophy and Aberle 1966:6).

9. Murray L. Wax, Rosalie H. Wax, and Robert V. Dumont, Jr. - Formal Education in an American Indian Community, 1964.

This monograph was published as a special issue of the Journal of the

Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP). It is distinctive in

that it was initiated privately by the senior authors who later devel­

oped a research team which included American Indians. It was funded

primarily by the U.S. Office of Education and conducted independent of

the Bureau of Indian Affairs but with the sympathetic concern of the then

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Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dr. Philleo Nash, an anthropologist, who

had introduced the principle of Indian involvement in their own education­

al policy-making and planning long before the recommendation appeared in

print— a fact cited by Wax, Wax, and Dumont (1964:105). Two quotations

from the Summary and Recommendations (Chapter VII) will demonstrate its

relevance for this dissertation (1964:107-108):

. . . [W]e feel there is a fundamental need for urban, off-Reserva- tion schooling for adolescent Indians, and at the present disposition to educate Indians in isolated rural regions is a socio-cultural anomaly that defeats any program for encouraging Indian adjustment to modern society...... Perhaps the best and simplest dormitory arrangement would bring together children of several different language stocks. Here the commonness of being "Indian" would be helpful, while the lan­ guage differences would encourage usage of English as a lingua franca. Instead of the Reservation situation where English is the "White" language used only in dealing with teachers, English would become the natural language for communication among the students themselves.

10. Estelle Fuchs and Robert J. Havighurst - To Live on This Earth: American Indian Education3 1972.

Here again is an Office of Education funded research project known as

the National Study of American Indian Education (NSAIE) and pursued at

the National Research Conference on Indian Education, held at Pennsyl­

vania State University, May 24-27, 1967, under the leadership of Profes­

sor Herbert Aurbach. Professor Robert J. Havighurst of the University

of Chicago was asked to direct the $515,000 in-depth study which involved

Indian leaders, educators, behavioral scientists, and anthropologists in

a cross-disciplinary effort using bi-racial research teams working out

of six universities. Fifty technical papers comprised the final report.

The significant observations and conclusions of this most comprehensive

national research project were condensed to book size by Fuchs and

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Havighurst. Its relationship to this research effort is highlighted in

the following:

It is important to recognize that the efforts to involve Indian people in the formal education of their children as part of a broad policy of economic development and elimination of poverty lead toward participation of Indians in the democratic-urban-industrial society of America. On the whole, present evidence indicates that Indian participation in control of schooling is likely to be aimed at in­ creasing the motivation of Indian students to perform well in a system of formal education which has been developed by and is ori­ ented primarily to the dominant society. . . . [T]his increased motivation should lead students to get more education and, even­ tually, better jobs, both of which involve one more deeply in in­ stitutions of the dominant society (1972:325).

Writings about Carlisle Indian School

The writings about Carlisle Indian School are either histories,

published and unpublished, or books about the football team. Pool's

Index to Periodical Literature, published in Boston between 1852 and 1907,

lists a number of magazine articles about Carlisle. However, except for

primary sources, there are only four books catalogued at the Library of

Congress. They are:

1. Embe (Pseudonym - Stiya: A Carlisle Indian School Girl at Home (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1891).

This is available only on microfilm (No. 37905) and appears to be a

factual account about a returned student using fictitious names. The

author is Marianna Burgess. The records at the National Archives show a

teacher at Carlisle by that name.

2. Moss Hall - Go, Indians!: Stories of the Great Indian Ath­ letes of the Carlisle Indian School (Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1971).

3. William Heuman - The Indians of Carlisle (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1965).

5. John S. Steckbeck - Fabulous Redmen: The Carlisle Indians and Their Famous Football Teams (Harrisburg, Pa.: J. Horace McFarland Co., 1951).

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The known unpublished histories are either master's theses or doctoral

dissertations and not available from University Microfilms. These are

as follows.

1. R. L. Brunhouse - "History of the Carlisle Indian School: A Phase of Government Indian Policy: 1879-1918." A master's thesis, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, 1935. Available only on microfilm.

2. Beulah Fitz - "History of the Carlisle Indian School." A master's thesis, Department of History, University of New Mexico, 1935. Does not circulate.

3. Harold E. Miller - "A History of the Carlisle Indian School." A master's thesis, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University, 1958.

4. Carmelita S. Ryan - "The Carlisle Indian Industrial School." A Ph.D. dissertation for the Graduate School, Department of History, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1962.

The Ryan work is an invaluable resource, primarily because the author

worked for eight years at the National Archives prior to writing her doc­

toral dissertation and was assigned to the records of the Bureau of In­

dian Affairs.

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RICHARD HENRY PRATT IN HIS SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT

For Richard Henry Pratt, democracy was a cherished American

ideal. He believed democracy was for all the people in the geographi­

cal territory known as the USA. He began fighting for it during the Civ­

il War when he enlisted in the Union Army at the age of 21; and, on his

deathbed at 84, he was still battling for its unqualified extension to

the American Indian. He was strengthened in his convictions through his

experiences in the army; with Indian scouts, warriors, and prisoners; and

by pondering and discussing political events, his own values and beliefs

with fellow officers and military men. This chapter will use biographi­

cal data to illustrate this developmental pattern.

Written documents can tell us something of the role of an indi­

vidual in a set of events; but they also reveal the impact of events on

the attitudes, beliefs, values, and, ultimately, the projections and be­

havioral patterns of the individual as well. For two decades prior to

the founding of Carlisle Indian School, Pratt's life was crowded with

events that shaped his thinking toward disadvantaged minorities, gener­

ally, and American Indians, specifically. His career lives of soldier

in Indian territory; jailor-warden at the Fort Marion, Florida, prison

for captured Indian warriors; and counselor-teacher for Indians at Hamp­

ton Institute, Virginia, exposed him to experiences which convinced him

that equality for American Indians as U.S. citizens was essential to an

84

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authentic American democracy; that multi-tribal educational program was

the only viable instrument to achieve this objective; and that the insti­

tution for such an experiment in Indian education should be located far

from Indian reservations and among White Americans. The latter, he

felt, needed a fuller understanding of democracy and knowledge of the

fact that in the constitutional definition of citizenship the Red man

was included. Therefore, accompanying the biographical information re­

corded here is a selective sample of incidents to show how a fortuitous

concatenation of events produced the irrepressible, crusading personality

that was Richard Henry Pratt.

Biography in Brief

Richard Henry Pratt, Brigadier General, United States Am y , re­

tired, was born on December 6, 1840, at Rushford, New York, and died

April 23, 1924, at the army hospital in San Francisco, California. When

he was 6 years old, his family moved to Logansport, Indiana. He had

adulthood thrust upon him in 1853 at the age of 13 when the death of his

father left his mother a widow with three sons. Richard was the eldest.

He left school and took a full-time job as a printer’s helper for which

he earned one dollar and fifty cents ($1.50) per week. For extra money,

he worked part time as a rail splitter. After five years in the printing

business, he hired out as an apprentice to a tinsmith for three years.

Both these trades, printing and tinsmithery, were included in the curric­

ulum at Carlisle Indian School with General Pratt as one of the instruc­

tors.

He was launched on his army career (Heitman 1903, vol. 1:805)

when he enlisted following the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861.

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He served in the Ninth Indiana Infantry, the Second Indiana Cavalry, and

the Eleventh Indiana Cavalry, from which he was honorably discharged on

May 29, 1865, with the rank of Captain.

Meanwhile, he had married Anna Laura Mason on April 12, 1864;

and when he was mustered out of volunteer service in the United States

Army, he returned home to Longansport and opened a hardware store. As a

25-year-old veteran, Pratt found the hardware business unexciting. He

applied for a commission in the regular army; and on March 7, 1867,

received an appointment as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Tenth Cavalry,

a newly-organized regiment of Negro enlisted men with White officers,

stationed at Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory. Here his education in race

relations began.

Although he wore with great pride the uniform of the U.S. Army

for 41 years, and during 20 years of retirement, he proudly bore the

rank of Brigadier General, history does not remember him as a soldier.

History recalls General Pratt as a jailor for Indian prisoners at Fort

Marion, Florida, who became an inspired and inspiring, fiery champion

of American Indian education.

Pratt, the Soldier

Interestingly enough, Pratt begins his memoirs with his first

close contact with Black soldiers as cavalrymen under his command and

his introduction to Indians as scouts assigned to him. Seven types of

learning experiences that influenced his thought patterns and life-

direction are delineated here because these experiences are mirrored in

his later career in Indian education.

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1. Learning about Minorities and Dependability

The 10th Cavalry was made up of 103 men, ex-slaves, enlisted at

Little Rock, Arkansas, and stationed at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory,

under Captain James W. Walsh, Pratt's commanding officer. Two days

after young Lieutenant Pratt's arrival at the post, 20 of these men were

assigned to him, along with 25 Indian scouts, to escort General John W.

Davidson from Fort Gibson to Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory. It would

be necessary for the entire company to be ready to march by 4:00 A.M.

the next day in order to meet General Davidson across the Arkansas River

by 7:00 A.M. to begin the long journey to Arbuckle. The Post Adjutant

gave the orders saying he would be responsible for having the Indian

scouts at the river with the ferryboats on hand; and Pratt was to see

that the Black cavalrymen were up, breakfasted, with their horses and all

their gear in order, the wagons loaded with supplies, and ready to begin

the march at 4:00 A.M. When Pratt awakened at 3:00 A.M., the Negro

soldiers were already getting themselves together, and at 4:00 A.M. were

"at Attention." The Post Adjutant was irritated when Pratt awakened him

at 4:30 A.M. to explain that the Indian scouts were delayed with the

boats because the ferryman (White) overslept and said he would give them

the boats after he'd had his breakfast. Pratt found the Indian scout

sergeant and his men could manage the boats themselves. By 5:00 A.M.,

they were off without the help of the White staff, but Pratt had to ex­

plain his delay to General Davidson.

2. Learning about Indians

Lieutenant Pratt found that most of these Indian scouts had re­

ceived some English education at their home schools under the Cherokee

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tribal government prior to "Removal." He admired their "manly bearing

and fine physicques." "Their intelligence, civilization, and common

sense was [sic] a revelation," wrote Pratt, "because I had concluded

that as an army officer I was there to deal with atrocious aborigines"

(Pratt 1964:5).

3. Discussing the Constitution, Men, and the Military

The march (horseback journey) from Fort Gibson to Fort Arbuckle

required seven days. Pratt's traveling companion was Major Amos S.

Kimball. Regarding some of their conversations, Pratt wrote (1964:7-8):

. . . (W)e discussed the Civil War, in which we had both partici­ pated from the beginning to the end, and then the portent of our new life, in the regular service against hostile Indians. We became well acquainted with the Indian sergeant and his Indians and our confidence in them was greatly increased. Our Negro troopers grew in our estimate by their ready obedience and faithful performance of duty. Being sworn as army officers "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," we gave consideration to our immediate duties. The four­ teenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution then pending before the states provided that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens thereof." We talked of these high purposes and the Declaration of Independence, which affirmed that "all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights," etc. and then contrasted these declara­ tions and the proposed amendment with the fact that the Indian scouts, who enlisted to perform the very highest functions of citi­ zens, even giving their lives, . . . were imprisoned on reservations throughout the country and were thus barred from these guaranteed opportunities which they needed in order to develop, become equal, and able to compete as citizens in all the opportunities of our American life. In considering the case of the Negro, we were agreed that when the fourteenth amendment became a part of the Constitu­ tion, the Negro would be entitled to be treated in every way as other citizens, and we were unable to reconcite that two regiments of cavalry and two of infantry then being inducted into the army of the United States, the enlisted men of which were to be Negros [sic] and the officers white, would [be in] accord with the amendment which provided that there must be no distinction. It seemed plain that under this amendment the Negro could not be velegated in army ser­ vice to the Negro units of enlisted men solely, and the Indian could not be continued imprisoned on separate tribal reservations. The

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rights of citizenship included fraternity and equal privilege for development. None of our people were held under as severe "juris­ diction" by the United States as our Indians [emphasis mine].

Pratt was 27 years old when this discussion took place. Fort Gibson was

located within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation; and during the

week-long march to Arbuckle, they passed through the country of the

Creeks, the Choctaws, and the Chickasaws. Pratt had time to get ac­

quainted with his Negro troops and his Indian scouts. And he had ample

time to ponder.

Lieutenant Pratt and the 10th Cavalry of 103 Black soldiers were

stationed at Fort Arbuckle to await the arrival of the 6th Infantry from

South Carolina, which was to replace the departing 19th Infantry. He

was made Post Adjutant, and with that assignment came the supervision of

25 Caddo and Wichita Indian scouts stationed there. Few spoke English,

so Pratt was aided by an interpreter who spoke Comanche, the lingua

franca of Plains tribes and "affiliated bands of Caddoes, Wichitas, and

Keechies [sic]." Again Pratt found himself feeling uneasy in the knowl­

edge that he was commanding soldiers serving the government of the United

State under the same laws as other soldiers and for the same purposes

but barred on none other than racial grounds from "material opportunity

to become coequal [sic] with other people." Pratt reasoned that "racial

segregation" inevitably led to "inadequate citizening opportunities" and

probably explained the Indian's "slow progress into competent citizen­

ship" (1964:Ch. 2).

4. Double Standard and "Frontier Justice"

Pratt observed that in many frontier towns there was ample evi­

dence that whiskey brought out depravities and criminality in the White

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man that were as menacing to society as the behavior of drunken Indians,

and yet it was the Indian who was maligned. Unscrupulous Whites supplied

the Indians with whiskey, then publicized the resultant behavior. Dur­

ing his eight years of army service in Indian territory, he never ceased

to be rankled by the fact that the United States Army "was principally

engaged in restraining dangerous red Indian depredators and at the same

time the Indians were compelled to defend and protect themselves against

lawless White American depredators" (1964:23).

The unjust character of "frontier justice" was dramatically, but

painfully, demonstrated to Pratt in the life and death of Indian Scout

Bit Spotted Horse (Pawnee Chief Esaue-Kedadeho), who came under his com­

mand during the encounter with hostile Indians in Texas and Oklahoma

territories in the 1870s. General John W. Davidson was in charge of the

campaign which operated out of Fort Sill (Oklahoma) and covered an area

known as the Staked Plains (i.e., roughly the Texas panhandle and Eastern

New Mexico). During the severe winter of 1874, mounted horses and mule-

drawn wagons of ammunition and survival supplies moved at a snail's pace

across the Plains. On one occasion, General Davidson found it necessary

to send a courier message to another of his commands about 100 miles

away. He requested volunteers from among those of his soldiers who usu­

ally carried out such courier responsibilities. Due to the severity of

the weather, none of them wished to accept the mission. Pratt suggested

that he select two Indian scouts who would be just as reliable. He

chose Big Spotted Horse, indicating that the choice of a traveling com­

panion should be made by the Chief from among his own men. The two rode

off into the storm and returned four days later with the answer. General

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Davidson was so pleased with the message and the promptness of the In­

dian couriers that he offered them a drink of whiskey from his own bot­

tle. Big Spotted Horse and his companion refused, saying that they did

not drink whiskey. Such was the character of this Pawnee Chief, Big

Spotted Horse— fearless, tireless, trustworthy, responsible. Pratt

wrote (1964:79-80):

It was his self-imposed task when he went into camp at the end of the day's march to come with one of his men, borrow my field glass, and go out in front and scour the country for miles. On returning, he would tell me (via interpreter) what he had found in the way of trails or old camps. . . . On returning from one of these adventures, he brought two American horses. . . . (Apparently) the horses of that command had stampeded and these two had separated and were lost from the others. Spotted Horse had the pleasure of returning the horses to their owners and receiving warm thanks, but would not accept a fee.

And yet, when Big Spotted Horse had completed his Indian Scout service to

the United States government and was settled on the Pawnee Reservation

near Caldwell, Kansas, and had an occasion to use his pass to go with

his family into town to trade, he was shot and killed on the street by

the town marshall, Henry Brown, on May 14, 1883. The marshall claimed

that Big Spotted Horse was drunk and insulted a White woman on the

street. The Indians said the story could not be true. Nevertheless,

the Caldwell Journal of May 17, 1883, praised Marshall Brown for his

brave performance of duty. One year later (1884), Marshall Henry Brown

was killed as one of a group of four masked bandits who tried to rob the

Medicine Valley Bank at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. The other three masked

men escaped unidentified (Pratt 1964:Ch. 8).

Such was "frontier justice" as it was etched in Pratt's memory,

for it was Big Spotted Horse who died May 14, 1883, with the newspaper

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label of scoundrel as Marshall Henry Brown's heroism was recorded on

May 17, 1883, by the Caldwell Journal (Kansas Historical Record 26,

1960:162-63) .

5. Fairness is Even-handed

Whatever shortcomings were attributed to Richard Pratt by his

peers throughout his lifetime, unfairness, in its broadest sense, was

not one of them. At least three incidents from his biography illustrate

this fact and explain much of his behavior at various times during his

years as an educator of Indians.

To Pratt, fairness meant that rules applied equally to all.

Not yet 30, he was serving as Post Adjutant at Fort Arbuckle under Cap­

tain James W. Walsh. He was an exceptional horseman, was a former mem­

ber of the Queen's regiment of the British army, and later served with

the Pennsylvania Cavalry during the Civil War. The 6th Infantry of White

soldiers and the 10th Cavalry of Black soldiers both served the Fort.

It was the custom that "an orderly for the day" be assigned to the Post

Commander. The rules for selection dictated that the soldier chosen to

be "orderly for the day" be the "cleanest and best drilled soldier" in

the line on any given day. Cleanliness included socks and underwear.

An exceptionally fine looking White soldier captured the position most

often and had become a favorite of Captain Walsh. One morning during

the regular inspection, Pratt noticed that there was no difference in

the drill performance and the quality of cleanliness of person and equip­

ment of one of the Black privates and the soldier usually selected. He

had the two soldiers taken to a side room where the two men were asked

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to remove their shoes. The socks of the Black soldier were perfectly

clean, while those of the White soldier were noticeably soiled. The

Black soldier was selected as "orderly of the day." When Pratt was cri­

ticized by Captain Walsh, he quoted the rules (Pratt 1964:28-29).

Fairness also meant that whenever the circumstances permitted,

all adult Indians, men and women, should be treated as responsible

adults. Regarding an incident at Elk Creek, October 26, 1874, Pratt

(1964:82) wrote:

One day we came upon a camp of Comanches, who had become tired of harassment and gladly surrendered, no shots fired. They were disarmed and all the men except the very old placed under guard. The women were continued in their camp under the charge of the wife of the chief. . . . As I remember, over 2,000 ponies, horses, and mules were captured with them. These and the Indian camp were placed under the care of the (Indian) scouts, who were camped nearby, and the Indian men were held prisoners at the camp of the command some distance away across a creek. Indian scouts were placed as sentinels around the Indian camp with instructions to keep those belonging to the camp within its limits and to arrest any persons coming from the outside and to call for the guard. I instructed the woman in charge of the camp that if there was any trouble at any time in the night she should notify me. During the night two soldiers evaded the sentinels and got into the camp. The chief's wife and one of her assistants came and informed me. I arrested the men and placed them under our Indian guard and notified the commanding officer, who instructed that the Indians hold them during the night. In the morning the men were openly marched by our Indian guard over to the main camp guard and turned over as prisoners there. This procedure had a salutary ef­ fect on the men for several days thereafter, during the movement of the command and prisoners on the march into Fort Sill.

Similarly, fairness meant that contractors supplying meat and

other foods for the United States Army and the United States Indian Bur­

eau were under obligation to provide rations of edible quality for Army

personnel and Indians alike. The friendly Comanches and Kiowas living

on the reservations in the Elk River-Fort Sill region had been denied

access to their natural food supply of buffalo, antelope, and deer. As

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a replacement, the Indian Bureau provided rations of poor quality and

minimal quantity. The Indians were hungry and irritated when they

learned of the superior rations given the prisoners who had surrendered.

These passive Indians came in large numbers to Fort Sill begging to

share the beef and food being issued from the Army food supply to the so-

called hostile prisoners. Pratt discovered that (1964:82-83):

The same contractor supplied the army and the Indian Department with beef, the cattle coming from the vast herds of Texas. The army specifications were stringent as to quality and were maintained by careful inspections. The contract with the Indian Bureau was for a lower price, and I soon detected that, . . . unmerchantable, scrawny, and even diseased beef was being issued to the Indians.

The Army supply of beef was cut up on a block, weighed, and issued

daily. The beef for the Indians was issued weekly, hoof-weight, one

animal per chief to be driven off to the prairie and divided among the

chief's people or family groups. If the Indian rejected the diseased

animals, the Indian Agent simply killed the beef, cleaned the hide, and

sold it at the trading post. Pratt made known his findings to the Com­

manding Officer. His report went to the divisional office in Chicago;

and General Sheridan ordered an investigation and sent his aide, Major

Dunn, to Fort Sill to conduct it and report back. Pratt wrote (1964:

83-84):

This report of this investigation and like reports from other parts of the Indian field helped after a while to bring better ration qual­ ity and quantity to the Indians, and a regulation by the Government required that, at each issue of food to the Indians throughout the Indian Service, there should be an army officer to oversee the issues and confirm its contract quality, and also to see that all issues of beef were weighed and correct in quantity. This army espionage over Indian Bureau management was not accepted kindly by the Bureau, . . . but it promoted improved care for the Indians.

Pratt's role in all these events did not endear him to the leadership in

the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the field or in Washington, D.C.

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Already, at the age of 35, he had sown the seeds for his never-ending

battle with the BIA, which battle finally led to his forced resignation

as superintendent of Carlisle Indian School and, eventually, to the move­

ment of all schools for Indians to Indian territory and west of the

Mississippi. But Pratt sought not to please the Bureau officials but

only to improve the care of the Indians. For him, it was the only fair

thing to do.

When he founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School four years

later, he refused Indian Bureau food rations for his students. He main­

tained his military status and demanded that any foods that could not be

raised on the school farm come from the same rations supplied to the

regular army. Beginning with the Fort Sill investigation of 1875-75,

Pratt and the Indian Bureau were never to be reconciled.

6. Teaching Anecdotal Experiences

Wild horses made tame. Through a field glass, the Indian scouts

discovered a herd of wild horses on the southwestern plains. They re­

quested Captain Pratt's permission to capture them. With the General's

permission, the command was halted so that all the men could watch 12 of

the scouts organized into four parties of three men each strip themselves

and their own horses of all excess gear and clothing, ride bareback with

only lariat ropes, round up, capture, and tame five wild horses in one

afternoon and evening. Pratt's memoirs record (1964:81-82):

The next morning all the wild horses were ridden by the Indians and there was no apparent difference between them and the horses the Indians had raised. Two features of this occurrence were im­ pressive. There was no 1st up in the taming and training process from the time of the start until they were fully driven into the

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fold of usefulness3 and . . . "self-determination" was not per­ mitted [emphasis mine].

There is no doubt that this incident influenced Pratt's teaching method­

ology. He saw that the Indians spared not themselves nor the animals in

the process of taming the wild horses. Relaxation could come when the

job was done. This writer believes the seedling of forced acculturation

began germinating at this time.

Learning from turkey eggs. Captain Pratt brought in six wild

turkey eggs, and Mrs. Pratt gave them to a hen who had been displaying

an eagerness to set. In three days, the eggs were all hatched and giving

the mother hen great pride. The turkeys grew rapidly; and while they

continued to eat with "mother" hen, they began to roost among the branches

of a nearby tree as is the habit of wild turkeys. However, Pratt observed

that the turkeys never followed their wild instincts far enough to roost

in the trees of the forest, although the forest was but 150 yards behind

their home. This incident in the domestication of wild turkeys had a

lesson for him on the race question. He wrote: "... even wild turkeys

only need the environment and kind treatment of domestic civilized life

to become a very part of it" (Pratt 1964:24).

Middle-class myopia revealed. When the commodious Fort Sill

hospital was completed, the officers planned an elaborate celebration

which included a banquet and a dance. The committee suggested that Cap­

tain Pratt arrange for the music and extend invitations to the more impor­

tant Indian chiefs. The dance band was chosen from among the musicians

in the marching band of the 10th Cavalry, the Negro regiment under

Pratt's command. Six principal chiefs were selected from among the com­

pany of Indian scouts under Pratt’s command and from among the friendly

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Indians living near Fort Sill. Captain Pratt informed the chiefs that

he, himself, would come to each of their camps and escort them to the

ball. At the last minute, unbeknownst to his fellow officers, Pratt re­

quested from Chief Kicking Bird permission to wear appropriate Indian

attire for the occasion. At Kicking Bird's camp, Pratt was properly

adorned by the Chief and his two wives who were pleased that their face

paint and war bonnet made the White man look quite Indian. Pratt led

the six Chiefs in their fine regalia into the hall to the music of his

regiment's band; and as the procession passed the officers and their

wives, Pratt overheard one of the Captain's wives remark (Pratt 1964:

102-3): "It is real mean of Captain Pratt to bring these nasty old In­

dians up here to interfere with our pleasure." In Pratt's mind, this

indicated that one of the obvious barriers to the "citizening" of In­

dians in the United States was the inhospitable attitude of White Ameri­

cans and their insistence on "denying fraternity" to Indians and "keep­

ing them away from opportunities to become useful and acceptable citi­

zens" (Pratt 1964:100-3). Later it will be shown that this concern led

Pratt to work at the transformation of this attitude among Whites even

as he worked on the transformation of the Indian through education.

7. Indian Council Discussion: "The White Man's Road"

During the winter of 1874-75, the friendly Indians near Fort

Sill and nearby Indian agencies held a number of solemn councils, and

Pratt was invited to participate on two occasions. He sat in the Council

circle and shared in the sedate pipe-smoking ritual preliminary to the

discussions. Comanche was the lingua franca at these inter-tribal

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assemblages; and the older men, by custom, spoke first. The essence of

their talks (shared with Pratt in undertone by an interpreter) at each

council was the "white man's road" and how to get on it. They wanted to

know more about the "white man's power and his improvements." They

asked Pratt questions, and he tried to provide answers. The nature of

his replies, as recorded in his autobiography, reveals an early belief

that American Indians could be integrated into life in these United

States if they so desired and were willing to surrender some of their

traditional life-ways. He wrote (1964:100):

My judgement was invited and I used the opportunity to suggest to them that their only safe future was to be found in merging their interests with ours and becoming . . . part of the people of the United States; that vast numbers of people coming from many countries across the ocean were continually doing this, all soon learning to speak our language and uniting with us as one people . . ., that it would be easy for them to do the same; that the small number of Indian people as compared with our millions and their division into many tribes speaking separate languages and having different pur­ poses made it entirely impracticable to think of their successful continuing as separate peoples; that their safe course was to quit being tribal Indians, go out and live among us as individual men, adopt our language, our industries and become a part of the power that was fast making this country so great and was sure to make it vastly greater as the years rolled on [emphasis mine].

It never occurred to Pratt that immigrants voluntarily made a choice

about their living under the government of the United States. He did,

however, keep wondering why this race (the Indians) though "never . . .

numerous within our limits" (i.e., U.S. boundaries) had always been

treated "as inimical and alien to our interests" and never "admitted to

the opportunities to become the useful fellow-citizens" that we extended

to the "immigrating races" (Pratt 1964:116). So at 35, he also had mis­

givings about U.S. Indian policy. His own convictions about a solution

to the Indian problem were taking shape.

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Pratt, the Prison-Keeper (1875-1878)

The Indian Wars and the captured warriors became a problem to

President Grant because trial by military commission was ruled uncon­

stitutional as "a state of war could not exist between a nation and its

wards." The intense hostility of White frontiersmen precluded any jury

trial in civil courts, so it was decided to conclude the matter by arbi­

trarily sending the so-called "most notorious" offenders to the impreg­

nable seventeenth-century St. Augustine, Florida, peninsula fortress,

Castillo de San Marcos (later called Fort Marion). Having the private

ear of General Sheridan, Pratt requested, and received, permission to

accompany 72 prisoners from Fort Sill. He pointed out in his letter to

the General (April 26, 1875) that he had spent eight years in Indian Ter­

ritory, was acquainted with the offenses and the dispositions of the

offenders. After naming the ones that deserved maximum penalties for

known murders, Pratt concluded his letter by saying:

Most of the young men being sent away have simply been following their leaders, much as a soldier obeys officers, and are not really so culpable. As, under the changes of administration, public opin­ ion, etc., they will be returned to their people sooner or later, much can and should be done to reform these young men while under this banishment (1964:107).

On May 11, 1875, special orders left Washington to Army Headquarters at

St. Louis authorizing Lieutenant R. H. Pratt, 10th Cavalry, to take

charge and accompany the Indian prisoners from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,

to Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, for confinement; that Pratt re­

main in charge of these Indians until further orders; that all charges

be reimbursed by the Indian Department; and that the Pratt reports go

directly to the office of the Secretary of War.

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Thus, in late May 1875, Pratt assumed responsibility for 72 male

Indian prisoners and one undetachable Cheyenne wife. The contingent in­

cluded 27 Kiowas, 9 Comanches, 2 Arapahoes, 33 Cheyennes, and 1 Caddo.

They traveled by railroad from Fort Sill to Fort Marion, picking up

Mrs. Pratt and the children at Indianapolis, and passing through such

large cities as St. Louis, Louisville, Atlanta, and Jacksonville. At

each urban railroad depot, masses of curious people gathered seeking a

view of the captive Indian warriors. Two Cheyenne leaders, Lean Bear

and Gray Beard, were determined not to reach Florida alive. Lean Bear

met with slow death by suicide as he concealed countless penknife

wounds, and Gray Beard was shot in an escape attempt. Both deaths af­

fected Pratt deeply.

The train trip convinced Pratt that if American Indians were

ever to be seen as human beings, they must first be taken out of the

"curio class" by cutting their hair and making them wear army uniforms.

He had learned from his Indian scout supervision years that they could

guard themselves, which led him to request greater latitude in the super­

vision of the prisoners and freedom to use his own judgment. The re­

moval of the shackles, regular fresh-air gymnastic exercises, the organi­

zation of the younger men into a military-type company with corporals

and sergeants, and daily drills improved the health and the morale of the

prisoners.

Being a winter resort state, Florida had many visitors who fre­

quented curiosity gift shops and the Old Spanish Fort (Marion) at

St. Augustine. Curio dealers found a good market in "sea beans," that

is, shells gathered along the ocean shore, polished, and otherwise made

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ornamental for sale to northern visitors. Fortunately for the prisoners,

one St. Augustine dealer with 10,000 shells and a Jacksonville dealer

with 6,000 shells were willing to pay the Indians ten cents per shell

for polishing them. This employment earned $1,600 in revenue for the

prisoners to use in the purchase of items for their personal comfort.

Pratt found other work opportunities for them at jobs refused by ordinary

laborers as too difficult or menial. Such employment included prickly-

palmetto land clearance (Anastasia Island); orange grove picking and

packing for shipment; railroad freight and baggage handling; digging

with archaeologists in Smithsonian Institution excavations; and taxi­

dermy for the eminent zoologist, Professor Spencer F. Baird, then Assis­

tant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

In the case of the five-acre, palmetto-covered land mass on

Anastasia Island, Pratt challenged five of the sturdiest Indians from

five different tribes to succeed where two different work crews had

previously tried and given up because of blistered hands and backaches.

He assured them that the pain would decrease as they worked if they per­

severed. They did, earned $35 each for the project, and Pratt had won

support for his Fort Marion project from another substantial citizen in

the St. Augustine community.

Meanwhile, friends of Mrs. Pratt, retired school teachers,

gentleladies, and widows of Army officers, responded to Pratt's appeal

to establish a school at the Fort for the education of the prisoners in

English speech and the three R's. Miss Mather, a Mt. Holyoke graduate

and former headmistress of a fashionable New England boarding school for

young ladies, was an enthusiastic educator; she became chief architect

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of the educational program for the prisoners and later went with the

Pratts to set up Carlisle Indian School. Her St. Augustine staff of ex­

cellent volunteers gave daily instruction to the prisoners throughout

the three years of their term at Fort Marion. The young men were or­

ganized into four to six classes almost constantly under instruction.

Mrs. Pratt and Miss Mather together conducted one class for the older

men, who were initially very reluctant. Most of the prisoners soon

learned to write intelligent letters, and English replaced Comanche as

the lingua franca.

The educational program and Pratt's program of prison industries

and the learning-through-employment projects received much favorable

publicity through magazine articles by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miss

Mather's friend and frequent guest at the Fort; Bishop Henry B. Whipple,

Episcopal 3ishop of Minnesota; Estelle Baker Steele, educator and text­

book author; and James Wells Champney, artist and illustrator for Har­

per's Weekly and Scribners’ Monthly. Many other prominent Florida win­

ter resort residents visited the Fort and became lifetime supporters of

Richard Henry Pratt when he launched his career in Indian education with

the founding of Carlisle Indian School.

A born teacher, Pratt never missed a teaching opportunity. He

was quick to seize upon occasions that could acquaint the Indians with

the technological advances of civilization and the inventive genius of

the White man. Opportunities ranged from Miss Mather's false teeth, a

visitor's glass eye and another visitor's wig that had replaced the hair

of a diseased scalp, to helping move a Sunday School building several

blocks to a new location on a St. Augustine street, and to labor at im­

proving the water supply for the city of St. Augustine.

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Their language, writing, graphic arts, public speaking, and so­

cial relations skills were all developed with the aid of the volunteer

teachers and the contacts with the churches from which they came. In

three years, the Indian captives had learned to appreciate their captors;

and some of the captors had learned to respect the quick intelligence,

the ability, and the perseverance of the Indian warriors in their learn­

ing quest.

Indeed, Pratt's belief expressed in his letter to General Sheri­

dan in April 1875 and that "much can and should be done to reform these

young men while under banishment" became an accomplished fact. When 22

prisoners expressed their desire to remain in the East to further their

education, he knew his faith in their useful citizenship potential had

been justified. This prompted Pratt to request of his immediate supe­

rior, General Frederick T. Dent (Post Commander, 5th Artillery,

St. Francis Barracks, Florida, and brother-in-law of President Grant) ,

permission to pursue "higher educational chances" for the younger and

most promising prisoners. General Dent approved the idea and forwarded

the suggestion to the Indian Bureau. The Bureau had no objection but no

funds for the education of adult prisoners of the War Department. With

the aid of General Dent and the good offices of President Grant and the

U.S. Commissioner of Education, General John Eaton, along with Congress­

man Julius H. Seelye, who was also president of Amherst College, Pratt

soon had a circle of influential friends who shared his views and during

their lifetimes cooperated with him in all his efforts in Indian educa­

tion.

"The ladies teaching the Indian classes had social distinction

in the town" and each was anxious to see "the bright products of her

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labor" given opportunities for advancement (Pratt 1964:188). Their en­

thusiastic talk with visitors and the ladies of St. Augustine brought

not only financial support for the further education of individual In­

dian students but also gave rise to the planning of a spectacular fund­

raising event. The gentleladies planned a Mother Goose program using

their own children, some 25 boys and girls under 8 years of age. Their

request of Captain Pratt was that the program include guest features by

some of the Indian students— an Indian dance, one war whoop, an Indian

love song, and an Indian sign language demonstration with explanation.

This gave Pratt his first opportunity to address himself to a problem

that had troubled him ever since the Fort Sill hospital dedication ban­

quet and dance when the White captain's wife called the Chiefs "dirty

Indians" spoiling celebrants' fun: namely, that middle-class Whites

could be and should be taught to appreciate Indians as human beings and

potential citizens of these United States.

Pratt, the printer, prepared the tickets and printed the program,

which carried the names of all the children and the eight Indian stu­

dents. The largest hotel in St. Augustine offered its dining hall as an

auditorium. In 1878, one dollar per ticket was exhorbitant; but the

ticket sales exceeded 700, necessitating two evening performances. The

hall was packed both nights. The White children were especially anxious

to talk with Etahdleuh, the 21-year-old Kiowa singer, who had to learn

the first night to respond to curtain calls with an encore.

This was a historic even in the life of Captain and Mrs. Pratt,

as indicated by this simple, three-sentence paragraph from his auto­

biography (Pratt 1964:189-90):

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Behind the curtains was the most interesting picture of the occasion: the mother trainers, their costumed Mother Goose perform­ ing children, and the Indians decorated for their parts, all in fraternal relations, eager to begin a small effort to lift Indians into their rightful place as real potential Americans. Such was the hearty interest and enthusiasm of all from the smallest child to the biggest "injin" that there were no failures, and that night was lit an illuminating north star that has been a guide to the way for all the forty-five years since. Every child had to talk to Etahdleuh, who was happiest of all because of his intuition and vision of his own possibilities.

Pratt understood that any program in Indian education must include the

education of Whites as well, for there would be little point in prepar­

ing Indians to become useful citizens if there were no White citizens

willing to accord them that status.

Pratt, the Counselor-Teacher

It was the Hampton Institute year (1878-1879) that was crucial

in Pratt's decision to become an Indian educator and headmaster of his

own school for Indians. Northern Christian philanthropists provided

homes and scholarships for the advanced education of five of the 22 ex­

prisoners. Because the Indian Bureau had as policy the education of In­

dians to be farmers, Pratt sought admission of the other 17 to an agri­

cultural college. No White institution would take the risk, so Miss

Mather made contact with her friend General Samuel Chapman Armstrong,

Superintendent of Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes at

Hampton, Virginia. It was founded in 1868 by the American Missionary

Association with General Armstrong, who had distinguished himself during

the Civil War as a successful commander of Negro troops, as its first

president. He agreed to take the other 17 Indian warriors and ex­

prisoners; and the War Department designated Captain Pratt to remain at

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Hampton and sent General J. H. O'Brierne of Washington, D.C., to Virginia

to conduct the remaining 48 men, 1 wife and child back to their respec­

tive reservations in the West.

The Hampton faculty and president were in full knowledge of the

fact that no other institution was willing to accept Pratt's Indians.

The liberal charter under which Hampton Institute was incorporated in

Virginia posed no problem. Concerning that faculty decision, Helen W.

Ludlow, one of the teachers wrote (1888:10-13):

It was felt that here would be an interesting opportunity to test the broadness of the school's principles and methods; . . . Such a call could not be disregarded. . . . As the question of bringing Indians and Negroes together for education at Hampton has been always a subject of interested in­ quiry, and sometimes of adverse prophecy and criticism, it was well to bring it to the front. . . . (A)s far as the St. Augustine Indians were concerned, . . . the question seemed disposed of at once by the hearty cheerfulness with which they fell into line beside their Negro comrades. They were no doubt influenced by the spirit of their friend and guide, Captain Pratt, who said in introducing them on our platform, to the audience of Hampton people and school officers and students, "There will be no collision between the races here. These Indians have come to work."

The Fort Marion ex-prisoners arrived from St. Augustine on

April 13, 1878. At first, the Government was merely an onlooker at the

Hampton experiment. By September 2, 1878, the War Department was direct­

ing Pratt to report to the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, Carl

Schurz, for duty in recruiting Indian children for education at Hampton

Institute, Virginia. The Government agreed to pay the institution $167

plus transportation for each Indian student enrolled. In November 1878,

Pratt returned to Hampton with 49 boys and 9 girls from the Upper Mis­

souri agencies (Nebraska and the Dakotas). At the school's request,

Pratt was detailed to help begin "the Indian work at Hampton," where he

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remained until 1879, "when its success induced the government to start

him, at his suggestion, in his own great and good work at Carlisle"

(Ludlow 1888:10).

Pratt was never comfortable with the role being carved out for

him at Hampton Institute as the assistant to the President in charge of

Indian affairs. Although he had some very positive experiences in re­

cruiting for Hampton, the spectre of the revival of pre-Civil War,

White-generated suspicion and hostility between Indians and Negroes

caused him to reflect upon the wisdom of educating the two races at the

same institution. His report to Indian Commissioner Ezra A. Hayt on

November 28, 1878, indicated (a) that some teachers and Indian agents

were anxious to send their more promising students from the Reservation

schools to more propitious surroundings, (b) that many of the teachers

and some Indian parents had "a lively interest in the plan of manual

labor education" in the more developed Eastern communities, and (c) that

there was Indian recognition of the importance of off-Reservation school­

ing and "education in the English language is desired by the Indians

themselves." As a matter of fact, he recruited one 26-year-old Arikara

mother and her exceptionally bright 10-year-old daughter because the

mother feared that "education and civilization would make her child look

upon her as savage" and, therefore, if she could not go to learn also,

her daughter could not go. However, he had to note also that an enlisted

group of Indian girls from the Cheyenne River Agency had remained behind

because their parents had been dissuaded by local White educators who

were prejudiced against Hampton Institute because it was a Negro insti­

tution (Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1878:173-75).

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If he were to remain in Indian education, Pratt would remain unreservedly

committed to the education of Indian girls and boys in the same insti­

tution.

Although the progress of the Negro in America had given Pratt his

model of what rapid advance could be made from tribalism to civilization,

he was convinced that the potential for optimum progress by Indians

could best be realized if their basic education took place at an insti­

tution geared to their peculiar needs. He also believed that Indian

males could not, and would not, have the courage to continue in their

"civilized" ways unless there were marriageable Indian females who had

received the same acculturating experiences in the same environmental

situation. Therefore, concluded Pratt, Indians should have their own co­

educational school with opportunities for advanced training in a setting

of maximum exposure to the highest ideal of labor and family living in

American culture. His goal for Indians was derived from his personal

experiences with Indians as recounted earlier in this chapter, but it

reflected the thinking of the more humanistic social activists of his

day.

In the introduction to Pratt's autobiography, Robert M. Utley,

Southwest Regional Historian, National Park Service, and editor of

Pratt's memoirs, observed that in the 1880s, philosophically speaking,

"most legislators, administrators, and reformers were . . .dedicated to

making over the Indian in the white man's image" (Pratt 1964:xv). These

conventional educators, enlightened leaders in religious and social wel­

fare concerns, and many prominent personalities in public affairs and

politics sought, through the Reservation system, with its near absolute

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control and coercion of person and property, to carry forward an exacting

program of civilization that would prepare the Indians for the duties,

obligations, and responsibilities of citizenship. With their intent,

Pratt had no quarrel. It was their program implementation that troubled

him. The difference between Pratt and his concerned contemporaries was

that this soldier with little formal education had a plan for basic and

advanced Indian education which he followed relentlessly. In assessing

this rigid posture of Pratt, Utley wrote (Pratt 1964:xv):

To him the reservation was an anathema: it preserved the old way of life by barring the Indian from free circulation in the outside world. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was an anathema: its en­ trenched bureaucracy was dedicated mainly to self-perpetuation and thus to the status quo. The Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution was an anathema: its anthropologists glorified aboriginal values and ridiculed the possibility of swift cultural change.

The most succinct expression of Pratt's philosophy came when

this Presbyterian was invited to address the 1883 World Convention of

Baptists in New York City. His opening was: "In Indian civilization I am

a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civiliza­

tion and when we get them under holding them there until they are

thoroughly soaked" (Pratt 1964:335).

The founding and the administration of the Carlisle Indian In­

dustrial School (1879-1918) at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was the practical

implementation of this prosaic philosophy by a career soldier who had

become an educator among Indians. Richard Henry Pratt sincerely believed

that the "self-evident truths" of the United States Constitution meant

nothing unless they included the native Indian more than the foreign im­

migrant whom we welcomed individually to citizenship.

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CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL: ACCULTURATION UNDER DURESS

The education of American Indians for citizenship on an equal

basis with American Whites was the goal of Richard Henry Pratt in his

founding of Carlisle Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

in 1879. In a period when the American Indian was viewed as an "inferior

race" and despised as a dangerous enemy, the Fort Marion, Florida, prison

school for captured warriors and the Hampton, Virginia, Institute experi­

ment with 17 Florida ex-prisoners set in motion a virtual revolution in

government policy regarding American Indians. For a quarter of a cen­

tury (1879-1904), this movement for the amelioration of relations be­

tween Whites and Indians through education was orchestrated from the

Carlisle Indian School under the leadership of its founder and first

superintendent, Captain Richard H. Pratt.

Pratt's philosophy of Indian education was summarized in a state­

ment issued in 1892 and recorded in a book written about the school fol­

lowing his retirement. "The kind of education that will end the Indian

problem, by saving the Indian to material usefulness and good citizen­

ship," wrote General Pratt (1908:42),

is made up of four separate and distinct parts, in their order of value as follows: First: Usable knowledge of the language of the country. Second: Skill in some civilized industry that will enable suc­ cessful competition. Third: Courage of civilization which will enable abandonment of the tribe and successful living among civilized people. Fourth: Knowledge of books, or education so-called.

110

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"In justice to itself," he continued, "the government can have but one aim

in all it may do for the Indians, and that is to transform them into

worthy, productive American citizens" (Pratt 1908:42).

Pratt was convinced that the Indian question had to be settled

individually, not collectively. Many slogans that he used in speeches and

which have been quoted in the literature affirm this view. In her his­

tory of Indian Agents of the Old Frontier, Flora Warren Seymour included

a chapter entitled "Pratt, the Man with a Slogan," in which she recounts

some famous ones:

To civilize the Indian, put him in the midst of civilization. To keep him civilized, keep him there (1941:260). Kill the "Indian" and save the man (1941:267). We have tried to take civilization to the Indian. The better plan is to take the Indian to civilization (1941:268).

This individualization theme was also highlighted in a paper

read before the Nineteenth Annual Conference of Charities and Correction

at Denver, Colorado, in 1892, as Pratt explained the role of Carlisle in

the development of the individual Indian youth. The following quotation

is taken from that paper as recorded by Francis Paul Prucha, editor of

the book Amerieanizing the American Indian: Writings by the Friends of

the Indian— 1880-1900 (1973:269):

. . . It [Carlisle] has preached against colonizing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them. It has demanded for them the same multiplicity of chances which all others in the country enjoy. Car­ lisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have. Carlisle does not dictate to him what line of life he should fill, [just] so it is an honest one. It says to him that, if he gets his living by the sweat of his brow, and demonstrates to the nation that he is a man, he does more good for his race than hundreds of his fellows who cling to their tribal communistic surroundings.

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From the literature by or about Pratt and Carlisle, one gleans

that he seldom, if ever, thought of the survival of American Indians as

a race of people. His concern was individual Indian survival within

American White society. His interest was in individual Indians whose

destinies could be changed by remolding their personalities in terms of

"the white man's ways." He believed that if his philosophy of Indian

education could be adopted as the general guide (national policy) for

Indian schools, the students so trained could become the educated models

in their respective home communities to serve their respective tribal

groups in ways that could win the admiration of their elders and inspire

other youth to desire the same educational experience. Or, these edu­

cated Indians could exercise their other available option and, through

employment in the open market and participation in community life as

American citizens, could integrate themselves in the mainstream of White

American society.

Pratt believed further that such remolding of thousands of indi­

vidual Indian youths from various tribal groups in Indian territory

could bring about transformation (even conversion) of whole families and

tribes to accept "the white man's way" as the way to a better life. If

such a transformation followed, Indian-White hostilities would subside;

and the Indian problem would cease to exist.

The development of Pratt's opinion and posture in this direction was best

summarized by himself in his eleventh annual report on the Carlisle

training school to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Thomas J. Morgan,

who, upon being newly appointed in 1889 by President Benjamin Harrison,

had requested a historical sketch. The report of November 2, 189 0,

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carried a very lengthy introductory paragraph in which Pratt said in part

(C.I.A., Annual Report 1890:308):

. . . (T)he Carlisle school had its origin in convictions that grew out of my eight years (1866-1875) cavalry service against the In­ dians in the Indian Territory. My regiment, the Tenth, is one of the two regiments of colored cavalry. I found many of the men of the command most capable. Williams,^ since the able historian of the colored race and American minister to Hayti was a first sergeant in one of the companies. I often commanded Indian scouts, took charge of Indian prisoners, and performed other Indian duty, which led me to consider the relative conditions of the two races. The negro , I argued, is from as low a state of savagery as the Indian, and in two hundred years' association with Anglo-Saxons he has lost his languages and gained theirs; has laid aside the characteristics of his former savage life, and to a great extent, adopted those of the most advanced and highest civilized nation in the world, and has thus become fitted and accepted as a fellow citizen among them. This miracle of change came from association with the higher civili­ zation. Then, I argued, it is not fair to denounce the Indian as an incorrigible savage until he has had at least equal privilege of association. If millions of black savages can become transformed and assimilated, and if annually hundreds of thousands of foreigm emigrants from all lands can also become Anglicized, Americanized, assimilated, and absorbed through association, there is but one plain duty resting upon us with regard to the Indians, and that is to relieve them of their savagery and other alien qualities by the same methods used to relieve the others. Help them, too, to die as helpless tribes, and to rise up among us as strong and capable indi­ vidual men and American citizens.

From an anthropological perspective, Pratt was promoting individual de-

culturation and personal reculturation in terms of Euro-American ways and

the puritan-style Christian ethic, with the off-reservation boarding

school as the principal enculturating agent. He was sensitive to family

loyalties but insensitive to tribal loyalties.

The process of individual acculturation incorporated in educa­

tion policy with influence on the federal government's program in Indian

education is the primary emphasis of this dissertation. Therefore, the

main hypothesis as aforestated (see Introduction, p. 7) is as follows:

The federal program for American Indian education in the United States had its genesis in the policy of forced acculturation

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exemplified in the founding and operation of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918.

In order to validate this hypothesis, it is necessary to estab­

lish the fact that there was a deliberate effort on the part of the

Bureau of Indian Affairs to remold the personality structure of Indian

children in the image of Anglo-Saxon White Americans to the end that they

might grow into adult Indians that could fit into the socio-economic-

political system in this country with minimum friction with Whites.

There is evidence that such is the case, that Carlisle Indian School was

its vehicle, and that its founder was the benevolent patriarch of the

program. There is also abundant evidence that, intransigent though he

was, Richard Henry Pratt was genuinely sincere in his humane concern for

the personal welfare of American Indians. Moreover, in his mind, the

solution to the Indian problem through his method of education was the

only one consistent with the American democratic ideal of an all-inclusive

society.

The features that characterized this planned, calculated manage­

ment of the individual lives of Indian students are herein reconstructed

from primary sources of information about Carlisle Indian School at the

National Archives, the Library of the Department of the Interior, Pratt's

memoirs, and the autobiographies of Carlisle alumni. The anthropological

concept that describes this development is called acculturation and re­

fers to the process of change which takes place within a culture, or

population, or social system in response to the impact of another culture,

or other cultures, and populations.

Individual behavior modification was necessary for survival at

the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. That process is defined as

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forced acculturation and refers to the imposition of religion, ideolog­

ies, and behavioral patterns by a dominant society upon a subordinate

one. Captain Pratt called it "the civilizing process." The features of

the Carlisle educational system that influenced individual behavior modi­

fication may be divided, roughly speaking, into thirteen categories:

(1) geographical location and physical setting, (2) living arrangements,

(3) physical attire and personal appearance, (4) language and communica­

tion, (5) time-use schedule, (6) the formal education program (curricu­

lum) , (7) the vocational training program, (8) physical fitness emphasis,

(9) school discipline and democracy, (10) religion and community rela­

tionships, (11) extra-curricular activities, (12) public appearances and

public relations, and (13) the "Outing System."

The "Outing System," considered to be Pratt's most distinctive

and innovative contribution to Indian education, is a special feature

that will be discussed in detail in Chapter V. The other twelve features

are discussed seriatim.

Geographical Location and Physical Setting

The practice of using abandoned army barracks close to Indian

Reservations for schools for Indian children had been established in the

1840s (see Chapter I, pp. 46-47). However, Pratt found the offer of an

unoccupied military post in Indian Territory unacceptable because his

educational plan envisioned, indeed required, a location near a semi-

urban community in the Eastern part of the United States for a non­

reservation, multi-tribal, coeducational boarding school.

His choice was the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Cavalry School Bar­

racks near Harrisburg. The site had been a military station since 1755

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but had been vacant since 1872 when the U.S. Cavalry School was moved to

St. Louis. On September 6, 1879, when the War Department released

Carlisle Barracks to the Interior Department for Captain Pratt's use in

establishing a training school for Indian boys and girls, the post com­

prised 27 acres. On 15 of them stood 17 buildings, including a Revolu­

tionary War prisoner guard house built by Hessian mercenaries employed

by the British and captured by the Americans. This building was main­

tained for correctional purposes during the period of the existence of

the Carlisle school. Beginning in 1880, Pratt, with the aid of friends,

began to lease and purchase additional acreage. In 1904, the twenty-

fifth and final year of Pratt's administration, the property consisted

of 34 buildings and 307 acres "located in one of the best agricultural

regions in the country, surrounded by a thrifty, industrious people"

(Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pa., 1895:3). No acreage was pur­

chased thereafter. Another factor favoring the site was that Dickinson

College was located at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

In recruiting students in Indian territory, Pratt explained to

the Chiefs and Indian parents that the Government believed Indian chil­

dren could become just as competent as White children if given the same

opportunities to learn the language and a trade. The reason for estab­

lishing a school so far East was to bring them near Washington, D.C.,

where all the people could see their improvement and Government offi­

cials could witness their progress and their ability to learn (Pratt

1964:222-24).

The Carlisle campus became functional and impressive. Its 34

buildings— 5 of stone, 18 of brick, and 11 of wood, all painted or

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stained soft yellow with white wood trim— formed a rectangle enclosing

the parade grounds, a small circular bandstand, and a wooden flagpole.

There were tennis courts, a croquet area, and a drill field. Against

the background of the blue hills of Pennsylvania, and kept well groomed

by the students themselves, the Carlisle Indian School enhanced the sur­

rounding town, its dwellings, and church spires. General Winfield Scott

Hancock noted in 1879 that there was "no better place for the establish­

ment of such an institution" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1890:309; Ryan 1962:

70-75).

Living Arrangements

Beginning with the living arrangements, the approach to educa­

tion at Carlisle was holistic from the outset. The entire faculty,

staff, and student body lived within the campus complex. The comman­

dant's quarters of the old Cavalry barracks became the Superintendent's

home, from which he could oversee the whole operation. The north and

south wings of the officers' quarters served as a dormitory for the

girls and apartments for teachers, respectively. The boys were domi­

ciled in the enlisted men's north barracks. By design, adults were

teaching during all the working hours of the students.

In Pratt's mind, the student living arrangements and recruitment

policies were inextricably linked. He desired a multi-tribal pupil popu­

lation. He had hoped to recruit his first students from among the

tribes with whom he had worked while on military duty in Indian Terri­

tory— namely, the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Apache, Arapaho, Caddo, and Wichita.

But the Indian Bureau had another idea. Carlisle could be a means of

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controlling discontented adult Indians from distant tribes. Their chil­

dren, while learning the "white man's ways," could be held hostage for

the good behavior of their parents. Pratt's phenomenal success in re­

cruiting for Hampton (see Appendix C and pp. 267-68 of Appendix D)

prompted the Bureau to direct him to procure his first detachment of

pupils for Carlisle from the troublesome Sioux under Chiefs Spotted Tail

and Red Cloud at the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota.

In order to be assured of a mixture of tribal groups in the

dormitories, Pratt sent two of his Florida men, Etahdleuh (Kiowa) and

Okahaton (Cheyenne) to their respective home reservations to recruit for

Carlisle. He persuaded a former teacher and friend of post-Civil War

days, Alfred J. Standing, to leave his Kansas farm, recruit students from

the Pawnee Agency, and join the Carlisle faculty as assistant superin­

tendent, a position in which he served for 20 years.

The desired student dormitory arrangement was no more than

three or four students per room, each from a different tribe. The ra­

tionale was that with no interpreter present, speakers of different lan­

guages would be forced to communicate in English as a common language.

Thus, a new learning environment was created: a new culture. Carlisle

became a total community, the reservation of a new tribe with Captain

Pratt as chief.

Physical Attire and Personal Appearance

The process of forced acculturation began with personal appear­

ance and attire. A first step toward minimizing the negative reaction

of Whites to Indians was to minimize the differences in their

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appearance. The rationale was that to become a part of a people is to

dress like them.

Arriving students were cleansed and shampooed, clothed and shod,

their hair sheared or groomed depending on age and sex. The older girls

were permitted to wear their long hair in two braids (as previously) or

to copy the prevailing female hair styles. The older students taught

each group of new arrivals how to keep themselves, their clothing, and

the rooms clean. Captain Pratt's personal inspection tour of the school

each Sunday morning included the inspection of each student's room.

From the autobiography of Luther Standing Bear, My People the

Sioux, comes a first-person account of these early, traumatic experi­

ences. Of the hair-cutting incident, he writes (1928:140-41):

One day we had a strange experience. We were all called to­ gether by the interpreter and told that we were to have our hair cut off. We listened to what he had to say, but we did not reply. This was something that would require some thought, so that evening the big boys held a council, and I recall very distinctively that Nakpa Kesela, or Robert American Horse, made a serious speech. Said he, "If I am to learn the ways of the white people, I can do it just as well with my hair on." To this we all exclaimed "Hau!"— meaning that we agreed with him. In spite of this meeting, a few days later we saw some white men come inside the school grounds carrying big chairs. The inter­ preter told us these were the men who had come to cut our hair. We did not watch to see where the chairs were carried, as it was school time, and we went to our classroom. One of the big boys named Ya Slo, or Whistler, was missing. In a short time he came in with his hair cut off. Then they called another boy out, and when he returned, he also wore short hair. In this way we were called out one by one. When I saw most of them with short hair, I began to feel anxious to be "in style" and wanted mine cut, too. Finally I was called out of the school room, and when I went into the next room, the barber was waiting for me. He motioned for me to sit down, and then he commenced work. But when my hair was cut short, it hurt my feelings to such an extent that tears came into my eyes. I do not recall whether the barber noticed my agitation or not, nor did I care. All I was thinking about was that hair he had taken away from me. . . . Now after having had my hair cut, a new thought came into my head. I felt that I was no more Indian, but would be an imitation of a white man.

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Standing Bear's account of his new clothes is not without humor

(1928:142) :

Next, we heard that we were soon to have white men's clothes. We were all very excited and anxious when this was announced to us. One day some wagons came in, loaded with boxes, which were unloaded in front of the office. Of course we were all very curious, and gathered around to watch the proceedings and see all we could. Here, one at a time, we were all "sized up" and a whole suit handed to each of us. The clothes were some sort or dark heavy gray goods, consisting of coat, pants, and vest. We were also given a dark woolen shirt, a cap, a pair of suspenders, socks, and heavy farmer's boots...... Although the suits were too big for us, we did not know the difference. I remember that my boots were far too large, but as long as they were "screechy" or squeaky, I didn't worry about the size! I liked the noise they made when I walked, and the other boys were likewise pleased. How proud we were with clothes that had pockets and boots that squeaked. We walked the floor nearly all that night.

Within the first year the school tailoring shops were in opera­

tion, sky-blue uniforms that became the hallmark of Carlisle were styled

and began to be tailored for each student. They were made from the same

cloth and were similar in style to the army uniforms of that period. For

the boys, a small red cord knot adorned the shoulders and the sleeves

with stripes to designate officer status— corporal or sergeant. Each

boy also received a suit of black coveralls. For the girls, there were

dresses of dark blue flannel for winter and light-colored material for

spring and summer, in the prevailing style. A popular addition to the

girls' costume was a dark blue flannel cloak lined in red (Annual Report

1880:180; Pratt 1964:237; Ryan 1962:42). Slight changes were made

through the years, but the basic design initiated by Pratt in 1879 re­

mained the same. Uniforms were standard apparel for all non-reservation

boarding schools.

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Language and Communication

English language learning was a second step in the individual

acculturation process. Teaching Indian students to speak, read, and

write in English was Pratt's first postulate of Indian education. "Make

them forget their home language, teach them English," he said; "teach it

to them day and night so that they can cope with the white man in his

own land" (Heuman 1965:28).

As noted earlier, Pratt's recruiting methods and living arrange­

ments were such that conversation among students could only take place

in Indian sign language (understood by all Plains tribes) or English.

The school opened November 1, 1879, with 147 pupils from 7 different

tribes. By 1890, there were 950 students from 47 tribes; and the twen­

tieth annual report (1899) recorded the enrollment to be 1,090 students

from 75 different tribes. Neither of the latter reports accurately re­

cords the number of socio-linguistic groups, because Pratt listed all

students from the New Mexico pueblos as a single tribe designated simply

"Pueblo." Concerning the inter-tribal communication problem among the

students, Standing Bear (1928:146) explained:

We were not allowed to converse in the Indian tongue, and we knew so little English that we had a hard time to get along. With these tribes (besides Sioux) coming in, we were doing our best to talk, as much English as we could.

In his 1882 annual report, Pratt pointed out that each lesson,

be it reading or arithmetic, was made to serve a twofold purpose of in­

struction, because "the mastery of the English language is held to be

not less important than the mastery of the lesson." The more advanced

students were given daily exercise in English composition through keep­

ing a diary of events in life at Carlisle Indian School. The younger

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students received pictures to describe in their own words, thus enabling

them to be "trained in thought and observation" as well as in writing,

spelling, and reading. Incentives were offered in terms of weekly and

monthly rewards for speaking only English for those respective periods

of time. "It was . . . strongly insisted that they should talk nothing

else, and a daily record was kept in the case of each student. The re­

sult was that in a very short time Indian languages were entirely laid

aside" (C.I.A. Annual Report 1882:179).

"Ignorance of our language is the greatest obstacle to the as­

similation of the Indians with our population," observed Pratt. He ad­

vocated the obliteration of "tribal names, distinctions, and languages."

The school rules were so rigid that when Chief Standing Bear, who spoke

no English, came to visit his son, Luther Standing Bear had to write a

note to Captain Pratt to obtain permission to speak to his father in

Sioux (Standing Bear 1928:149).

Regarding English names

Another aspect of English language learning procedure was giving

English names to each student. Luther Standing Bear explained in detail

"naming" day for those first Carlisle students in 1879 (Standing Bear

1928:136-38). In summary, the interpreter told them that each mark on

the blackboard was a "white man's name." Then the teacher, without com­

ment, handed each student, in turn, the pointer to pick out a name which

she, in turn, wrote on a tape and sewed on the back of each boy1s shirt.

Names were erased as each was chosen so that in that first class of Car­

lisle students, there was no duplication in names. "Soon we all had the

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names of white man [sic] sewed on our backs," wrote Standing Bear (1928:

137). Students were drilled to recognize their names, to answer "pres­

ent" to roll call, and to write their names on their slates.

Jason Betzinez, author of I Fought with Gevonimo, relates the

following about his "naming" day in 1887 (1959:154) :

Miss Low [his teacher] selected for me the name of Jason. She said that Jason was some man who hunted the golden fleece but never found it. I thought that was too bad but it didn't mean anything to me at that time so I accepted the name. In the intervening years I be­ lieve that the story of Jason and his search for the Golden Fleece has set a pattern for my life.

In 1887, Betzinez was a 27-year-old Apache warrior who had been captured

and was incarcerated at the Fort Marion prison, St. Augustine, Florida.

He was "recruited" in the spring of 1887 for training at Carlisle Indian

School.

National policy

In 1886, the idea that Indians should be taught only the English

language became government policy. Wrote Commissioner of Indian Affairs

J. D. C. Atkins (C.I.A. Annual Report 1886:XXIII):

There is not an Indian pupil whose tuition and maintenance is paid for by the United States government who is permitted to study any other language than our own vernacular. . . . The English lan­ guage as taught in America is good enough for all her people of all races.

Time-Use Schedule for Students

A third step in the forced acculturation process was the total

management of the students' time externally imposed. In Pratt's mind,

"the civilizing process" required that there be no idle moments, no time

for pranks, little time for complaints, and less for homesickness and

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regrets. The December 1898 issue of the Carlisle School newspaper car­

ried an article entitled "How the Pupils of Carlisle Put in Their Time"

(The Red Man XV:3:3):

Every day in the week the pupils of this school rise at 5:45 in the morning. At 6:25 they breakfast. After breakfast they wash the dishes, put their rooms in order; drill or take gymnastics and get ready for school and work. The work bell rings at 7:35. All who are not in school, work till 11:35. School closes for noon at 11:35. At 12, all have dinner. Afternoon school from 1 to 4. Afternoon work period from 1:10 to 5:10. After school, the school-rooms are all swept by the small boys. All have supper at half-past five. There is evening study hour from 7 to 8, four evenings each week. Friday evenings are Society evenings. All lights are out at half past nine except those in a few rooms where pupils are allowed to sit up longer to study. On Saturdays the same hours for meals are observed but there is no school. It is a general clean up day in quarters, to make ready for Sunday morning inspection. All week days the pupils work half days and on five week days go to school half days, alternating so that about half the number are in shops or on duty out of school while one half are in school. On Sunday mornings at eight o'clock, quarters are inspected, when each student stands by his or her bed dressed as he or she should be for church or Sunday School. All pupils are allowed to go to the church of their choice. Religious services at 3:30 on Sunday afternoons, and prayer meeting in the evenings. On Sunday morning at nine o'clock there is a Sunday School for those who do not go to town to Sunday School. Notwithstanding the fact that the hours seem full, there is plenty of time for sports and play of every description, every day in the week.

The Carlisle week

There is evidence that in the early years the weekly schedule

was fuller and was more closely supervised by Captain Pratt himself.

Ryan (1962:101) reports that Monday and Tuesday evening study hours were

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held in school rooms with teachers, that Wednesday evenings were all­

school assembly nights in the Chapel and vocal lessons were a part of

the program, that prayer meetings and religious instruction took place

on Thursday evening, and Friday evenings featured health lectures by the

school physician or one of the teachers. On rare Friday mornings, the

Carlisle students had the privilege of hearing the Boston Symphony, the

New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Bell Ringers, and other such

groups when they came to nearby cities for concerts.

Saturday evening was English-speech emphasis night, with Captain

Pratt presiding and giving the closing words of inspiration and challenge.

This was the night that rewards were given for not speaking Indian for

the entire week (see p. 122). The students more proficient in English

presented poems, speeches, and dramatic skits. Captain Pratt brought in

special entertainers— singers, instrumentalists, and even a magician.

Pratt never missed a teaching opportunity. Students were instructed in

simple magic and sleight-of-hand tricks after which Pratt pointed out to

the students the similarities between such magic and that of some Indian

medicine men. The significance of the Saturday night sessions was dis­

cussed in The Red Man, January 1899 (XV:4:4):

The Saturday evening meetings, usually conducted by our Super­ intendent or Assistant Superintendent, have been a strong feature of our school since its beginning. Up to this year, reports from each of the buildings in which students live— the girls, the small boys' and the large boys' quarters— in relation to their use of English throughout the week, were read every Saturday night, and by this means a strong sentiment has been kept alive in favor of the constant use of the language they had come to Carlisle to learn, and against the use of the tongue which they had been taught at home [emphasis mine]. . . . These meetings were called English-Speaking meetings in the early days of the school and retain the name to this day, although now the subjects for lectures are not confined to English Speaking,

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but relate more to moral ethics, or current topics. The fruitfulness of these talks on English Speaking and subjects relating thereto has been evidenced by many references to the same from students who have gone out from us and who claim that the stimulating thought imbibed at the Saturday night meetings was the beginning of ambition and a new life for them.

One Saturday evening was spent on an in-depth discussion of the Cumber­

land, Pennsylvania, County Fair. The students were critical of the com­

mercial features, and the gambling, and the fact that people paid little

attention to the exhibits and the agricultural products (.The Red Man and

Helper, Friday, October 5, 1900, Vol. 1, No. 13). Beginning in 1881,

there was an annual Carlisle Indian Industrial Training School Exhibit at

the Cumberland County Fair displaying "articles manufactured exclusively

by the girls and boys of that institution" and consisting of "clothing,

tinware, boots, shoes, harness, blacksmith work, doors, sash, spokes,

light wagon, . . . wood and iron work" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1881:191).

Sundays were reserved for religious activities. All children

who were church-related attended their respective denominational churches.

Boys were permitted to go alone; but girls were chaperoned by a teacher

or, in the case of the Catholic girls, a woman from the parish. Chil­

dren not yet proficient in English, or not members of any church, attended

Sunday School classes conducted by Carlisle teachers in their classrooms.

Chapel services for the entire student body were held at 3:30 P.M. and

7:30 P.M. every Sunday. The afternoon worship was conducted by clergy­

men from the town of Carlisle or professors of Dickinson College, many

of whom were ordained clergymen. The evening service was conducted by

Captain Pratt, Assistant Superintendent Alfred Standing, or the school

physician (C.I.A., Annual Reports 1880:181, 1881:190, 1882:180; Ryan

1962:103-4).

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The Carlisle year: the role of holidays

Holidays throughout the year were a welcome relief from routine

for staff and students. They were also another opportunity for Captain

Pratt to expose the students to learning experiences that would further

impress them with the superiority of the "White man's ways" and, hope­

fully, prepare them for integration into the White American world.

These special celebrations began with the Carlisle Indian School1s

Founder's Day observance, October 6th. (See Appendix E.) Thanksgiving

and Christmas followed with appropriate classroomm studies, music,

religious observances, and feasts.

Many national holidays were utilized as the springboard for les­

sons in history punctuated by homilies on patriotism and freedom. After

the Allotment Act of 1887, February 8th was celebrated as Franchise Day.

Wasington's birthday (February 22nd) was followed, in turn, by Arbor

Day, Easter, Memorial Day (May 30th) , and July 4th. With the assistance

of free passes on the Cumberland Valley Railroad, Pratt was able to sup­

plement the holiday festivities with trips to zoos and circuses, and ex­

cursions to scenic spots of interest in geography. They went as far

away as Luray Caverns in Virginia. Having been electrified, their value

was to emphasize progress in civilization.

Formal Education Program

Formal education at Carlisle was directed toward implementing

points one and four of Pratt's four-part program as presented in the

second paragraph of this chapter, viz., (1) "usable knowledge of the

language of the country" and (4) "knowledge of books, or education

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so-called." "The aim of the school from the start," wrote Pratt to the

Indian Commissioner, Thomas J. Morgan in 1890, "has been to teach English

and give a primary education and a knowledge of some common and practi­

cal industry and means of self-support among civilized people" (C.I.A.,

Annual Report 1890:310).

Pratt believed that the proclivity for education began with a

"want" and "the desire to satisfy that want," so his strategy was to

utilize every opportunity to demonstrate to Indian children (and their

parents) the material advantages of the White man's world (civilization)

and to suggest that the Carlisle way of education would lead them to the

achievement of success in that world. Said Pratt in his second report

on Carlisle: "Our effort is to awaken a desire for knowledge and to

satisfy that desire" (Annual Report 1881:185).

Carlisle teachers were instructed to use only English in the

classroom, and interpreters were used only in emergencies. The services

of the salaried interpreter were discontinued within the first year of

the school's existence.

The teaching methods devised by Pratt and his staff were based

on a combination of the Fort Marion prison school experiences and those

of the Hartford, Connecticut, school for deaf mutes as explained in

Dr. Keep's book, First Lessons for the Deaf and Dumb. No books were used

for these beginning non-English speakers. The only materials employed

were objects, pictures, activities, the blackboard, the slate, and pen­

cil. Students were surrounded by objects— clothing, furniture, food,

tools, etc.— to be identified by sight, sound, and the written word.

Each movement or activity by students was a verb-teaching opportunity.

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As soon as possible the teachers expanded their resources to such text­

books as Janet Byrne's Picture-Teaching, Webb's Model Readers, Grube's

Arithmetic, Franklin's Primary Arithmetic, Sevinton's Geography,

Hooker's Child's Book of Nature, and Knox and Whitney's Elementary Lan­

guage Lessons (C.I.A., Annual Reports 1880:179, 1881:185).

External testimony as to the incredible, positive progress in

the Pratt educational experiment is recorded in a report by a six-man

Examining Committee for the Carlisle Indian School headed by President

J. A. McCauley of Dickinson College. The report, dated June 16, 1881,

said in part (C.I.A., Annual Report 1881:185):

. . . The manifestation of advancement in the rudiments of an English education are [sic] to us simply surprising. In reading, geography, arithmetic, and especially in writing, the accurate training appar­ ent in all the classes, the amount of knowledge displayed, are in fullest proof, not only of skillful and successful teaching, but no less of aptitude and diligence on the part of the Indian children. Considering the brief period during which the school has been in operation, and the fact that the greater portion of these children entered it in a wholly untutored condition, the advancement made of them, as evinced in the examinations we have witnessed, are conclu­ sive at least of their capability of culture. We are fully persuaded that improvement equal to that which we witnessed in the case of these children of the plains, made in equal time by American chil­ dren, would be regarded as quite unusual. And when the difficulties of communication consequent upon diversities of language are taken into account, we can but feel that the results of which we have been the witnesses to-day justify our judgment of them as amazing.

These two parts of Pratt's program for Carlisle were proceeding

according to plan. Acculturation was taking place. The earliest basic

education curriculum as formalized by Pratt and the Carlisle teachers

appears in his first formal report on the School to the Commissioner of

Indian Affairs, R. E. Trowbridge, October 5, 1880 (see Appendix D,

p. 267 ff).

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Vocational Training Program

The vocational or technical education program at Carlisle was

directed toward the implementation of point two of Pratt's four-part

program, viz., "skill in some civilized industry that will enable suc­

cessful competition." "To this end regular shops and a farm were pro­

vided," explained Pratt (1890:310), "where the principal mechanic arts

and farming are taught the boys, and suitable room and appliances ar­

ranged (where) . . . the girls (are) taught cooking, sewing, laundry and

housework."

Early in his career at Carlisle, Pratt discovered that a full

day of literary teaching was not productive, but one-half day in the

schoolroom and one-half day of training in the industrial/practical arts

accelerated learning in both areas. His second report (1881:185) pointed

up the fact "that a stated amount of daily employment in the shop, on the

farm, or elsewhere" did not retard but rather advanced schoolroom work

and gave the pupils "manual dexterity, habits of industry" and aided in

the "early discovery of any natural bent toward a particular business

avocation."

For the boys, vocational education involved training in general

agricultural skills plus practical training in one of the trades— which

included baking, tailoring, shoemaking, tinning, blacksmithing, harness

making, wagon making, carpentering, and printing.

There was no freedom of choice. Luther Standing Bear made hun­

dreds of tin cups, coffee pots, and buckets that were sent to the vari­

ous reservations throughout Indian Territory; but he was a reluctant

tinsmith. "One day they selected a few boys and told us we were to

learn trades," wrote Luther Standing Bear (1928:147):

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. . . I was to be a tinsmith. I did not care for this, but I tried my best to learn this trade. . . . I tried several times to drop this trade and go to school the entire day, but Captain Pratt said "No, you must go to the tin shop— that is all there is to it," so I had to go [emphasis mine].

Practical and vocational training for the girls embraced general

homemaking and housekeeping skills in addition to advanced training in

sewing and cooking, commercial laundering, and home health care. After

1889, a Normal Department was established and the advanced students,

female and male, were trained in the art of teaching primary children.

The farmers and the instructional staff in the vocational/indus­

trial/practical arts together with the matrons, the disciplinarian, and

the "Outing" parents (Chapter V) were all considered by Captain Pratt to

be a part of his full-time, 24-hour teaching staff for every Carlisle

pupil. The academic program and the technical program worked together to

produce the mental acumen and the manual skills for coping with the White

American world of work.

Physical Fitness Program

The Carlisle plan was to produce, eventually, Indian men and wo­

men who were physically, mentally, and morally sound. Only strong, dis­

ciplined individuals could compete successfully for equal status as

citizens in the White world. Captain Pratt's military training had im­

bued him with the philosophy that every trainer, indeed every teacher,

must possess in great measure the qualities which he or she seeks to

cultivate in others. Physical exercise, outdoor and indoor, ranked high

among his priorities for pupils and teachers. The entire school some­

times engaged in gymnastics and physical drill.

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He organized the entire student body into semi-military-type com­

panies complete with uniforms and student officers. An article on the

Carlisle organization appeared in the school paper (The Red Man and

Helper 1900:1:11:1):

We do not use guns, nor are the tactics necessary to active warfare taught, but the line must move when commanded; must "about face," "right face," "left face," and march with heads up and with graceful carriage. We have found that "double-quick" in company drill drives from the unambitious youth the sloth, hesitance and indifference to bodily action so common in the Indian, as well as in the white boy attending the ordinary country school where mili­ tary movements are not taught.

These companies marched in a body to the dining hall, to classes, to

chapel, to work, and to their respective residence halls. What seems

like a rigid, Prussian-type program was mollified by seasonal berry-

picking and nut-gathering excursions into the countryside and long walks

in the Pennsylvania foothills. These activities along with the informal

outdoor pleasures of skating, sledding, marbles, tennis, croquet, base­

ball, swimming, and other sports and games kept the pupils happy enough

to tolerate the pressures of the forced acculturative demands with mini­

mum discomfort.

They developed through drill and precision marching the good

posture, poise, and grace of movement that Captain Pratt considered es­

sential to a favorable image in the world outside of Carlisle Indian

School. The superintendent himself, who taught by precept and example,

was a source of great pride to his students, as evidenced by this com­

ment in the autobiography of Jason Betzinez (1959:150-1):

Captain Pratt made a fine appearance, especially when we passed in review before him during parades. He was over six feet tall, had broad shoulders, and stood erect. We greatly admired his mili­ tary bearing.

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The impressiveness and effectiveness of this feature of the Car­

lisle program were superbly delineated by Frances E. Willard, national

president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She made an unan­

nounced visit to the Indian school during the spring of 1888 following a

series of temperance-speaking engagements in the Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

area. The following is an excerpt from a contemporary magazine article

describing her reactions during that visit (The Chccutauquan, February

1889, Vol. IX, No. 5:289-90):

After we had visited the bright, clean private rooms of the students, their reading and assembly rooms, schools, shops and bath houses, we went to the great gymnasium, 150 feet long by 60 wide, to see the drill. Mr. Campbell, disciplinarian of the boys, and a most accomplished gymnast, took his position in the gallery, a well trained Indian youth standing beside him and going through all the motions of a varied and beautiful gymnastic exercise. The boys marched in by companies, with their officers all observing military discipline, and as they stood there in orderly ranks of blue, Indians from forty tribes, moving in perfect accord, all as one, I thought it the most beautiful of object lessons. "Better to capture them by love, uniform them in blue, and kill them with kindness than to send out our own boys in blue to be killed by them," was my grateful thought. Beside me in the gallery whence we looked down, was Mrs. Pratt, intelligent and gracious. "My husband is much better at capturing Indians by this method than he was at chasing them down," she whispered. "Geronimo's band, one hundred six, are here; all tribes are represented, from British America to Arizona, but especially the hostiles," she explained. When the long line of boys passed out, the girls came forward, and in their pretty dresses, also blue, with their long black hair braided down their backs and red ribbons adorning braids and throat, went through their graceful evolutions. "They carry papooses almost from the time they can walk, and wearing blankets adds to their tendency to stoop," said Mrs. Pratt, "so that our girls need this drill to give them a free step and dignified bearing, even more than do the boys [emphasis mine].

School Discipline and Democracy

Discipline was another way to modify behavior in terms of moral

values. Peer participation in methods of correction helped to support

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classroom teachings about the court and jury system in a democracy.

Records indicate that during the Pratt administration, discipline was

firm but fair. His military training and the Fort Marion prison experi­

ence were both in evidence. The military organization into companies

with student officers encouraged self-discipline and positive peer-

control. There was a student court with power to punish. Captain Pratt

reviewed all cases lest the students impose sentences more severe than

the situation demanded. He acted as a mentor for the Carlisle judicial

process.

There was a staff position that carried the designation "Disci­

plinarian," but this person carried other responsibilities that seemingly

took the harshness from the title. For example, he might be the physi­

cal education teacher or gymnast, or the drill sergeant, or the "Outing

Agent" (to be discussed in Chapter V). Succinctly, Pratt's philosophy

and method in discipline were few regulations, firmly enforced. In this

vein, he wrote Commissioner Hiram Price (C.I.A., Annual Report 1882:180):

Discipline is maintained with as few regulations as possible. A multiplicity of requirements perplexes the pupil who, even with the disposition to obey, has difficulty remembering them all. If many minor points are insisted upon there is danger that important prin­ ciples will not receive due prominence. Adherence to the few rules laid down, and then suggestions rather than commands on less essen­ tial points, we find the best course. Tact and patience are the great requisites. The moderate amount of military drill received by our boys is of great value as a means of physical training and giving habits of prompt, unquestioning obedience. The girls come so constantly under the individual influence of their matron and teachers that their management is greatly simplified. There have been few cases of special discipline. The custom in aggravated cases of trial by court composed of the older pupils has been continued with suc­ cess.

The effectiveness of the Carlisle disciplinary methods on the in­

dividual student is illustrated by these passages from the Jason Betzinez

autobiography (1959:159-53):

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We soon learned that the school was run on military lines. There were rules to be observed as well as a schedule. . . . (S)ome fretted. . . . But we conformed [emphasis mine].. . . Since I was one of Captain Pratt's rather more pitiful charges for nine years, I can testify to the excellence of the foundations on which he built his school as well as to the greatness of his character. Students who obeyed him and behaved themselves were always met with a kind word and a ready smile. One could go to him in his office at any time and be greeted with a "Son, what can I do for you?" But if anyone should make unpleasant remarks about his school, then there was a quite different expression on his face. A cell in the guard house was kept ready, too, for those who caused serious trouble. I myself was on guard duty on many occasions and had the job of guarding some of my fellow Indians who had gotten drunk or committed offenses of a more serious nature.

The internalization of the values emphasized by rules and sug­

gestion soon resulted in self-control, self-discipline, and self-

evaluation and was demonstrated in "confession" opportunities on Saturday

evenings. Wrote Betzinez (1959:153):

. . . We were not allowed to use tobacco nor profanity. Each Satur­ day night we were expected to report ourselves for any violation of these rules. I recall one summer when I had been out working on a farm in the country for several months and had been using tobacco during that time, I got back to school just in time for the Satur­ day report. We were lined up as usual and those who had violated any of the rules during the past week were asked to step one pace to the front. Without thinking I stepped out all by myself, in front of the company. This got a big laugh, for the other students knew that I hadn't been at the school during the past week but must be report­ ing myself for having smoked tobacco while on the farm (emphasis mine]...... From the outset I made up my mind to be a true young man, to obey the rules, and try to please the warmhearted man who had brought us there. This was my great good fortune, to have determined to take full advantage of this opportunity to make something of myself, to lift myself to a more useful life than the pitiful existence to which I had been born.

Discipline, at the individual level, administered with kindness and

compassion can be a very potent acculturative device. At Carlisle Indian

School, it was.

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Religion and Community Relationships

Religion was a totally pervasive influence in the founding and

functioning of the Carlisle Indian School. The very first new construc­

tion activity on the school grounds was the building of the chapel in

November 1879. The new structure was a plain wooden building with a

seating capacity of 325. It was built by the students themselves under

the direct supervision of the Florida men who had been transferred from

Hampton Institute to Carlisle to help Captain Pratt in opening the new

school.

Beyond the Sunday time-use schedule discussed earlier in this

chapter, there is abundant evidence that the new students learned during

their earliest days at Carlisle that the understanding of the Christian

faith and practice was absolutely essential to learning "the White man's

way" at Carlisle Indian School. In addition to Sunday School claves,

there were religious organizations functioning on campus and, in some

instances, related to churches and religious groups in the city of Car­

lisle. These school organizations included the Young Men's Christian

Association (YMCA), "King's Daughters," the "Sunshine Scatterers," "Way­

side Gleaners," and the "What-So-Evers." Christian service projects

ranged from "napkin rings for Indian children at the Keams Canyon School

in New Mexico" and "aprons for colored children in the South," to quilts

for Japanese schools and an 1892 donation of $60 for the starving Rus­

sians. Participation in such groups was another method of teaching Chris­

tian ethics and social concern and of bringing Indian students into ami­

cable contact with non-Indian citizens. "Three circles of the King's

Daughters among the girls, and a Young Men's Christian Association among

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the boys, have been well maintained," wrote Pratt in 1893, "and are in­

corporated in the State and national organizations, and send delegates

regularly to their conventions" (C.I.A., Annual Report, 1893:454-55)

[emphasis mine]. Part three of Pratt's four point program of forced ac­

culturation was thus being partially implemented because the Indians

were being given the courage and confidence to move among, and partici­

pate with, White students who were members of the same organizations.

The Christian work ethic had to be taught if Indians were to be

prepared to enter the world of work as citizens. This fact was re­

flected not only in the character of the curriculum, i.e., specific

technical training for each individual pupil, but also in the day-to-day

tasks of institutional upkeep. The small budget at Carlisle was supple­

mented by the labor of students. They kept their rooms spotless and

helped with the buildings and grounds by sweeping classrooms, washing

windows, tending the furnaces, grooming the grass on the parade grounds,

shoveling the snow, etc. Thus the dignity of all labor was seen as a

value and a virtue.

In accordance with the democratic ethos, students were taught

that Christian concern for the general welfare required that people in

communities cooperate to get things done. This concept was not foreign

to Indians except in being characterized as "Christian" teaching. Stu­

dents at Carlisle experienced the effectiveness of cooperative efforts

first in campus-wide activities and had it reinforced in community

relationships— of which the most dramatic and rewarding was the fire­

fighting brigade. The Carlisle fire-fighting system with its one en- 3 gine, pumps, 400-foot fire hose, carriage, and trained fire-flghters

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had as its prime purpose for existence the protection of the school and

its property from destruction by fire. An 1895 account reads (U.S. In­

dian School, Carlisle, Pa. 1895:4):

The School is provided with an excellent hand fire engine, and the boys are trained in its use, so that within three minutes it is possible to throw water from two sets of hose upon any building in the School grounds. During the sixteen years of the School1s exis­ tence, only one threatening fire incident has occurred, and that was caused by tramps firing a stack of fodder adjoining the School barn. Although more than half a mile distant, the boys were so prompt with the engine that the fire was suppressed before the barn was mate­ rially damaged.

The Carlisle Fire System, however, was always available to the towns­

people of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Chamberlain County in case of fires

in the community. The eight-man crews were, through the Pratt years,

repeatedly praised for their prompt, efficient service (Ryan 1962:78).

Within the sphere of his understanding (and nineteenth-century

interpretation) of the Christian doctrine, Captain Pratt was adamant and

absolutely sincere in his determination to administer the school accord­

ing to Christian principles and to instill these ideals into his stu­

dents. He required of his hand-picked teaching staff a similar dedica­

tion to moral and spiritual values. It can be gathered from the reports,

the correspondence, and discussions at educational institutes that he ex­

pected that teachers should appreciate the importance of adult authority

exercised with fairness; the need for order and discipline; and the

necessity of teaching by precept and example such middle-class traits as

neatness, politeness and correct speech, integrity, thriftiness, and

respect for property. He placed a high premium on a teacher's apprecia­

tion of the value of knowledge and of educational achievement but an

even higher premium on flexibility, creativity, and patience in teaching

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methods. His mild resistance to the intrusion of the newly-created

civil service agency (1883) into the school-employee selection process

was partially due to his desire to be assured of church-related persons

of high ethical standards on his faculty and staff. Models were impor­

tant, for teaching at Carlisle was in process 24 hours each day.

Pratt's apt description of the intellectual, practical, and

spiritual character of his program of Indian education was recorded by

Frances Willard (1888:289): ". . . (0)ur plan (is), hand-culture one half

the day, head-culture the other half, and heart-culture all the time"

[emphasis mine].

Extra-Curricular Activities

All extra-curricular activities, being dually-directed at building

sound bodies and developing sound minds, were, in fact, curriculum-

related. Each of the recorded activities and/or organizations served

some purpose in terms of Pratt's four-part program for the speedy solu­

tion of the Indian problem and, therefore, contributed to the individual

acculturation process. "Theory must be ground in with practice or

there are no material gains" was another of Pratt's sayings (C.I.A.,

Annual Report, 1893:450) [emphasis mine]. Five of these extra-curricular

organizations and their distinctive programs deserve some discussion

here. They are: the Carlisle Band, the debating and literary societies,

the newspapers, football, and savings system.

The Carlisle Band

Music is a universal language and has a unifying influence both

in internal and external relationships. At Carlisle Indian School, the

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music program, i.e., the choir, choral groups, quartets, the band,

served the same purpose as in all ethnic minority institutions: to en­

tertain the dominant group and acquaint it with the submerged group in a

convivial atmosphere. When the prejudices and hostilities of the domi­

nant group are neutralized, there is hope that some goodwill may be

generated and directed eventually toward racial amity.

The Carlisle Band required no auditions— only a volunteer teacher 4 and some donated instruments. It was used to give a certain festive

character to the para-military organization of the total student body

and served to make regimentation palatable in a situation where rapid

acculturation was being imposed. The fact that those first students had

no freedom of choice in 1879 is evident from Luther Standing Bear's auto­

biographical account of that first session (1928:148-49):

. . . Then she picked up a shorter horn and handed it to me. I learned afterward that it was a B-Flat cornet. When she had fin­ ished all the boys had horns in their hands. . . . So now I had more to occupy my attention. In the morning I had one hour to practice for the band. Then I must run to my room and change my clothes and go to work in the tin shop. From there I had to run again to my room and change my clothes and get ready for din­ ner [noon meal] . After that, I had a little time to study my lessons Then the school bell would ring and it was time for school...... After I had learn to play a little, I was chosen to give all the bugle calls. I had to get up in the morning before the others and arouse everybody, by blowing the morning call. Evenings at ten minutes before nine o'clock I blew again. Then all the boys would run for their rooms. At nine o'clock the second call was given, when all the lights were turned out and we were supposed to be in bed.

I did these duties all the time I was at Carlisle School, so in the early part of 1880, although I was a young boy of but twelve, I was busy learning everything my instructors handed me.

Within three months, the lady bandleader had the Indian boys playing for

the dress parades. Thus, the entire student body, fully uniformed, began

the precision marching that was illustrative of the discipline desired

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but uncommon among young people of any age or nationality except at mili­

tary academies. The uniforms were designed and custom made in the tailor

shop at School.

The societies

Among the earliest campus student organizations were the debating

societies among the boys and the literary societies among the girls.

These clubs were designed to supplement the classroom teaching of English.

Concerning these groups, Pratt wrote (C.I.A., Annual Report 1893:454):

"Three debating societies among boys, and a literary society among the

girls, meeting weekly during the winter and discussing a variety of live

questions, have given students wide opportunity for intellectual contest

and acquiring a knowledge of parliamentary rules."

Although the Standard Debating Society for boys was the first to

be organized, the Invincible Debating Society appeared through the years

to have been the stronger and more prestigious and most likely to be emu­

lated at other Indian schools. The "Invincibles" had a very formal,

strict constitution of eight articles plus by-laws with fines and other

penalties (see Appendix F ) . Debate questions dealt with subjects of in­

terest to Indians and included such topics as:

Resolved that the Indian territory should be opened for settlement, that the Indian be at once admitted to citizenship, that stock-raising is better for the Indian than farming, that industry is more important to the Indian than book knowledge. that it is better for Dakota Indians to have the Territory admitted as a State, that the industrial school for Indians is better than the day school. that Indian youth who have been educated at Government ex­ pense should not accept further help from the Government, that all Indian education should be in the English language.

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There were inter-Society oratorical contests and debates dealing with

such international issues as "The Imperialistic Policy," "Our Philip­

pine Policy." and "The U.S. Treaty with Spain" (C.I.A., Annual Reports

1888, 1893; The Red Man, January 1899:4, December 1899:4).

The Susan Longstreth Literary Society for girls was named for a

Philadelphia Quaker and lifelong friend and benefactor of Carlisle. The

girls were frequently reminded in the school newspaper of the hope that

"the young Indian maidens of the Society which bears her name will keep

in mind the perfection of culture refinement and literary attainment

reached by this saintly woman whose portrait hangs over the President's

chair" (The Red Man, January 1899:4). The activities of the "Susans"

were not confined to debates, declamations, and parliamentary drill but

included essays, roll calls answered by memorized literary gems of wis­

dom, socials, charades, banquets, and the sponsorship of special enter­

tainment programs for other campus groups (The Red Man, June 1899:5).

Each society had its own meeting room, met on Friday evenings,

and faculty sponsorship was shared, with two different advisors for each

society each week. However, the management of the meetings was entirely

in the hands of the students. Proper parliamentary usages and forms in

conduct of society business were emphasized, and "helpful criticism from

the Principals and teachers" was available (Red Man and Helper, October

5, 1900:3, October 19, 1900:3). The societies helped the students to

become proficient in spoken English, to think in English and become artic­

ulate on their feet, and to organize and manage their own affairs.

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The school newspapers

Besides providing invaluable on-the-job training for the students

learning the printing trades, the school newspaper reinforced the efforts

of the English composition classes to teach them to write correctly in

English. Miller (1958:64-65) states that "Carlisle produced the first

newspaper actually printed by Indians. The first attempt was modest . . .

composed of four sheets, notebook size, entitled Eadle Keatah Toh [and]

which ran from 1880 to 1882." This monthly publication began in January

1880 before there were any student reporters and served as a platform

for general information, policy statements from the Indian Bureau, and

homilies from Indian agents and Bureau officials, as well as news and notes

about the school, its pupils, and staff. The name, Bright Morning Star

[or Eadle Keatah Toh as translated into Sioux by Pratt], later became

simply Morning Star and carried a feature "The-Man-on-the-Band-stand"

who was the omniscient, omnipresent eye on the campus that viewed all

from the Bandstand and advised, challenged, chided, reprimanded, and ad­

monished as the situation dictated.

In 1885, the printing apprentices began to issue a small four-

page weekly, The Indian Helper, for the "special edification of the

pupils both past and present and for circulation among their parents and

people in their remote homes" (Pratt 1964:297). The name of the monthly

Morning Star was changed to The Red Man in 1888 and "was especially de­

signed for informing the general public . . . the administrative, legis­

lative, and agency authorities" (Pratt 1964:297). In 1900, the two pa­

pers were merged and combined the features of both publications into a

new weekly, The Red Man and Helper.

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The Carlisle School newspapers served mainly four functions in

the acculturation process: (1) they gave Captain Pratt a channel through

which to disseminate his precepts and teachings to both students and

their families; (2) they trained scores of apprentice printers for imme­

diate employment in the printing business; (3) they provided the oppor­

tunity for Carlisle students to be amateur journalists by conducting

interviews with campus personnel and by writing articles in their adopted

language; and (4) they enabled the story of Carlisle and its message for

Indian education to be spread throughout the United States. Regarding

the scope and importance of the publication of the school newspapers in

the students' experience, Pratt wrote (C.I.A., Annual Report 1893:

449-50):

The work of this department (printing) comprises the publication of two papers, "The Red Man," an 8-page quarto, standard size, month­ ly, with a circulation, 9,000; . . . It is our aim to give each apprentice a full course in the job, stone, and press work as facilities allow. Instruction is given in making up forms, in methods of measuring margins, . . . and locking up forms; in the handling of presses, regulation of impression and tympan, . . . much time is given to systematic instruction in the theory and practice of printing. We have under instruction . . . 35 apprentices, . . . the first assistant, in addition to his care of some 10,000 names upon the books and galleys, gives instruction to a special detail in the setting of names, arranging and classifying them into routes, and mailing the respective editions of the papers. . . . It is interesting to watch the development of thought and ideas as the learner gradually enters into the spirit of the office. Above all things else we endeavor to implant in their minds that business move [vitality] is necessary to success3 and they soon catch the spirit and take pride in gaining speed and accuracy at work. There is mental growth in the trade which proves of inestimable value to them in this or other business they may follow after leaving the school [emphasis mine].

The football team

Football did not fit into Captain Pratt's physical fitness pro­

gram; and, at first, he did not approve of it as a competitive sport.

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He was forced to relent when "forty of the foremost athletes, headed by

the champion orator of the school" waited on him in his office requesting

that he lift "the embargo" in intermural competition. In his autobi­

ography, Pratt recalled that the spokesman, a member of one of the de­

bating societies, gave practically all the arguments possible and was so

persuasive with his speech that "the genius of his argument almost com­

pelled me to relax the judicial mien and release my pent-up laughter"

(Pratt 1964:317). He exacted from th=m the promise that they would

"never slug," saying: "Our white fellows may do a lot of slugging and

it causes little or no remark, but you have to make a record for your

race. If other fellows slug and you do not return it, very soon you

will be the most famous football team in the country" (Pratt 1965:318).

In 1899, the Harvard University Crimson (student newspaper), carried the

following comment on the Harvard-Carlisle game won by Harvard 22-10:

A most edifying feature of Saturday's game was the thorough good feeling which prevailed at all times. Carlisle's clean, manly play won our admiration from the start, and convinced us that we have never met, on the football field, men of better metal. In the fiercest rushes there was never any evidence of unnecessary rough­ ness or questionable tactics. It was the kind of game that, un­ fortunately, is seldom seen, even in a long season. . . . Harvard men will not forget the Indian game for many years. . . . Of more importance, perhaps, it has taught us a lesson in conduct {The Red Man, December 1899:7).

Soon Pratt could see how interscholastic competition in football

could help implement the "courage of civilization" aspect of his four-

part program of Indian education at Carlisle. Football as executed by

his coaches (the most famous being Vince McCormick of Yale fame and

Glenn "Pops" Warner from Cornell) generated positive values in both ed­

ucation and public relations. It taught the Indians teamwork, disci­

pline, crisis-situation thinking at the same time that it enabled them

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to experience successful, wholesome competition in contact with Whites

their own age. And it gave the Carlisle Indian School the kind of public

exposure that engendered feelings of respect and goodwill among Whites

for Indians. "I can say without fear of contradiction," averred

Dr. Carlos Montezuma, a full-blooded Apache [sic] and medical director

for the traveling team, "that the football team has done more to bring

the possibilities of the Indian into public notice than have all other

efforts combined" (.The Red Man, January 1900:8). It has since been es­

tablished that Montezuma was Yavapai.

Even while traveling, the educational effort was not relaxed as

far as the team members were concerned. When they returned to campus,

the organized sight-seeing was followed by written English compositions

and oral reports for the edification of their fellow students. Their

public behavior in contact with "civilization" was always exemplary.

Two newspaper items are illustrative: (1) From the Albany, New York,

Argus, October 15, 1898 -

The afternoon was spent in sight-seeing the Capitol, Peniten­ tiary and High School were some of the places visited. At the school several of the Indians spoke to the students, telling them of their experiences on the reservation and at the college.^ Those who looked for something in the nature of a wild west show were disappointed for the aborigines were as cultured, and used as good language as a lot of Yale or Harvard students (The Red Man, December 1898:4).

(2) From the New York Herald in The Red Man (December 1899:7) -

Carlisle's Indian football team walked up Broadway last evening, on their way to the theatre, with a stoicism worthy of their ances­ tors. Some of our college teams who indicate by their behavior that victory is an excuse for rowdyism would do well to emulate this dig­ nified conduct of men they are pleased to consider semi-savages, (but) who had just administered a crushing defeat to Columbia University.

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The Carlisle team, like all minorities in the public limelight,

was constantly being made aware of the fact of carrying the burden' of

their race upon its shoulders. At one of the football banquets, Coach

Glenn Warner challenged the team members to cultivate a school spirit

that would sacrifice all selfish, individual interests for the sake of

Carlisle and the Indian people:

We [you] represent the Indians as a race, as a class of men. You play before people who never saw Indians before, and by the manner in which you carry yourselves the people judge the race. In all the battles of life this principle should guide us [you]. We [you] not only represent Carlisle School but the Indian as a race (Red Man and Helper, December 1900:3).

At the same banquet, Captain Pratt emphasized the importance of the

spirit of true manhood in victory and defeat:

If Indians were on an equality with all the other peoples it would not amount to so much, but Indians have for generations been held down and pressed back so that the spirit with which we [you] play and the manner in which we [you] succeed amounts to every­ thing. . . . The necessity is upon us. We must show that we have in us the spirit to rise and be on equality with the other races or we shall soon wear out the patience of the body politic. We have shown that we are not cringing cowards, that we [you] could not be enslaved, now the necessity is upon us [you] to make ourselves [yourselves] useful and capable along all lines, and show that we [you] can be­ come self-sustaining, if given the opportunity, and can make our­ selves [yourselves] able to walk shoulder to shoulder with the best people of the best civilization (Red Man and Helper, December 1900: 3) .

Concrete evidence of progress in terms of Pratt's philosophy

about Indian education and job opportunities came when Carlisle's ex­

football Captain, Bemus Pierce, of the Seneca Indian nation, was made

coach at the University of Buffalo in 1899. Under the headline "Indian

Coaching White Man," the Buffalo, New York, Express stated that the new

coach did not "waste a minute of time, but kept the boys at it

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continuously" for two hours but "all were pleased with his work" and

"his Indian logic" that had them "going through play after play until

they knew it" (The Red Man, December 1899:7).

The overall acculturational significance of football at Carlisle

Indian School and the Carlisle philosophy as initially enunciated by

Pratt was best summarized by the Yavapai physician, Dr. Carlos Montezuma,

during a West Coast football season tour interview at San Francisco (The

Red Man, January 1900:8):

What has made the Carlisle football team strong and famous? The answer is by playing strong and superior teams, and by being gentle­ men. Carlisle boys would not even to doomsday have made the record they have, had they practiced among themselves exclusively or on a reservation. The necessary experience must come from without— from contact with the strongest teams...... We like our boys to win their football games— every one they play. But the chief object of such an organization as our football team is not to demonstrate the Indians' wonderful athletic ability as brought out under favorable conditions, but more to use the sport as one element of having the men to meet civilization [emphasis mine].

The savings system

Training skills in personal finances began as soon as the pupil

entered Carlisle. Emphasis was on economy, thrift, wise shopping and

buying habits, budget planning, and keeping accounts. Regular earnings

accrued from the half-day work-trade skills training program in the In­

dustrial department of the school and the Outing System to be discussed

in Chapter V. When the school was opened, a student banking system was

established; and each student was provided with a bankbook. An adult

advisor, usually the matron for the girls and the disciplinarian for the

boys, was available to help pupils to apply their arithmetic classroom

training to their personal finances.

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During the first four months of trade training, the pupils re­

ceived no compensation for work done in the Industrial Department. After

that, first year apprentices were paid four cents ($.04) for each half­

day's work; second year, six cents ($.06); for the third year and there­

after, the pay scale was increased to twelve cents ($.12) per half-day.

All earnings were deposited.

All banking forms were printed by student apprentices in the

Printing Department, and the system operated as follows (C.I.A., Annual

Report 1893:451):

Once a month they (students) are given opportunity to make pur­ chase of necessary articles. These expenditures are made under the supervision of the officers of the school. That they may be made wisely, each scholar is furnished with an application blank on which to state how much money is wanted and for what purpose, likewise the amount in the bank, which the student finds by balancing his account book. Book and application are then handed in for examination and approval, and if the balance be correct and the articles approved, his paper is cashed and he makes the purchases, which are submitted to the inspection of the matron or disciplinarian.

At the end of their first term at Carlisle (usually five years), the stu­

dents had already received training in the efficient management of per­

sonal finances. In Anglo-American culture, the values of thrift and in­

dustriousness must be learned early in the life of each individual.

Public Appearances and Public Relations

As mentioned previously, Pratt was convinced from his military

experiences in Indian Territory (see Chapter III, p. 97) that White

Americans were not inclined to respect Indians as human beings and that,

as he carried on his educational program with Indians, he must also edu­

cate Whites to accept Indians into the ranks of full citizenship in the

United States of America. To do this he must prove to the general

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public that Indians could be educated. This required that he seize

every opportunity to demonstrate that the Carlisle program was succeeding

in preparing Indian youth to be responsible, working adults. Racial

stereotypes are best dispelled by visible evidence to the contrary.

Carlisle Industrial School Indians became visible all the way from

county fairs, the annual Pennsylvania State Fair, and the Chicago World's

Fair, to the Washington, D.C. inaugural festivities of U.S. Presidents

William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson. Selected events will be presented

to illustrate Pratt's strategy.

Pennsylvania Bicentennial - 1882

From Chapter 16 of Red Manrs Moses comes this report (Eastman

1935:213) of Carlisle's participation in The Pennsylvania Bicentennial

of 1882:

The school had been but three years in session when Philadelphia held its great bicentennial exposition, heralded by a parade several miles long. Not only was Carlisle invited to participate, but the managers gave Captain Pratt command of the educational division and placed the Indians at its head. It was a proud day for the new school when its seven floats and cadet corps, headed by their own band, marched and countermarched up and down Broad Street in the presence of a million spectators. They were preceded by twenty mounted tribesmen, painted and war bonneted, brought from the far West by the Philadelphia officials. . . . [the] dark-faced school boys, alert and smart in their neat uniforms, drew more admiring at­ tention from the crowds than did the gorgeously costumed aborigines.

Constitutional Centennial - 1887

The United States Constitutional Centennial celebrations of 1887

found 140 Carlisle students exhibiting both their academic and industrial

skills in parades in Philadelphia, New York, and Brooklyn— which in 1887

was a separate city from what is now metropolitan New York City.

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Progress toward Americanization was dramatically displayed by a float of

"ten wild Indians, followed by five floats, nine by sixteen, on heavy

wagons, drawn by twenty horses" (Miller 1958:73-74). This event, which

drew favorable editorial comment from the New York Times of February 4,

1887, is further described by Miller (1958:74) as follows:

. . . The first float depicted Benjamin West's famous painting of William Penn's treaty with the Indians, followed by a second contain­ ing a tepee and a scene representing Indian camp life. On the third was a school room with sixteen students performing blackboard exercises in various grades, solving problems in arithmetic and giving language exercises at every halt of the column. Both four and five were fitted up as work-shops, each with Indian boys working at trades, including carpentering, blacksmithing, harness-making, tailoring, shoemaking, and tinning. Along the side of these floats were fastened specimens of the boys' workmanship.

Columbian Quadricentennial

Perhaps the most spectacular appearances of Carlisle students in

the outside world, by far, came during the Columbian Quadri-Centennial

(400th Anniversary of the appearance in 1492 of Christopher Columbus in

the New World) celebrated from 1892 to 1894. There were the two large

parades in which the Carlisle students marched— New York City on October

10, 1892, and Chicago on October 20, 1892; and the award-winning exhibit

at the Chicago Exposition from the fall of 1892 through the spring of

1894. In Pratt's memoirs (1964:294-95), we read that the Carlisle

School's contribution to the New York parade was 270 boys and 52 girls

marching behind an elaborate silk banner emblazoned in large letters

"United States Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Into

Civilization and Citizenship." Excerpts from two New York newspaper

accounts of the 322 Indians on parade follow: New York Sun, October 11,

(Superintendent of Indian School, Annual Report 1893:452) -

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There was one distinctively and purely American feature in yes­ terday 's parade. It was the delegation of Indian boys and girls from the school at Carlisle, Pa., all of them direct descendants of the races who were here when Columbus made his discovery. There was no better example of military training and discipline in the parade yesterday than the Carlisle Indians. Led by a first-class band of musicians from their school, they marched with a precision that would put to the blush some of our regulars, and with that peculiar and indescribable swing which comes only from long practice and per­ fect ease in line of march. . . . Their uniforms, athletic appear­ ance, and splendid marching brought salvos of applause and cheers all along the line.

New York Recorder, October 11, 1892 (Pratt 1964:295):

And then followed what was unquestionably the most interesting feature of the whole pageant— the battalion of youths and maidens from the United States Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pa. The young braves, divided into four companies of twenty-five files front, were clad in a neat uniform of dark blue, with fatigue caps of the regular army pattern, each bearing an American flag and wear­ ing the national colors pinned on the left breast. . . . But for their straight black hair and swarthy coloring, they might easily have passed for a battalion of West Pointers. . . . They were headed by a fine band of thirty pieces, led by the band-master and musical instructor, Dennison Wheelock, an Oneida Indian. The company of comely maidens, clad in a neat uniform of blue serge with felt sailor hats, each one bearing a tiny flag, fell in in the rear. . . . The banner of the battalion was borne by a gigantic young brave, and bearing the inscription "Into Civilization and Citizen­ ship. "

The 31-piece Carlisle Indian School band under the baton of Den­

nison Wheelock, a Carlisle alumnus, participated in the opening ceremon­

ies of the Chicago Columbian Exposition parade ten days later, October

20, 1892. The girls did not go to Chicago on this occasion, but the 274

young marching men followed the same school banner and motto carried in

the New York parade ten days earlier. They were divided into ten pla­

toons, each representing a characteristic program feature of the school

designed to lead them "into civilization and citizenship" (S.I.S., An­

nual Report 1893:453):

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The first platoon carried schoolbooks and slates. The second represented printing, the front-rank students carry­ ing sticks, galleys, cases, etc., and the rear rank, papers and pamphlets which they had printed. The third represented agriculture, the front rank carrying agricultural implements; the rear rank, the products of argicul- ture from our school farms. The fourth represented our baking department, the front rank carrying paddles, ovenpeels, etc.; the rear rank, bread. The fifth represented carpentry, the front rank bearing tools; the rear rank, woodwork and other products of this department. The sixth represented blacksmithing, the front rank bearing tools; the rear rank, horseshoes, chains, etc. The seventh represented shoemaking, the front rank carrying knives, lasts, hammers, etc.; the rear rank, shoes. The eighth represented harness-making, the front rank bearing tools; the rear rank, parts of harness, etc. The ninth represented tinsmithing, the front rank carrying shears, mallets, and other tools; the rear rank, buckets, coffee­ pots , etc. The tenth and last platoon represented tailoring, the front rank carrying lapboaras, shears, tailor's goose, etc.; the rear rank, made-up clothing.

Although Buffalo Bill's highly publicized Wild West group was a

feature of Chicago World's Fair, the following two brief press extracts

highlight the public relations value of such appearances for Carlisle

Indian School (S.I.S., Annual Report 1893:453):

The Indian band from Carlisle School was probably the most unique in all the musical features of the parade. Under the leadership of Dennison Wheelock, a full-blooded Oneida, the 30 young Indians who make up this band performed some excellent work on their instruments and were warmly cheered as they passed the crowds on the streets (Chicago Journal).

The . . . second grand division of the procession . . . (was led by) the Carlisle Indian school battalion .... Over 300 bright, intelligent Indian boys, in dark blue uniforms— made by themselves— marched by the reviewing stand, separated into ten divisions. They carried implements of industry instead of guns; that is Capt. Pratt's way of "arming" Indians. It was an object-lesson for all the world to see (Jamestown, N.Y., Journal, November 1).

Columbian Exposition Awards at Chicago - 1894

Captain Pratt and his staff chose to enter the regular exhibit

competition at the Chicago Exposition World's Fair during the Columbian

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Quadriennial celebration years of 1892-1894. Carlisle Indian School won

two agricultural Awards for products from the school farm displayed as a

part of the Pennsylvania State exhibit. The diplomas read as follows

(S.I.S., Annual Report 1894:407-8):

(Department of Agriculture, Chicago, 111. Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pa.)

AWARD

C o m on ear. — Ears well filled with plump, sound grain of good color.

L. H. Clark Individual Judge.

AWARD

Wheat. — Yield from 22 to 35 bushels per acre; weight, 63 pounds per bushel. Good, plump grain.

F . E . Briggs, Individual Judge.

Approved:

John Boyd Thatcher Chairman, Committee on Awards.

"These awards," wrote Pratt (S.I.S., Annual Report, 1894:408), "I regard

as creditable alike to the Department, the school, and the Indian race."

Of even more significance was the stationary Carlisle Indian

School exhibit that was placed among the regular school exhibits in the

Liberal Arts Building for the opening day of the Columbian Exposition in

Chicago in 1892 and which remained there until the close of this World's

Fair in 1894. In keeping with Pratt's philosophy, the Carlisle students

saw their work situated among, and in competition with, the exhibits of

hundreds of public and private schools throughout the United States. The

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exhibit consisted of the ten themes displayed by the ten marching pla­

toons in the opening day parade described above (p. 153) plus additional

chart information on the academic and practical life-related teaching

program being carried on at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It was

under the care of an employee of the school; and from the first day to

the last, at least one of the Carlisle students was there to help present

the School and the Government's Indian educational program to the hun­

dreds who visited the exhibit daily. Many United States and foreign

educators made inquiries. An English educator made arrangements for the

purchase of the Carlisle wagon on display to be shipped (at the closing

of the Fair) to his Zulu school in South Africa to encourage English

authorities in promoting industrial education in the South African

schools (Pratt, 1964-.Chapter 26; SIS., Annual Report 1893:448-56).

In 1894, the Carlisle School was signally honored when notified

that it had received a citation and diploma from the Department of Liberal

Arts, Columbian Quadri-Centennial Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. The

text was as follows (S.I.S., Annual Report, 1894:407):

Department of Liberal Arts

Chicago , Illinois

Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

AWARD

Excellence of methods, objects, and results, as part of the best plan for the industrial, intellectual, patriotic, social, moral, and spiritual training of the Indian to take his place as a member of civilized society, seen, first, in his separation from savage sur­ roundings; second, in wise and well-fitted plans and methods of theoretical and practical training of boys and girls in the several years of school life, during which they learn conditions of caring for health and are prepared for active affairs in common studies, such as reading, writing, drawing, arithmetic, composition, geography,

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music, bookkeeping, and morals; and in industries for girls, such as household economy, needlework, cutting of garments, and cooking; and for boys, faming, carpentering, blacksmithing, harness and wagon making, the making of tinware and shoes, and printing; third, as seen in the outing system, by which the pupils are placed in good families, where both boys and girls, for a year or more, become familiar, by observation and practice, with all the customs and amenities of American homelife, fixing what they have been learning in the theory and practice of the school; fourth, as seen in the results attained, and (a) in the outing system for 1892, which re­ sulted in the earning by 404 boys of $16,698.83, and by 298 girls of $5,170.15, or a total of $21,868.98, all of which was placed to their individual credit; and (b) in the useful and worthy lives of the great majority of all who have returned to their Indian homes.

John Eaton, Individual Judge. Approved: John Boyd Thatcher Chairman, Committee on Awards.

The award had special significance because Commissioner Morgan and the

Bureau of Ethnology did not approve of government funds being used for

non-traditional, non-tribal presentations at the Columbian Expositions.

Pratt and the Carlisle students raised the money required. Therefore,

authoritative recognition from persons of influence not connected with

the Bureau of Indian Affairs and from the thousands of visitors that

make up the general public could only bring credibility to the Carlisle

philosophy in Indian education and promote its extension.

Carlisle's popularity was on the upgrade. Public opinion among

Indians and Whites favoring the non-reservation Indian school concept

grew. Pratt was strengthened in his conviction that his four-point,

holistic educational program in a multi-tribal, distant, off-reservation

environment was more productive of desirable results than any other plan.

In her book Indian Agents of the Old Frontier, Flora Warren Seymour

(1941:269) observed that Carlisle started a new impetus in Indian educa­

tion and

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. . . soon other non-reservation boarding schools followed, none of them so distant as Hampton and Carlisle. Forest Grove, in Oregon, was established, . . . Chilocco, in Indian territory just below the Kansas line, was instituted primarily as an agricultural school. . . . Haskell Institute, begun in 1884 at Lawrence, Kansas, was to be second in size only to Carlisle itself. Pratt had given the stone the blow which struck off all these bits of flame [emphasis mine].

Hampton Institute in Virginia and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania be­

came contract schools under the Indian Bureau for special programs in

advanced Indian education.

Historian Carmelita S. Ryan (162:285-86) concluded that

Public pressure and the success of Carlisle forced the government to expand its educational system. . . . Haskell, Forest Grove, Chilocco, Mount Pleasant [Michigan], Sherman [California], and Genoa [Nebraska] . . . were western counterparts of Carlisle. As these establish­ ments flourished, the day schools, of necessity, expanded and strengthened their curriculum. . . . By acting both as model and goal, Carlisle improved the quality and quantity of education offered at other Indian Schools" [emphasis mine].

It is thus apparent that there is validity in the main hypothesis

of this dissertation, namely, that: The federal program for American

Indian education in the United States had its genesis in a policy of

forced acculturation exemplified in the founding and operation of the

Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918. This chapter has described

the holistic character of the Carlisle educational program and identified

thirteen features essential to forced acculturation. Twelve of these

elements have been discussed with illustrations of the effectiveness of

each in terms of its goal. The thirteenth, the Outing System, will be

discussed in Chapter V, which addresses itself to the second hypothesis

of the dissertation.

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Footnotes

‘'"Probably refers to George Washington Williams (1849-1891) , the Black American author of two books: History of the Negro Race in America from 1819-1880, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London about 1882; and A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebel­ lion 1861-1865, Harper Publishers, New York, 1888. The first title is housed in the Rare Book Collection, The American University, Washington, D.C. It is a first edition. 2 Ota Kte (trans. Plenty Kill), the first son of Chief Standing Bear the First, age about ten years, was the first Indian pupil to walk through the big gate onto the Carlisle Indian School grounds past mid­ night on October 6, 1879. 3 According to the December 1898 issue of The Red Man, p. 8, the affectionate appellation for the fire engine was "Uncle Sam." 4 The Indian Bureau did not honor Pratt's 1879 requisition for band instruments. A chance visitor, Mrs. Walter Baker, furnished the money to purchase the instruments; and the wife of a staff member vol­ unteered to teach the students. She had been a concert cornetist before marriage.

^Carlisle Indian School was never more than a limited high school. Parents were persuaded to sign their children up for five years at the outset, and then Pratt always tried to encourage students to re­ turn for a second five-year term and "graduate."

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THE OUTING SYSTEM: INVOLVEMENT AS A METHOD OF

SECOND-CULTURE LEARNING

Richard Henry Pratt considered proficiency in speaking, reading,

and writing the English language a vital prerequisite to any satisfactory

adjustment to White society. He considered adjustment to White society

a vital prerequisite to full participation in United States democracy.

He considered cultural adaptation to White society essential to the eco­

nomic well-being, if not to the survival, of Indians in the United States.

As a mechanism for the transmission of culture, language takes

priority over all else. The essential function of language as a trans­

mitting mechanism can be seen in the fact that when effective communica­

tion is absent, there is almost total failure of meaningful cultural

contact. However, a second language cannot be learned in cultural isola­

tion. In the classroom, one can only become acquainted with a second

language and learn about a second culture. A language must be learned

within the total framework of the culture of which it is an integral

part. Therefore, involvement is important if language learning is to be

effective. At Carlisle Indian School Pratt built into the curriculum

on-campus and off-campus cultural activities as adjuncts to language

learning. Implicit in the Carlisle model were certain goals of involve­

ment, both cognitive and performing.

159

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For example, in terms of cognitive goals, each student was given

some knowledge of the social and political institutions of Euro-American

society including religion and the rural and small-town pattern of

middle-class family life; and each student was introduced to the value

system of White society and exposed to the reasoning processes of Euro-

American culture.

In terms of performing goals, each Indian student was taught the

social amenities: proper attire, grooming, appropriate greetings, and

table manners; also, some acceptable techniques for handling interper­

sonal and intergroup relationships— both the pleasant and the difficult.

And related to the performing goals was an emphasis through the school

career upon the need to acquire leadership skills for a teacher-leader

role in the tribal group back home. These implicit objectives were made

explicit in the extra-curricular activities noted in the previous chap­

ter and reinforced by the Outing System being discussed in this chapter.

The Outing System was an extended education program that re­

quired Indian students to spend a period of their school life away from

the school living with, and employed by, a White middle-class family in

a rural area or a small town, receiving current wages, attending public

school, and gaining experience in practical self-support in preparation

for induction into "civilized life." The Carlisle Outing System was

Pratt's distinctive device for total involvement of the American Indian

student in standard White American community life. Pratt felt that this

type of total involvement, or cultural immersion, was related to attain­

ing proficiency in English and absolutely necessary to Indian education

for living in the dominant White society and coping with the realities

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of modern life in the United States in the late nineteenth century. With

no formal training, Pratt had arrived at a truth of some significance in

linguistic anthropology: cultural immersion makes for authenticity in

language learning; therefore, involvement in community life is important,

for it is that life which gives language its meaning. Emphasis was

placed on this fact in Pratt's speech before the Ninth Annual Meeting of

the Lake Mohonk Conference^- of Friends of the Indian in 1891, when he

said (Prucha 1973:274):

The outing system is a means of acquiring the English language and what goes with it far quicker and more perfectly than it can be gained in any school, for the reason that all their talking is with English-speaking people; and, being along the lines of civilized life and its needs innumerable [sic], other important things are learned at the same time, and they are compelled to think in English.

This chapter will first note briefly the origins of the Outing

concept in the education of American Indians; second, discuss the opera­

tion of the Carlisle Outing System; and third, demonstrate the validity

of my second hypothesis. The second hypothesis for this dissertation

states: That the Carlisle Indian School Oucing System, as a second-culture

learning strategy, was critical to the implementation of the boarding

school program of forced acculturation.

Origins of Outing Concept

Outing System prototypes

The idea of "Outing" as an educational device in Indian education

appears first in the work of John Sergeant (see Chapter I, pp. 36-39 of

this dissertation) among the Housatonic Indians near Stockbridge, Massa­

chusetts. Sergeant (1710-1749) recognized the importance of educating

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both sexes but found no philanthropic funds available for the education

of Indian females. The Stockbridge Boarding School for Boys could ar­

range classroom space for female students but had no living accommoda­

tions for them. The plan devised for the girls was to place them in

White families where they received instructions in sewing, cooking, etc.,

in exchange for services rendered. For their academic work, they at­

tended classes at the Stockbridge School where they learned to read the

Bible and studied penmanship (Fletcher 1888:91).

According to Adams (1946:18-19), the Moor Charity School (1754-

1767) and Dartmouth College complex had an arrangement whereby the Indian

girls lived in English homes in the neighborhood "to learn housekeeping

and sewing, and went to school one day a week to learn to read and write"

(see Chapter I, pp. 39-43 of this dissertation) .

There is no evidence that Pratt had knowledge of these histori­

cal precedents. It was apparently an independent invention on his part

born of his own experiences with Indians and the insight that the Ameri­

can Indian needed a new survival kit— one that could withstand the rapid

social and technological changes afoot in nineteenth-century industrial

United States.

The Hampton experiment

In 1878, General Samuel C. Armstrong, principal of Hampton Normal

and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia, his bi-racial faculty and

staff, and the Negro student body cordially received Captain Richard H.

Pratt and 17 of his captive warrior/ex-prisoner Indians from Fort Marion,

St. Augustine, Florida (see Chapter III, pp. 105-8 of this dissertation).

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Thereafter, at Hampton Institute, they were called the St. Augustine

Indians.

Faced with the reality that the Indian Bureau expected all In­

dians to become farmers, Pratt struck upon the idea of the summer vaca­

tion months being used for on-the-job training in agriculture. General

Armstrong approved the plan and suggested that Captain Pratt explain it

to one of the Hampton Institute trustees, Deacon Hyde of Lee, Massachu­

setts. Shortly afterwards, Pratt and his prize Florida pupil, Etahdleuh

(see Chapter III, pp. 104-5) went to Lee, Massachusetts, and spoke to a

missionary meeting at the Congregational Church. Etahdleuh gave the

speech he delivered at Hampton's commencement, and Pratt shared with the

audience his ideas about Indians needing on-the-farm experiences as a

part of their education for future self-support.

In his memoirs, Pratt summarizes the outcome of that visit

(1964:194):

I told the people something about Indians and their good quali­ ties and that they would prove themselves useful farm helps; how the government plans intended all Indians to become farmers and it would greatly advance them if they had chances to learn our American farm life by becoming a real part of it and this would lead them to adopt our ways of living. A number of farmers agreed to take pupils and others wanted to think about it for a day or two. Mr. Hyde, with his carriage, took the Indian and me about the country, which gave Etahdleuh a chance to see the farm homes and meet the kind people so he could explain to his comrades when he returned to Hampton. We soon found summer places for all seventeen former prisoners. They went to Lee that summer, and some of them the next, with abundant benefit to themselves and satisfaction to the people who employed them.

It was during this visit that Pratt came upon the phrase that

became his theme song in the solution of the Indian problem: "The contact

of peoples is the best of all education." It was the Lee, Massachusetts,

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summer-on-the-farm training program for the St. Augustine Indians from

Hampton Institute that gave rise to the system which became known at

Carlisle Indian Industrial School as the Outing System.

Even though Pratt voluntarily chose to depart from Virginia in

1879 and from Hampton Institute for Negroes and to set up his own school

for Indians in a more propitious area, geographically and culturally, the

Hampton Institute Indian program continued for nearly four decades with

the Pratt "Outing System" as a key feature. So significant was the pro­

gram that when Hampton's President H. B. Frissell was a featured speaker

before the second convention of United States Indian School Employees,

July 1-6, 1895, at Sioux City, Iowa, he gave considerable attention to

the effectiveness of the system and praised the foresight of his pre­

decessor, General Armstrong, and the acumen of Captain Pratt in pioneer­

ing this venture in Indian education. In his closing address before this

simmer training institute, July 5, 1895, Frissell declared (Hailmann,

Report of Superintendent of Indian Schools 1895:53-54):

. . . But not only are we to bring industries upon the reserva­ tions. It is desirable that at the same time we send out a certain number of young people to live among the whites in order to learn their ways and gain confidence in themselves, as they see that they are able to hold their own alongside the white man on the farm and in the workshops. The outing system which Captain Pratt has used with such good results, . . . is admirable. During the summer months all the Indian boys and girls at Hampton leave the school and go to the farms of New England, where they are now gaining a living on small stony farms and learning lessons of thrift and industry which it would be hard for them to gain else­ where. The girls labor by the side of the mistress of the house in the kitchen, the boy with the master on the farm. Thus they learn what white civilization is, and, best of all, what its home life is. Here they earn wages and learn the great truth— which the reservation is not well suited to teach— that they must give an equivalent for what they get. This money which they earn they are obliged to save, spending only a small portion and laying up the rest so that they may not return to the reservation empty handed, but may be able to obtain a start in life.

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It is sometimes objected that agriculture and the modes of life are so different in the East from those that prevail in the West that this Eastern training unfits them for their life on a Western prairie. I believe any thoughtful man will appreciate that any Indian who has gained habits of thrift and industry will be able to make his way, whether it be on the rocky farm of New England or the plains of Dakota.

It is interesting to note that, in 1909, after Carlisle's famed

Superintendent Pratt had been forced out of office and the Carlisle In­

dian School was on the downgrade, Estelle Reel, then Superintendent of

Indian Schools under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, carried this state­

ment about Hampton Institute in her annual report (S.I.S., Annual Report

1909:40):

This is the model school for the training of Indian youth. The industrial facilities are the best. . . . The faculty is carefully selected and on a high plane. The school is especially noted for the success it has achieved in character building, and the records of former students show that the principles inculcated while the pupils are in school are held after they take their places in the world. The Outing System as practiced at Hampton Institute, places boys and girls in Christian homes, where the environment and practical train­ ing round out the principles taught in school [emphasis mine].

Indeed, Richard Henry Pratt made Hampton Institute, in his own lifetime,

both a precursor and a successor of the renowned Carlisle Outing System-

The Carlisle Outing System— Common Sense Theory in Operation

Without a formal education, Pratt had to think in common sense

terms and arrive at conclusions regarding policies and procedures without

the aid of theory. After 14 years in the army observing relations be­

tween the United States government and American Indians, and White Ameri­

can citizens and American Indians, he arrived at the conclusion that if

the Red man could be removed from the category of the peculiarly-clad,

wandering consumer into that of the well-dressed, producing citizen

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(hence, an asset instead of a burden to the nation), the Indian problem

would be solved. This would mean, however, that the Red man must learn

the language of the White population, acquire a new conception of work

for self-support, and achieve some understanding of competition and sur­

vival techniques in modernizing, industrializing America. Pratt con­

cluded that education was the key.

This simplistic thinking led to his enunciation of a concise,

precise, common-sense platform of Indian education specifying, (1) "us­

able knowledge of the English language," (2) "skill in some industry,"

(3) "the courage of civilization," and (4) "knowledge of books," (Pratt

1908:42). The Outing System was more directly related to the "courage of

civilization" item but, in reality, became a holistic approach to Pratt's

four-point program of Indian education. The Outing concept itself was

based on a common-sense formulation about culture change expressed in one

of the homespun, philosophical slogans for which Pratt was famous, viz.,

"contact with civilization civilizes." The remaining sections of this

chapter will deal with a more detailed description of the system, its

aims, its administration and achievements, and its effectiveness as a

second-culture learning mechanism.

The Outing System described

One of the best descriptions of the Carlisle Outing System as it

functioned was presented by Alfred J. Standing, assistant superintendent

of the Carlisle Indian School, in a paper before the 1896 Summer Insti­

tutes for Indian School Employees in Lawrence, Kansas; St. Paul, Min­

nesota; and San Francisco, California. The Superintendent of Indian

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Schools, Dr. William N. Hailmann, recorded the entire Alfred Standing

paper in his third annual report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,

Daniel M. Browning. A few pertinent excerpts follow (S.I.S., Report

1896:45-46) with appropriate interpretive comments interspersed.

By this system is meant that policy of the Carlisle School which requires that its students shall spend a period of one or more years of their school life away from the school in selected white families, vinder the supervision of the school, receiving current wages for their services, and attending a public school four months or more during the winter, thus gaining experience in practical self-support and induction into civilized family life not otherwise attainable.

The speaker also outlined three indispensable conditions essential to

the success of the program, viz., the right community of patrons, proper

supervision, and the Indian students.

First, as to the community among whom the Indian youth shall be placed, and by whose example they will be molded, and on whom so much depends, . . . Carlisle has been especially fortunate in this partic­ ular, . . . Situated in a part of Pennsylvania thickly settled by an industrious farming community, there is abundant choice of suitable families for homes. Hardly had the Indian school been located at Carlisle when Captain Pratt began prospecting for the means of carry­ ing his ideas into practice. The first substantial help came from those who believed, as William Penn did, in the "brotherhood of man." Many of these were the direct descendants of those families who, with him [Penn], founded the colony of Pennsylvania, in some cases residing on the identical farms first occupied. These people, by training and tradition the friends of the In­ dian, took hold of the project at once, to a great extent as a mat­ ter of philanthropic duty at first, but soon as a satisfactory and pleasant business arrangement, in which the benefits were mutual, so much so that many patrons from that day to this have used Indian labor in preference to any other. New applicants for admission on the patrons1 list are required to make explicit statements covering their family and social status, habits, etc., and to give reliable references, which being found satisfactory, they are placed on the list, otherwise refused, while all patrons are subject to a code of rules, violation of which may, and does sever their relations with the school [see forms on pp. 172, 173, 177], . . . What are the results? One Indian with a superior family of whites from morning till night, day in and day out, week by week, till the summer is over, speaking only one language, engaged in all the opera­ tions of the farm, going to the station with the milk, learning all about Jersey cows and Berkshire pigs, attending church and Sunday

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School with the family, taking part in country picnics and social gatherings, making the acquaintance of the neighborhood, living on the abundance of the land, and at the same time earning fair wages; only one result is possible— the betterment of the student [emphasis mine].

It is obvious from Standing's discussion that the Outing System was

calculated to undergird and reinforce the forced acculturation underway

at the Carlisle School.

What does this do for the Indian boy or girl? It gives a command of the English language, a knowledge of family life, of business methods, of farming machinery and stock, and, above all, the consious- ness of ability to make a living in any civilized community; of not being dependent but a valued member of society and a factor in the labor markets in short, it gives the three essentials of education needed, the knowledge of the language, the skill of labor, and "the courage of civilization" [emphasis mine].

Standing's comprehensive address resulted in a resolution passed

by the Institute participants commending Captain Pratt for this innova­

tion in Indian education and recommending the speedy extension of the

"outing system" to all non-reservation schools (S.I.S., Annual Report

1896:143). The Carlisle assistant superintendent's penchant for detail

was exceeded only by his enthusiasm for Pratt and Carlisle School, for

he declared that, in his judgment, there existed "no other civilizing

agency so potent in results or possibilities" as the "outing system,"

Alfred Standing was an established educator prior to his coming to Car­

lisle, but it was evident that he valued Pratt's creative approach in

education and his ingenious administrative skill and considered the "out­

ing system" an indispensable part of the educational program at Carlisle

Indian School.

Aims of the Outing System

Nowhere in the literature is there a clear statement of the aims

of the Outing System, even though there is evidence that the question,

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"What is the object of sending them out?," was being asked in one form

or another. Wrote one Indian father, . . M y son knew how to work

before he went to Carlisle; he has money enough and he knows English. I

want him to go to school and not out to work" {The Red Man, September

1898:1).

The Red Man was the school newspaper with a circulation of over

9,000 and designed to communicate with the general public and with In­

dian parents about the school, its program, its policies, its problems.

Though too general to be an adequate explanation, the following item did

address itself to aims {The Red Man, September 1898:2) :

. . . (0)ur object in sending our pupils to live in the country for a time is: 1. To enlarge their experience. 2. To benefit them in health. 3. To give them a chance to earn money. 4. To learn important lessons in home life that cannot be taught in any institution. 5. To satisfy their desire for a change. 6. To give them a trip. 7. To become socially acquainted with good country people and their ways. 8. To make them self-reliant. 9. To give them courage. 10. Above all to make true men and women of them.

Administration of the Outing System

The speech of Carlisle's assistant Superintendent A. J. Standing

cited earlier identified three elements essential to the success of the

Outing System, namely, patrons, supervision, and Indian students. A

fourth item should be added to these administrative concerns and that is

Carlisle's public image, or the protection of "the good name of the

school." In other words, there were at least four specific administra­

tive tasks: (1) the recruitment and cultivation of patrons willing to

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participate in the program; (2) the favorable pairing of patron and pupil

in the placement process; (3) the supervision of "Out" students and the

simultaneous, judicious overseeing of the patron family and the related

public school; and (4) the building and maintaining of a positive public

image of the Carlisle Indian School. A discussion of the manner in which

Pratt and his staff addressed these administrative tasks follows.

Recruitment of patrons

The first administrative task, and initially not an easy one, was

the recruitment of patrons. A background note will be helpful in under­

standing the problem. In 1878, no educational institution save one (and

that one was for Negroes) could be persuaded to take Pratt's Indians.

Generally speaking, in 1880, the people of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, were

afraid of the "wild Indians"; and the Indians were not too enthusiastic

about trusting Whites. Of these early problems, Pratt wrote (C.I.A.,

Annual Report 1891:596):

In the spring of 1880 we did a deal of writing and talking, and succeeded in placing 16 boys and girls among the farmers in Pennsyl­ vania, for vacation only. The people were afraid of the Indians and the Indians were afraid of the people, and more than half of these first outings were failures, some after a few days, others after two or three weeks, but we did not stop.

As he searched for sympathetic understanding of his crusade,

Pratt turned to the Quakers because of their history of concern for op­

pressed peoples as expressed in their long established and continuing

interest in the welfare and advancement of the Indians in the United

States and in cheir work with the anti-slavery movement. Moreover, the

Quakers, in their daily lives, exemplified all the qualities Pratt sought

to instill in his Indian charges. They were religious, industrious,

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energetic, and thrifty. Such an environment of moral and spiritual

values was indispensable to Pratt's objective of strong character

building.

Another crucial consideration in the recruitment of patrons was

the willingness of families to treat the Indian students as family mem­

bers. The informal terms of address for patrons were "outing families"

and "outing parents." The terms of reference used by the students in­

cluded "my country mother," "my country father," "my outing sisters and

brothers."

The recruitment of patrons became a process administered by

Superintendent Pratt in meticulous detail and over which he presided

with diligence and sensitivity. Two of the administrative instruments

employed in the process took the form of letters to prospective patrons

and to a selective list of friends of Carlisle from whom Pratt solicited

information regarding prospective patrons. Copies of each follow (see

Figs. 1 and 2). Subsequent superintendents made such minimal modifica­

tions in the original documents that it is not necessary to include

other copies.

In due course, the people among whom the Indians had been placed

began to understand them better, appreciate their value as workers, and

the patrons list grew. The first students were received by the partici­

pating families as a philanthropic project and/or a matter of Christian

duty. Later the relationship with Carlisle School and the Indian stu­

dents became mutually beneficial and, actually, a profitable business

arrangement.

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Indian Industrial School Carlisle, Pennsylvania ______, 189

Our object in placing pupils in families is to advance them in English and the customs of civilized life.

We send out as many as we can spare towards the end of the school term, then visit them before our school opens in September, and if every­ thing is satisfactory and persons wish to keep them, arrange for them to remain one or two years.

Pupils remaining out over winter must attend school at least four months continuously, and their labor out of school hours must pay their keep.

They are paid, as other persons, according to ability: Girls from 50 cents to $2 per week; boys from $5 to $15 per month. Wages can be ar­ ranged after a two weeks' trial, and advanced as desired. I must be kept informed of the wages fixed upon and any changes thereafter.

R. H. Pratt. Captain and Superintendent

Please answer the following questions, tear off at this line, and return to me.

1. Who are your references? 2. Who compose your family? 3. What other employes do you keep? 4. Is the use of tobacco or liquor allowed in your household? 5. Does your family attend religious services,, and would the pupil have the same privilege? 6. What is the age of the you wish? 7. What will be the nature of work?

Signature Date P.O.

Fig. 1. Outing letter Form I. The letter and application blank were sent to persons desirous of becoming patron families for Carlisle students participating in the Outing Program (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891: 592) .

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Indian Industrial School Carlisle, Pennsylvania , 189

Dear Sir:

Please oblige me by giving the information asked below, and return this slip to me in the inclosed envelope. Any information you give will be treated confidentially.

Are you acquainted with Does he use whisky or tobacco? Is he a man of good habits? What class of help does he employ? Is he kind to his employes? Does he pay promptly? Who compose his family? Of what religious society is he a member, if of any?

Very truly yours,

R. H. Pratt Captain and Superintendent

Fig. 2. Outing letter Form II. This inquiry was sent to old patrons and other persons well known to the Carlisle staff regarding new patron applications (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891:592).

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In 1898, Major Pratt visited a friend who had been a patron for

18 of the 19 years of Carlisle's existence. She was among the very

first group of patrons and had kept a diary-type record of her experi­

ences with the 25 "outing daughters." During that field visit, she

shared excerpts from the journal with Major Pratt who requested that she

prepare a synopsis for publication in The Bed Man. Six items from that

25-paragraph news feature illustrate the significant role of the patron

in the practical education of Carlisle students for responsible adult

living {The Red Man, November 1898:2) :

No. 1 [female student] remained 1} years in my home; was teacher at ______, married happily the disciplinarian, who is an educated white man.

No. 2 remained 1} years, returned to Carlisle and from there to her home. [She] married a returned Carlisle pupil, who is temperate and industrious; [they] are living on their farm, have a good house, and [writes] "my bed rooms are just as nice as your bed rooms."

No. 5 remained three years, until fitted for teaching. Taught some years in the _____ Boarding School; married the industrial teacher, an English Canadian, and is living on a farm of four hundred acres. Is an earnest Christian worker, taking active part in Sunday School and Christian Endeavor work. Is a good economical housekeeper, raises vegetables and chickens in abundance. Makes and sells butter, does her own and her children's sewing, and still loves her country mother.

No. 9 remained 8 months. Graduated at Carlisle, married a Carlisle graduate; both are now teaching at ______.

No. 10 was matron at _ School. Married a good man of her tribe; is housekeeping and has a comfortable home.

No. 18 remained three years. Followed Carlisle course, returned to school for last six months of Senior year. Returned to country home for lessons in embroidery and crayon, meantime teaching two children of the family a few hours each day. Showed much tact as Governess. Is now in charge of sewing- room at ______.

For obvious reasons, specific identifying information including tribal

designation was omitted in the published report. Pratt had a definite

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interest in the White population of the various communities learning

more about Indians. Consequently, he was gratified that over the period

of 18 years this patron had an opportunity to introduce to that com­

munity its churches, and the school, exemplary Indian girls from 13 dif­

ferent tribes.

The fact such a comprehensive report exists demonstrates the

extraordinary effort Superintendent Pratt put into recruiting and culti­

vating the finest patrons for the program. Even more extraordinary was

the lasting amicable relationship that, more often than not, developed

between patron and pupil.

Student placement

The second administrative task was that of selecting students to

"go out" and placing them in a favorable learning environment both in

terms of work skills and family/community relationships. Pratt analyzed

the aforementioned disastrous summer and arrived at three operating prin­

ciples which he applied in the summer of 1881 (Ryan 1962:158-62). In the

first place, only those whose English proficiency was such that they

could understand and be understood by the receiving families would be

"placed out." Second, in order to prevent students running back to Car­

lisle ("running back home") at the slightest provocation, students were

placed at inconvenient distances from the school. And third, no two

students were assigned to the same farm; and the farms on which Carlisle

students lived and worked were distantly located from each other. Stu­

dents were thus "forced" to adjust to their respective circumstances

without support or communication with fellow students. There is,

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however, evidence from patron reports that the girls were sent out in

pairs, apparently for safety considerations.

During the Pratt administration, no student had to go on "out­

ings" if he or she did not wish to do so. Consequently, in the early

years, outing had to be promoted; and this was done by Superintendent

Pratt himself. The English-speaking meetings on Saturday evenings (see

Chapter IV, pp. 125-26) were utilized to arouse interest in these work­

ing vacations in the country. When the students returned to their re­

spective quarters after these meetings, applications were made available

to those desiring them. By 1883, the students were already beginning to

covet the privilege of being "selected to go out" for Pratt's annual

report submitted to the Commisioner of Indian Affairs in September 1884

indicated that 217 students out of an enrollment of 369 had been "placed

out," and 110 chose to remain with their "outing families" for the winter

and attend the public schools in the area (C.I.A., Annual Report 1884:

186) .

Again, the Superintendent prepared a special administrative in­

strument that served both as an application and a request for permission

to be "sent out" and as a commitment to a standard of behavior in keep­

ing with the moral and spiritual values being taught at the School and

the deportment expected of Carlisle students on or off campus (Fig. 3).

Upon receipt of this request from the student, his or her record

in conduct, academic skills and performance, and English proficiency was

investigated. If Superintendent Pratt was satisfied with the student's

qualifications in all these categories, the student was assigned to a

patron. Both pupil and patron received a copy of the rules and

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No.

Carlisle, Pennsylvania , 189_

Captain R. H. Pratt

Sir:

I want to go out into the country. If you will send me, I promise to obey my employer, and to obey all the rules of the school. I will attend the nearest Sunday School regularly. I will not absent myself from my farm home without the permission of my employer, and will not loaf about stores or elsewhere evenings or on Sundays. I will not use tobacco nor spirituous liquors in any form. I will not play cards or gamble and will save as much money as possible. If out for the winter I will attend school regularly and will do my best to advance myself at my studies. I will bathe regularly, write my home letter every month, and do all that I can do to please my employer, improve myself, and make the best use of the chance given me.

Very respectively yours

Pupil

Fig. 3. Outing letter Form III. Pupils desirous of partici­ pating in the Outing program were required to use this form letter of request (Heuman, 1965:88; The Red Man, September-Octobcr 1C3C).

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regulations which would govern their relationship to each other and to

Carlisle Indian School (Fig. 4).

Students were dispatched by train to their respective destina­

tions and patrons notified as to the time of arrival. In the early

years, the railroad fare was paid by the patron; but later all clothing

and transportation expenses were supplied by Carlisle School and charged

against the student's account. As indicated in the regulations, after

two weeks' trial, the patron and the student discussed the problem of

wages, and their agreement was communicated to Superintendent Pratt for

approval. Besides their room and board as family members, Pratt reported

that students were often "receiving the highest wages paid for labor of

the sort they perform" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1887:258). In accord with

the Savings System discussed earlier (Chapter IV, pp. 148-49), students

were required to save at least one-half of their wages. These funds were

forwarded by the patron to Carlisle where they remained in the student's

account earning six percent interest until the student was graduated or

left the school.

Excerpts from three typical letters from students attest to

Pratt's success in the patron-pupil pairing process (The Red Man, Febru­

ary 1900:4):

Letter A: Dear school father, I must tell you about our nice home. We are well contented and happy all the time. We live on a large farm. Mr. _____ keeps a creamery; he has 35 cows, with many other stock. . . . I have been trying hard to keep up in my grade, and know that I have gained a lot since I have been to school in the country.

Letter B: . . . I am getting along very nicely at home and at school. I am very fond of my teacher, my class-mates and school-mates.

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Regulations to Govern Persons in Charge of Out Students [Copy furnished to each patron and pupil]

1. Do not allow pupils the free use of money. Advise and assist in all purchases of clothing and other necessaries, which charge up at the time. Give pupil spending money occasionally if asked for it, but if bad use is made of it withhold it and notify me. After two weeks trial talk with pupil and correspond with me about wages; but what is customary for like service in your vicinty should determine the matter. When re­ turning to the school give money for transportation and send balance to me in check, in favor of the pupil. 2. Pupils must attend Sabbath School and church regularly where such privileges are accessible. 3. Absence without permission, or loafing evenings and Sundays, must not be allowed. 4. Pupils visiting their companions must not be encouraged to make a practice of staying for meals. 5. Patrons or others are not to hire pupils who have been sent to their neighbors without my consent, nor should students be encouraged to change places. 6. Except authorized by me, students are not to return nor be returned to the school before the period for which they are engaged expires. 7. Pupils are not to use tobacco or spirituous liquors in any form. This or any other offense against good order must be reported to me at the time. 8. When out for the winter, pupils are to attend school continu­ ously at least four months, working out of school hours for board and washing. 9. Pupils must bathe at least twice a week. 10. Encourage pupil to read and study during the off hours, even at busy seasons, and give some assistance. 11. Reports must be sent in promptly the last day of each calen­ dar month, even if pupil has been with patron only a few days.

R. H. Pratt, Captain and Superintendent. Indian Industrial School Carlisle, Pa.

Fig. 4. Outing System regulations (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891: 592) .

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Sometimes my pale-face brothers and sisters get little warm for me, but I managed to keep up to them. I never like to go to school in my born days as I do this fall. . . . I hope some boys and girls all like their teacher as well as I do. I tell them if they do, they will learn as fast again. I am sure that she is fond of me and tries her best to teach me. I do all I can to please her. I would not mind if I could stay out another winter and go to school to her if she is teaching again. . . . I am used very well at home too. I cannot find no fault. They use me as a member of the family, and I am glad that I do not have to run around for work or a place (to stay). . . . I am not homeless. . . .

Letter C: . . . I did not expect any wages when I started for school, but Mrs. _____ has kindly offered to pay me $2.00 per month. I arise very early on Monday mornings and get my washing all out on the line by 7 or 7:30 o'clock, and get my milk-cans washed and put away. I have to hurry around to school, and when I get there I learn as much as I can. Beside my regular studies, I have taken up algebra, and find it very interesting. I feel as happy out here at my farm home as anybody at Car­ lisle, and do not regret coming out again. This is my third winter in the country, and my fourth year under your care [Sup­ erintendent Pratt]. It seems but a short time and I feel that I have learned a great deal.

It is noteworthy that through the Outing System not only did

Pratt win devotees to his views in Indian education, but he also won

lasting friends for his students. One wife of an official of the Penn­

sylvania Railroad, Mrs. Wister Morris of Overbrook (Philadelphia area),

Pennsylvania, "for a considerable period used Indian girls almost ex­

clusively in her housekeeping" and even employed a special teacher "who

gave the girls collectively and individually daily instruction" thus

accelerating their academic progress (Pratt 1964:314-15). In his auto­

biography, General Pratt records a letter received by the 86-year-old

Mrs. Morris from one of the Indian girls who had lived with her 30 years

previously. "The letter," wrote Pratt, " is a model of penmanship and

frank expression" and is "conspicuous as evidence of what may be accom­

plished for a tepee-born child of primitive Indian parentage" (Pratt

1964:315). (See Fig. 5.)

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Martin, S.D. Dec. 28, 1921

Mrs. Morris Overbook, Phila., Pa.

Dear Mrs. Morris:

I received your letter not long ago and was very glad to hear from you and that you remember us. It has been a long time since I heard from you. The rest of my family are all well, and are at home. I am happy to say that my husband and I have been faithful as well as workers for our church. I am sort of a captain under Rev. Joyner, who is in charge of one of the two districts of our reservation. In the year of 1917, the annual convocation (Episcopal) of the Sioux Indians, covering nine reservations of South Dakota and one in Nebraska, was held in our reservation. At this convocation I was elected chairman of the committee which cared for the hundred delegations from various parts of the state. I am telling you about these, that you may see the results of yours and Gen. Pratt’s teachings over thirty years ago. A large box of Christmas presents was sent to me last week for our home church by the St. Luke's Church of Utica, N.Y. I am glad that we, the Indians, are not without friends. Mrs. Martha Whirlwind Horse nee Bordeau, who was in your home with me, is now living in Rosebud Agency, So. Dak. I very seldom see her but I know she is a church worker. And Winnie Kinneg who was also there at the same time, died about 1895. I shall be very glad to have a photo of yourself and your home. It has been many years since I came away but I remember everything there so well. I often remember you. And may further ask you where Gen. Pratt is living at present.

With love,

Victoria Conroy.

Fig. 5. Letter forwarded by Mrs. Morris to Superintendent Pratt.

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Supervision

The third administrative task was that of supervision of the Out­

ing System in all its aspects: pupils; patrons, and the overseeing of the

students' relationships with the host community, public school, and its

teachers. This involved four staff persons beside Superintendent Pratt—

a male Outing Agent, female Outing Agent, the school disciplinarian (al­

ways male), and the school matron. The school disciplinarian (for boys)

and the girls' matron were responsible for preparing the selected stu­

dents for the April departure dates. Trunks had to be purchased for

each new student going out for the first time. All Outing students had

to be supplied with proper attire for work and for Sunday dress and rec­

reational purposes, toiletries, and other personal items. Pratt required

that Carlisle students be well-groomed at all times with garments of

quality materials. Most of the clothing, including work shoes, was manu­

factured by the Carlisle Industrial Department.

There were two departure days— the first for boys and the second

for the girls. In each case, the disciplinarian or the matron accom­

panied the respective Outing Agent to the railroad depot in Philadelphia

to help see that each student boarded the right train for his or her

destination.

Again, Superintendent Pratt devised administrative instruments

that enabled him to monitor the entire system in minute detail and to

the best interest of the student. Monthly reports were required from all

patrons, and failure to comply could result in the severance of the rela­

tionship between Carlisle School and the patron. The report form utilized

suggests that a certain openness bewteen the patron and the pupil was

expected (Fig. 6).

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Monthly Report by Patron

______, 189 . Capt. R. H. Pratt Superintendent, Indian Industrial School Carlisle, Pa. :

The following is the report of ______, student from your school in my employ, during the month of ______: Pupil was received , 189 . Conduct, ______. Does pupil use tobacco or spirituous liquors in any form? ______. Habits,______. Does pupil bathe as often as our rules require?______. Health, ______. Kind of work,______. Ability and industry,______. Number of days at school during month, ______. Balance due pupil from last month, $______. Wages for this month, $ ______. Amount of money given to or expended for pupil during month, $ ______. Whole amount of pupil's money in my hands now, $ ______. What was bought with money given pupil and spent for him during month?

The above account agrees with the one kept by me.

Pupil Remarks:

Respectfully,

In charge of pupil Note. - It is important that all the above questions be answered correct­ ly and fully, and especially important that accounts be correctly stated, in order that our records at the school may be complete. Please use pen and ink in making out report.

Fig. 6. Outing patron's report form (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891: 593) .

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An even more effective method of supervision was that of periodic

visits of the Outing Agent and the subsequent field reports dispatched

to Superintendent Pratt. Both male and female Outing Agents visited the

patron families at least twice a year. During the winter months, they

visited the schools attended by Carlisle students and so their observa­

tions covered the family, church, and school situations as indicated by

the field report form which was sent to Superintendent Pratt after each

field visit (Fig. 7).

These Outing Agent visits were often beneficial both to patron

and pupil. One patron wrote, "He has been better since Mr. Thompson has

been here, was quite saucy before" (The Red Man, September 1898:3). The

agent's duty was to see that the relations between the student and his

Outing family, the students and his public school teacher, classmates,

and schoolmates were mutually constructive and satisfactory. Misfits,

regardless of the apparent source of the problem, were reported and stu­

dents returned to Carlisle for campus study or Outing reassignment. Out­

ing Agents' reports dealt with the health of pupils; deportment at home

and at school; student's achievements and problems in the public school;

the moral tone of the patron family and family privileges available to

the student; the accessibility of church privileges; and the attitude of

cooperation of patron and student with the Agent.

During the Pratt administration, such close, conscientious super­

vision militated against any exploitation of the students and promoted

harmonious family and community relations. Because of the excellent

record of placements and supervision, the requests for Indian students

exceeded the available number of students qualified for the Outing

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Visiting Agent's Report

Report of , student of Carlisle Indian Industrial School who went 1890, to live w i t h ______, of County, State of Railroad station :

Health,______. Conduct and habits,______• Cleanliness, ______. Ability,______- Economy,______• Number of months at school,______. Grade of quality of school, ______Name and address of teacher, ______Attends what church and Sabbath school? ______Wages, $______. Amount due pupil, $ ______Are careful accounts kept by both pa iron and pupil? When to return?

Note. - Any general statement or wishes of patron or pupil together with agent's estimate of place, people, and student.

Visiting Agent 1890

Fig. 7. Outing agent's report form (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891: 593) .

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experience. Students considered the Outing a rare privilege for which

they prepared themselves. The built-in safeguards in the supervision

mechanism enabled students to request a termination of the experience

without embarrassment. One student wrote to Superintendent Pratt: "These

folks would like me to stay with them all winter and go to school with

the white children as I have done at Merchantville, but I would rather go

back to Carlisle" (The Red Man, September 1898:3) .

Managing Carlisle's public image

The fourth administrative task was that of building and maintain­

ing a positive public image of Carlisle Indian School in the eastern

part of the United States, and in the midwest and the western reservation

areas in which most of the Indians lived and from which Carlisle students

came. This could not be done solely through such public relations events

as were mentioned in Chapter IV.

Unfavorable criticism of students or Carlisle alumni could jeop­

ardize the very existence of the school if brought forward during Con­

gressional hearings on the school's budget. It was for this reason that

great care was exercised in the selection of patrons and the placement of

students. The paperwork files were supplemented by personal observation

visits by the Superintendent and the Outing Agents. As soon as it was

possible, it became the rule that two years at Carlisle would be the

minimum residence requirement before a student would be permitted to go

out under Outing. Such a period gave the student the opportunity to

develop language skills and self-confidence and gave the school staff

ample opportunity to observe and assess the student's character and

capabilities.

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Pratt, a Protestant Christian, was very careful to avoid criti­

cism from the Roman Catholic Church by soliciting the assistance of the

Catholic clergy in provisions for church attendance and religious in­

struction for Catholic students at Carlisle. Attention was given to

placing Catholic children in Catholic homes whenever possible or at

least in localities where they could attend a Catholic church.

Finally, it was very important that Carlisle be favorably por­

trayed among the Indians themselves. As a part of developing the habit

of regular correspondence with their families, Carlisle students were

required, in connection with their English class work, to write letters

home once a month. Letters from their children were a source of great

pride to Indian parents as tangible evidence that their children were

being educated. Communication with their families during Outing was all

the more meaningful to the families because students shared their Outing

adventures with the people back home.

Again, Superintendent Pratt, the master organizer, devised an

administrative channel for this purpose. He solicited the cooperation

of the patrons in this effort to have the good news about Carlisle in the

Indian communities carried by letters from their own children. A letter

was sent to patrons enlisting their aid in seeing that students continued

to correspond with their families while "Out" from the campus (Fig. 8).

Periodically The Red Man published excerpts of letters from

patron and pupil reports. The following selected paragraphs from 15 stu­

dent letters present a sampling of the experiences shared, concerns ad­

dressed, and plans communicated in letters to their families back home

(The Red Man, September 1898:3-4).

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Indian Industrial School Carlisle, Pa.

Dear Friend:

We require all students to write to their homes once a month. When at school we see that such letters are written and sent. There is much complaint from parents that students out from the school do not write. Hereafter all patrons will require pupils under their care to write home letters at the end of the month and in­ close such letters to me, with their monthly reports, to be forwarded by me to their parents. Record will be kept and patrons notified of omissions.

Respectfully,

R. H. Pratt Captain and Superintendent

Fig. 8. Letter to patrons concerning students' correspondence with their families (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891:593).

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Letter Dear Father: I cannot thank you enough for sending your children to Carlisle. I know that you miss us but we are all trying to get a good education.

Letter 1: We are back from the seashore. I had a nice time while I was at the seashore.I went in bathing in the ocean. It was grand. The beach used to be just black with people. Well I must tell you what I am going to do this winter, I am going to stay out and go to the same school that I went to last winter. I would not stay out if it was not for the school.

Letter 3 : I also can say that I have plenty of work to do. I expect to be a strong boy when I return back. It will be a dis­ grace if I can't run our own farm. My folks are well pleased with me. 0, my I believe this is the first year I ever had so much ice cream.

Letter 4 : I am out in the country this summer and like my home very much. My country father and mother are very good to me. I am well and enjoy the work and pleasure I have. This morning when I was coming away from my home to go to church my little country brother wanted to come along with me. But he could not come so he followed me quite a distance and then he fell down on the ground with his face downward and cried. I went back and picked him up.

Letter 5: Father this morning I bought five cents worth of writing paper, and I think it is better than spending money for tobacco.

Letter 6 : I am getting along the same as usual. I have been thrash­ ing for one week with a steam thrasher. I like it. The people do not thrash in the east like they do in the west, they do not rush so much. I think all the next week I will have to make [svo] horses in the corn.

Letter 7 : I like my place very much. I am reading Ben-Hur and I like it very much. I go out bicycle-riding nearly every day, I am so fond of riding.

Letter 8 : It was a wonder to me that Ed. did not come with her for Carlisle is the very best and only place for a boy to be made a man of worthiness.

Letter 9 : Papa I heard today thaL I mast otay for this winter. I will go to school all day and then maybe I will get ahead of my classmates. My country mother took me to Phila­ delphia last week. I had a very pleasant day and seen so many things and seen such large stores. It was very inter­ esting to me. The pears, peaches and grapes are all ripe and I just have good times eating these fruits.

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Letter 10: I was glad to get a letter from sister. She said she heard that I was sick but that's not true. I am well and happy at my country home. My country folks have been so good to me ever since I came out here and they want me to stay our. R is going to stay out too and we hope to learn a good deal of we can.

Letter 11: Mamma, dear, it will not be long before I go back to school, so don't weary [sio] about me staying out.

Letter 12: I'm not going back to Carlisle this winter, I am going to stay out, but not at this place, I am going to change my place. I got a letter from one of my friends at Landsowne, that would like to have me corne over there very much. I don't like to go to school where I would be the only Indian girl as I would be at this place. So I told our matron, Miss Shaffner, when she was here, about it, and she thought it would be very nice if I would stay out this winter and go in a higher grade when I go back to school.

Letter 13: I have talked about my Indian home and all of you very often this summer to my patroness. I am much stouter and weigh heavier than I did when I came here in May. We have lots of fruit and berries all summer and I have had a good appetite and am real well.

Letter 14: There are no Indian girls within five miles, but there are white girls and I am not unhappy.

Letter 15: This will be the last letter you will get from here for I am going back to Carlisle some time next month. I am glad that I am going back but still I'll be sorry to leave these folks. Mrs. W. has been good to me and took good care of me. I do sometimes get a scolding but it is my own fault. I have learned to love her.

Despite the superior executive leadership and the battery of ad­

ministrative problem-detecting/problem-solving instruments, the Carlisle

Outing System had some problems that were difficult to resolve. The

literature identifies, though not in specific ways, three such problems.

Some incomplete school newspaper accounts of agent reports suggest that

public school methods of formal education were not well adapted, in some

instances, to Indian pupil problems. Some teachers had responsibilities

that left little time to give special attention to slow pupils, so they

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were "passed along" without learning a great deal from their books. A

second concern surfaced among Outing parents who ofttimes found the In­

dian students, at least initially, inclined to be non-communicative and

irresponsive to the point that employers would have to wait until the job

was done before being certain that the instructions were understood. The

third delicate problem was that of the misbehavior of bad or mischievous

White companions in the public schools or among neighboring farmers.

Though a monumental endeavor, this researcher found abundant evidence at

the National Archives that complete records were kept on every student

and every Outing (Record Group 75, BIA, Letters Sent? Letters Received;

Student Records). Elain Goodale Eastman, wife of one of the Carlisle

School physicians, and herself a former staff member, reported (1935:224-

25) that there was a separate office at Carlisle Indian School staffed by

three clerks who handled the large volume of correspondence and maintained

the records.

Growth and development of the Outing System

Pratt's research propensities caused him to keep monitoring the

Outing System by periodic surveys. A questionnaire circulated among

patrons in 1884 on 217 students "placed out" yielded the following re­

sults (C.I.A., Annual Report 1884:186):

Evaluation Re: Conduct As Workers

Excellent 90 84 Good 63 83 Fair 46 41 Bad 18 9 (Lazy)

Total 217 217

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An 1888 survey of original or eight-year veteran patrons of the

program solicited more descriptive responses in terms of interpersonal

relations. Such comments as, for example, "They are pleasant to have

around the house," or "They are good to my children," or "They are so

respectful to the ladies" indicated to Pratt that the mutual respect di­

mension of the program was being achieved. Of the 447 placed out in

188, only four were failures and there was no case of "criminal vicious­

ness" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1888:277-78). As appreciation of the In­

dians as industrious, reliable workers grew, the demand for the Carlisle

students far exceeded the supply. Pratt wrote to Commissioner T. J.

Morgan in 1890 that 520 students had been sent out, but "more than 200

places offered . . . had to be refused because all the pupils suffi­

ciently advanced and prepared were taken" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1890:

310). This statement is in sharp contrast to testimony at the Congres­

sional investigation of Carlisle in 1914 when the Outing Agent testified

to being ordered to "Put them out; put them out!"— the emphasis being on

numbers out and the resultant budgetary advantage (National Archives,

Congressional Investigation Report, Carlisle Indian School, p. 989).

As the last statement suggests, many new developments occurred

in the Outing System after the 1890s and, especially after the resigna­

tion of General Pratt. In the latter years of the Pratt superintendency,

male students were sent out as waiters, others were placed out to increase

their knowledge and experience with the various skilled trades in which

they had received instruction at Carlisle, while a selected few were sent

to cities distant from Carlisle for completely new experiences. The

pressure of forced acculturation via the Outing System was never more

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real than in the case of Luther Standing Bear, age 16, being sent to work

for Wanamakers of Philadelphia. His autobiography illustrates this sig­

nificant fact, and pertinent paragraphs of his vivid portrayal of these

experiences (with necessary editorial comment) are recorded below (Stand­

ing Bear 1928:178-90).

As mentioned in Chapter IV, all important communications between

Superintendent Pratt and his student body took place at the Saturday

evening meetings. For an entire week, the whole school had known that

the administrative staff was searching for the boy to fill the request

of Mr. John Wanamaker for a student worker at his Philadelphia store.

That Saturday evening hour, with an excited student body crowded into

the Chapel and after the prayer and some suspense-filled moments, Super­

intendent Pratt said, "Luther Standing Bear, please come forward."

When I reached the platform and faced the audience, all clapped their hands. I braced up and tried to stand like a soldier as we had been taught. Captain Pratt put his hand on my shoulder and continued: "My boy, you are going away from us to work for this school. Go, and do your best. The majority of white people think the Indian is a lazy good-for-nothing. They think he can neither work nor learn anything; that he is very dirty. Now you are going to prove that the red man can learn and work as well as the white man. If John Wanamaker gives you the job of blacking his shoes, see that you make them shine. Then he will give you a better job. If you are put into the office to clean, don't forget to sweep under the chairs and in the comers. If you do well in this, he will give you better work to do." All the time I was standing like a statue, . . . Then Captain Pratt continued: "Now, my boy, you are going to do your best. If you are a failure, then we might as well close up this school. You are to be an example of what this school can turn out. Go, my boy, and do your best. Die there if necessary, but do not fail." . . . If I had not cared for my race, all the strong impressions " would have had no effect upon me, but the thought of working for my race brought tears to my eyes. . . . After Captain Pratt had finished, he asked all the school to say a silent prayer that I would not fail my people. . . .

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. . . I went to my room and to bed, but sleep did not come quickly. I prayed that I would be able to fulfill all the hopes of my school and race, and that I would please my father. . . . I was to prove to all people that the Indians could learn and work as well as white people; to prove that Carlisle was the best place for the Indian boy. Every thought that passed through my mind seemed to end in the expression of Captain Pratt's; "To die there if necessary." . . .

Re: The day of departure:

My Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Eggee, and the school physician, Dr. Givens, were to accompany us. Captain Pratt's last instruc­ tions were, "if the manager asks you what you can do, tell him you are willing to try anything." So we shook hands and parted. . . . I was turned over to a Mr. Pier, who was at the head of the in­ voice department. . . . I learned fast, and did so well that finally Mr. Wanamaker gave me a better job. One day I was called up to the first floor where a little glass house was built. Mr. Walker took me inside. Inside the trunks was considerable valuable jewelry. Mr. Walker instructed me that my new work was to put price tags on all this jewelry. So every day I was locked inside this little glass house, open­ ing the trunks, taking out the jewels and putting price tags on them. How the white folks did crowd around to watch me! They were greatly surprised to discover that John Wanamaker could trust an Indian boy with such valuables. At that time the white people seemed to have an idea that an Indian would steal anything he could get his hands on— . . . I did so well at this work that soon I was given a better job with more pay. I was placed in the bookkeeping department as an entry clerk. . . .

Re: Pratt's inclination to exploit every teaching opportunity:

About this time the whole Carlisle School made a visit to Philadel­ phia. A meeting was held in a large hall, and Captain Pratt spoke of the work of the school, and how well all the Indian boys and girls were doing. Then John Wanamaker had me come up on the stage. He told the audience I was working for him and that I was a Carlisle boy. He stated that I had been promoted from one department to an­ other, every month getting better work and more money, and that in spite of the fact that he employed as many as a thousand people in his establishment, he had never promoted any one as rapidly as he had me. That brought considerable applause, and Captain Pratt was very proud of me.

Indeed, this had been a long journey for the little Lakota Sioux lad,

Ota Kte, the son of Chief Standing Bear, who in 1879 joined Pratt's

first party of recruits for Carlisle and set out "to do something brave

for his father" (Standing Bear 1928:Chapter XIII).

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The growth and development of the Outing program continued even

after the 1904 forced retirement of General Richard Henry Pratt as super­

intendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Despite some differ­

ences in general educational policy and, specifically, Indian education

philosophy, the four subsequent superintendents of the Carlisle Indian

School for its remaining years, 1904 to 1918, all recognized the value of

the Outing program and continued to pursue the expansion of its use not

only in terms of agricultural skills but into commerce and industry.

By 1909, students were being sent beyond Pennsylvania to four

other states, namely, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York. As

early as 1898, two young men had been sent to work in railroad service,

one of them learning telegraphy. With the passing of the years, increas­

ing numbers were placed out as telegraph operators, machinists, wagon-

makers, blacksmiths, electricians, shoemakers, carpenters, painters, and

printers. In 1910, the first group of six Indian boys went to Detroit's

Ford Motor Company for special training in auto mechanics. They were

later hired by Ford Motor Company as regular employees. The success of

the Ford experiment prompted the General Electric Company to accept In­

dian boys in its apprenticeship school in 1916 (C.I.A., Annual Reports

1909-1916; National Archives, BIA, Record Group 75, Classified Files).

However, due to the nature of the factory system, industrial "Outings"

did not take place in an atmosphere conducive to the close interpersonal

relationships so essential to individual acculturation.

Striking evidence of the phenomenal growth and development of

the Carlisle Outing System can be seen in the records of the numbers

participating and their earnings despite the more or less voluntary wage

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system. Table 2 is a statistical profile of the expanding program com­

piled from the annual reports of Carlisle superintendents to the Commis­

sioners of Indian Affairs, 1880-1917; the fiscal report of Indian Com­

missioner W. A. Jones to Secretary of the Interior E. A. Hitchcock,

1900; and a special survey by Carlisle assistant superintendent A. J.

Standing for the Summer Institutes for Indian School Teachers in 1896.

Wherever two different sets of figures for the same period appeared in

different reports, both figures are given. Any blanks in the table indi­

cate that the information was not available.

Second Hypothesis Validated

Richard Henry Pratt recognized that second-culture learning

could not be accomplished in the school alone. It was, however, an on­

going process that could be initiated in school. It was a process in

which the school could give the learner tools which he could use to help

him adapt to the sociocultural environment in which the Indian was

destined to live and work. Nevertheless, from Pratt's viewpoint, the

learning tools were insufficient and must be supplemented experientially

by total involvement in the societal structure leading toward accultura­

tion. This was an insight that had been generated by his past experi­

ences as detailed (and interpreted) in Chapter III entitled "Richard

Henry Pratt in His Sociocultural Context." His enlightened retrospec­

tion was summarized by Pratt in his autobiography (1964:311-12) as one

aspect of the rationale for his own particular philosophy and method in

Indian education as implemented at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

This relevant summary statement follows:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 90 80 84 136 183 188 $12,556.15 $ 2,696.24 $15,252.39 106 TABLE 2 6 29 17 50 , ,. ,. , „ , , Outing Earnings Public School THE PRATT YEARS, 1880-1904 23 33 65 19 Remained Out To Attend Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total 24 520 299 244 294 447 462 105 277 142 217

152 174 2 1 Regular Outing 75 30 16 16 5 99 43 304 143 310 346 228 66 196 81 Pennsylvania Boys Girls Total Mr. Mr. Hyde, Lee, Mass. ------1890 1886 1887 202 97 1888 1889 1881 1883 18841885 173 182 44 52 1882 1880 Y e a r

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24,121.19 16,190.56 18,229.60 16,202.03 21,868.98 20,448.39 31,619.15 31,393.02 19,238.62 25,752.76 27,255.52 28,714.69 -by 3 7,263.12 5,170.15 8,184.20 21,725.50 (6,480.60) (19,238.62) 12,343.00 34,970.00 11,374.00 10,269.91 The Indian Industrial 22,627.00 13,541.30 18,444.78 13,185.27 13,165.0016,698.83 3,037.03 20,245.15 92 134 158 189 247 316 361 (155) (12,758.02) 19.1 333 101 205 134 171 305 A. A. J. Standing 592 578 720 104 821 621 948 924 142 658652 928 218 893 (506) 235 258 429 426 439 320 376 245 411 247 401 319 404 248 394 458 853 498 SOURCE: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1880-1905; 189418951896 493 357 328 1893 1891 1897 1892 1898 787 232 19031904 519 1899 717 266 19001901 1902 490 489 403 Pa.: Pa.: Hamilton Library Association, dent of 1908); Indian A. J. Schools, Standing, Annual Report, "The Carlisle 1896. Outing System," Superinten­ Brig. Gen. R. H. Pratt: Its Suggester and Its Superintendent from Sept. 1879 to July 1904 (Carlisle, School3 Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Its Origin3 Purposes3 Progress andDifficulties Surmounted

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Total 26,409.00 30,234.00 29,021.00 22,291.00 35,169.00 42,095.00 $24,776.00 4,649.00 20,639.00 7,140.00 8,158.00 26,499.00 Girls $ $ 9,680.00 Outing Earnings Boys 15,990.00 18,341.00 19,269.00 $15,096.00 take-over scheduled for September 1, 1918.

222 3 t a b l e Public School POST-PRATT YEARS, 1905-1918 146 158 304 Remained Out To Attend Boys Girls Total 757 760 449 779 725 795 693 Total 201 332 308 303 313 Girls Regular Outing *Sixty-one boys at Detroit Ford Motor Company Factory - $27,840. SOURCE: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Reports, 1906-1917. 372 321 406 373 442 NOTES: Aggregate (1) earnings from Outing were not recorded prior to 1888; the first complete Carlisle closed; order issued July 16, 1918; A m y Boys 3,214, student total - 8,332; total earnings for 11 years of recorded aggregate earning by all stu­ figures appeared in 1890 and are reported above. In (2) Pratt's twenty-first report (C.I.A. 1900:502), dents - $226,255.54. 1918 191519161917 248 476 384 1907 1909 1908 1910 457 1905 19111912 1913 463 417 he gives a summary of statistics for 20 years of Outing at Carlisle: total boys - 5,118, total girls - 1914 1906 Year

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. • . (M)y government used me in war (the Civil War) to end a system which had forcibly transformed millions of primitive black people by transferring them from their torrid zone homes and life across a great ocean and compelling them to live with} and make themselves individually useful in, our temperate national family . . . by aban­ doning their own . . . languages and adopting the . . . language, life, and purpose of America. . . . I was used in [two Indian] wars to enforce my councry's exactly opposite scheme of a supremacy worse than slavery over the 300,000 native aborigines, which compelled them in their own nativeland to live apart from the American family, amenable to a tyranous [sic] un-American system which forces them to become dependents on a remote Bureau [BIA] control, . . . engaged in perpetuating itself by restraining them from participation in our American civilization and life. These experiences plainly showed [me— Pratt] that, through forcing Negroes to live among us and become producers, slavery became a more humane and real civilizer3 Americanizer, and promoter of use­ fulness for the Negro than was our Indian system . . . of tribally segregating them on reservations and denying this participation. It is impossible that any man entering any national family can become acceptable therein unless made useful to it. The Outing system was instituted to gain this essential quality for the Indian [emphasis mine].

It was obvious that Pratt felt that the forced acculturation in­

herent in the slavery system eventually made a more positive contribu­

tion to the Negro's ability to participate in the American society than

would ever be possible for Indians under the existing U.S. Indian policy

of confining American Indians to the geographical boundaries of their

respective tribal reservations. His four-point program of Indian educa­

tion was designed to force upon the American Indian the same accultura-

tive experiences forced upon the Negro, thus equipping the Indian to

emancipate himself for full participation in American society. It was

this insight that led Pratt to establish the Outing System at Carlisle.

•it Thus far, this chapter has dealt with the history, the descrip­

tion, the aims, the administration, the growth, and development of the

Carlisle Outing System. This final section will present data on the

achievements and value of Outing, its effectiveness as a second-culture

learning device, and the testimony of distinguished observers regarding

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its significance in Indian education. In other words, this researcher

seeks herein to validate the dissertation's second hypothesis: That the

Carlisle Indian School Outing System as a second-culture learning strat­

egy, was crucial to the implementation of the boarding school program of

forced acculturation.

Achievements and values of Outing

Many positive values accrued from Outing experiences in families,

in industrial workshops, and in public schools. Five are noteworthy— all

related to Pratt's four-point program. First, the language barrier was

minimized because students acquired a better working knowledge of English

through daily use in the family setting and among students in the public

schools during winter Outings. Pupils learned the distinction between

formal classroom English and colloquial speech and the appropriate use of

each.

Second, the Carlisle School industrial training program was re­

inforced by the apprenticeship-style training the students received

through gainful employment in agriculture, the skilled trades, business,

and industry. Moreover, students were exposed to advanced technology,

new products, and new experiences in worker-employer and worker-worker

relationships. Learning to cope with the unexpected and with unfamiliar

situations was a distinct value not possible in the protected surround­

ings of the classroom shop or the school farm.

Third, the character-building process was strengthened by asso­

ciation with persons for whom moral and spiritual values were important

and the practice of thrift, industriousness, prudent living, tidiness,

and personal cleanliness was a matter of course. Furthermore, Outing

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parents were inclined to commend and, therefore, encourage such observ­

able traits or emerging ones in their Outing charges. In this regard,

Jason Betzinez (1959:158-59) writes with happy memories of his Outing

families:

The next year (1890) I again worked on Mr. Cooper's farm during the summer and in the fall went to a country school with his chil­ dren. By this time I was practically an adopted member of the fam­ ily. I was proud and pleased that the Coopers addressed me as "son." . . . My last summer work on a farm was in 1892 when I was sent to Pennington, New Jersey, eight miles from Trenton. . . . This family, the Herman Fullers, were very fine people, devout Methodists. Un­ like the other farmers who mostly raised corn and barley, Mr. Fuller ran a small dairy. He raised sugar beets for stock feed. When in the fall I told Mr. Fuller that I was returning to Carlisle, he ex­ pressed deep disappointment, saying that I was the most dependable and hard-working farm hand he has ever had. I greatly appreciated this compliment.

In his 1900 annual report, Indian Commissioner W. A. Jones de­

voted a significant portion to an evaluation of the Outing System, es­

pecially its character-building features. He wrote (C.I.A., Annual Re­

port 1900:30, 32):

. . . As one of the principal agents for the assimilation of the Indian into the mass of the American population it (Outing System) is of vast advantage and productive of the best results. . . . An important feature connected with this plan is the banking system. Each student has a bank account and the school keeps a careful record of every deposit and withdrawal. The habit of thrift and an idea of the value of money are thus practically inculcated. The boy or girl will also learn how to keep accounts, and learn the value of time and labor as well as money— something of which the Indian in his native state has very little conception. A dollar earned by his own exertions acquires an interest to the boy that a hundred given by the Government can never possess. . . . When the pupils return to the reservation or . . . go among the white people, they carry with them tangible evidence of the value of work.

A fourth achievement of significance in the total value struc­

ture in Indian-White relations was that of reducing race prejudice— an

abiding concern of Pratt ever since the Chief Kicking Bird incident at

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Fort Sill (see Chapter III, p. 97). Though hard to pinpoint, there

seemed to be evidence that racial barriers were being minimized. Speak­

ing to this point in an address before the Lake Mohonk Conference of

1891, Pratt declared (Prucha 1973:274) :

No plan that I know of ends the prejudice of the white race more rapidly and thoroughly. The whites learn that Indians can become useful men and that they have the same qualities as other men. Seeing their industry, their skill, and good conduct, they come to respect them. Not many boys and girls who have been at Carlisle three years or more, and have had the privilege of this outing sys­ tem, but have warm friends among the whites, with whom they keep up correspondence after their return to the school, and in many cases after they return to their tribes, .... The outing system broad­ ens the whole Indian mind at home among the tribes; for the boys and girls so out correspond with father and mother and other friends at home, and the thoughts of those who do not get the privilege of leaving the reservation are led away from the reservation. When the youth write home that they are kindly treated, and of the many opportunities they have to learn and earn, that they have been down to the ocean, or to Philadelphia, New York, . . . the thought of the father and mother, and other friends who get this information, is led into different channels; and, slowly but surely, the walls that surround the pen in which those at home are placed are lowered, . . . [emphasis mine].

In terms of forced acculturation, the co-mingling of Indian and

White children in the public schools was as important a feature in the

Outing System as the work and family living components. Pratt expressed

this clearly in a small booklet about Carlisle Indian School published in

1908, four years after his directed resignation as superintendent. He

stated (1908:19) in these reflections that he felt that

The greatest value accruing to the Indians from having their chil­ dren attend schools surrounded by the best influences of our Ameri­ can civilization is found in the multitude of opportunities for bringing the two races in contact with each other along lines that mean better understanding and help to both.

Fifth, a student's Outing experience over a period of years gave

him or her a degree of self-assurance and self-confidence that enabled

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him or her to deal with everyday problems on the job or in other human

relations situations with an attitude of self-esteem and a degree of com­

petence that was the essence of Pratt's "courage of civilization" con­

cept. When the program was only five years in operation, field observa­

tions prompted this comment from Superintendent Pratt (C.I.A., Annual

Report 1884:187):

The rapid progress in English speaking, the skill in hand and head work, the independence in thought and action pupils so placed gain, all prove that this method of preparing and dispensing Indian youth is an invaluable means of giving them the courage and the capacity for civilized self-support [emphasis mine] . An Indian boy, placed in a family remote from his home (and it is better distant from the school), surrounded on all sides by hard-working, industrious people, feels at once a stronger desire to do something for himself than he can be made to feel under any collective system, or in the best In­ dian training school that can be established. His self-respect as­ serts itself; he goes to work, behaves himself, and tries in every way to compete with those about him. For the time he in a measure forgets the things that are behind and pushes on toward a better life.

The experiences of Luther Standing Bear in Philadelphia certainly support

the truth of this statement.

Effectiveness of Outing

The previous paragraphs specify achievements that tend to validate

the hypothesis from the observer's viewpoint, that is, from the outside,

or, according to Harris (1975), etically speaking. The section which

follows cites three incidents which support the hypothesis from the in­

sider's perspective, that is emically speaking (Harris 1975:159-61). In

these instances, the Indian students themselves made decisions, revealed

thoughts and displayed behavior which suggested some awareness of the

fact that the new contact experiences had been generating changes in the

views and the life-ways of each of them.

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Re: Incident one

The school newspaper published scores of letters (judiciously

omitting identifying data) from students on Outing. The following para­

graph is from one such letter {The Red Man, February 1900:4):

. . . I appreciate my home very much, as my folks are very kind to me. I shall .ice go home but remain in the east, among civilized people. Five years don't seem long at all. I shall do my very best in every line.

Re: Incident two

Luther Standing Bear had been very successful at Wanamakers'

department store so long as he could live and pay room and board at a

home for the orphaned sons of White soldiers. This lodging had been ar­

ranged for him by the Carlisle School physician, Dr. Givens, when Luther

first arrived in Philadelphia from Carlisle. It seems that during the

second or third year, the home closed and Luther had to seek other quar­

ters. He notes that he had been working inside the store so long that

he had grown lighter in complexion and, therefore, his racial identity

was not readily apparent. He wanted to continue his work at the store,

but he had to have a place to live. "I tried very hard to find a suit­

able place,” he wrote (1928:189), "but when I would find something that

seemed suitable, and the people discovered my nationality, they would

look in a surprised sort of way, and say that they had no place for an

Indian boy." He explained to his immediate supervisor, Mr. William

Wanamaker (brother of John Wanamaker), that he would have to return to

Carlisle because he could not find suitable lodging in Philadelphia; and

William Wanamaker simply said that Luther was free to return to the store

for work at any time. Luther Standing Bear returned to Carlisle, became

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very lonesome, and decided to go home to his reservation. The final

paragraph of Chapter XVIII of his autobiography alludes to the growing

awareness of inner change mentioned earlier. Recalling that decision,

he wrote (1928:190):

So I said farewell to the school life and started back to my people, but with a better understanding of life. There would be no more hunting— we would have to work now for our food and cloth­ ing. It was like the Garden of Eden after the fall of man.

The tragedy of this incident is that neither Standing Bear, nor William

Wanamaker, nor Major Pratt perceived the irony of the situation. The

Indian boy had fulfilled the requirements for a place in the White man's

world (including his attire) but was unacceptable in that world and he

no longer "belonged" to the world to which he was returning. The third

component in the educational process, the reward of school— "the charter

of citizenship in the society" (dissertation Introduction, p. 13) had

been denied.

Re: Incident three

General Pratt used this instance in many of his speeches to il­

lustrate the fact that Outing engendered a spirit of independence ("cour­

age of civilization") within Indian students, i.e., the courage to test

the tenets of democratic civilization. He wrote (C.I.A., Annual Report

1900:507):

One of them, vhile on duty . . . for his employer, was struck by a white man who attempted to involve him (the Indian pupil) in a quarrel. Instead of engaging in a fight, or submitting meekly to such abuse, the boy resorted to the law and had the man arrested and placed under bond. The case was settled by the court in the boy's favor. The suit was brought by the boy himself, without aid or ad­ vice from the school.

The incident demonstrates Pratt's belief in this "courage of civilization"

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idea, although it is rather obvious that the young Indian must have been

employed by a person of some community prestige and one whose sense of

justice and fair play was well cultivated.

Testimony of observers

The usefulness of Outing in the transmission of Euro-American

customs and values to American Indians through the younger generations

was recognized during the first decade of Carlisle's existence. Wrote

J. D. C. Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1885-1888) in the 56th

annual report of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (C.I.A. Annual Report

1887:XVII):

Some of the eastern training schools have adopted a system known as "outing," which in my judgment is an important auziliaiy in educating the Indian youth and preparing them for self-support [emphasis mine]. It is notably carried on at the Carlisle school, which, without disparaging other Indian training schools, may be said to stand in the front rank, . . . of institutions engaged in Indian education.

The wisdom of the Outing System as a second-culture contact

mechanism captured the attention of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Fran­

cis E. Leupp (1904-1909) , an implacable foe of the non-reservation In­

dian boarding school system and of General Pratt. He was, however, im­

pressed with the value of Outing in terms of the family, community,

world-of-work, and public school experiences. At the 1907 National Ed­

ucation Association (NEA) Summer Roundtable Conference of Indian Educa­

tors, July 2-12, 1907, Commissioner Leupp evaluated the system thusly

(Annual Report, Superintendent of Indian Schools 1907:53-54):

The outing system I should be glad to see extended to every boarding school in the Service. Indeed, I believe the outing system is the best feature of our schools. I think it is a great deal better than all the learning we can cram into the children from

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books. In the first place, it takes a child at an age when his dis­ position and his impressions of life are being formed, and puts him among white people in a family where he learns to know them and not to fear them. It also has a great influence on the white people; it teaches them that not every good Indian is dead— a fact which is very important they should learn. . . . I think it highly beneficial to the children to go out to work, for it keeps them often from unfortunate associations on the reserva­ tion. We know that for the ten months of the school year they are under good influences. If they had homes to go to which were like the homes of our Caucasian children, I should say that a school year of ten months was too much. . . . [S]end them out, and let them get that vital contact with the world which does us all so much good; let them learn their lessons of industry on a farm, for instance, where farming is carried on in earnest, and not in the imitation way in which it is done on the school or an agency farm. Send them into the shops where real shop-work is done to earn real dollars, not merely to preserve school discipline. I want the schools cred­ ited with the attendance of the pupils for all the time they are out on these little journeys into the world, for the children have simply changed teachers; they have p a s s e d from the teacher who is salaried by the Government to the teacher who is training them because of the actual value he gets from their labor. . . . In regard to the public schools, I will say that the more Indian children we can get into them the better it will suit me. I should like to have every one of them in a public school instead of in a Government school.

By 1910, Commissioner Leupp had come to perceive the Outing Sys­

tem as a second-culture teaming strategy and said as much in his book,

The Indian and His Problem. Speaking more kindly of Pratt, he wrote

(Leupp 1910:121-22):

When Captain Pratt started the Indian school at Carlisle, Pa., he hit upon an idea which in my judgement will remain as the great monument of his life work when all the rest of the school's notable features have passed into oblivion: this is the "outing system," which consists of placing the boys and girls, for a part of each year, in white families where they can learn to work and earn money. I have had occasion to differ in opinion with him on so many points that it gives me all the more pleasure to add here my small tribute to his fame. His establishment of the outing system was an inspira­ tion. It brought the young Indian into contact with the big white world outside of the walls of a seminary of learning. The boy who spent his summer in the hayfield, the girl who helped a good wife in the kitchen or the poultry-yard, got more that was of value from such little excursions into real life than if they had mastered the contents of the whole school library.

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Keep always in mind the truth that whatever brings the Indian into closer touch with whites who are earning their living by hard work, is of prime importance as an educating influence.

And sounding more and more like General Pratt, Leupp (1910:122-23)

queries: "As the remote corners of the country fill up, the Indian will

have to mix with the whites, whether for good or ill; would he be any

better fitted for this a hundred years hence than now, if we kept him

socially isolated till then?" Even former Commissioner Leupp considered

involvement in the larger society through education via the technique of

Outing as crucial to real (and realistic) progress in Indian education.

There were many prominent contemporaries who endorsed the Outing

System, among them Dr. James E. Rhodes, president of Bryn Mawr College;

General S. C. Armstrong, president of Hampton Institute, and his succes­

sor, Dr. H. B. Frissell; and author George Bird Grinnell. Grinnell, a

Yale Ph.D., was an explorer-naturalist and ethnologist who had studied

and published work on the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, and Pawnee and was a

staunch defender of the rights of the Plains Indians. Nevertheless, in

an article for Outlook magazine (September 19, 1903) entitled "The In­

dian and the Outing System," Dr. Grinnell suggested that Outing seemed

"capable of indefinite extension . . . (and) may accomplish more for the

Indian than anything that has ever been done for them."

And finally, Outing received the unqualified endorsement of

Elaine Goodale Eastman, former school teacher at Pine Ridge Sioux Reserva­

tion, who, in 1891, became the wife of Charles A. Eastman, M.D., a full-

blood Sioux and the Agency physician. She considered the Outing System

to be the most significant innovation of the decade in Indian education.

As special correspondent for the national magazine Outlook, in an article

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— "A New Method in Indian Education"— she went so far as to suggest a

Bureau of Outing (OutZook, January 27, 1900:224):

Why not have a National Bureau of Outing, whose function it shall be to select pupils from all reservation and other schools and place them for terms of one or more years in selected homes, where they shall be required to attend public schools? . . . The plan has virtually been approved by the Congress, and calls only for executive action. . . . The pupils are self-supporting while out, so that the expense is much less than for any other system that is measurably satisfactory.

Addendum: 1975

From my own fieldwork interviews, I can report on one Carlisle

alumna who was an Outing student during the period 1916-1918. She was,

therefore, an eye witness to its value and viability. She lived with

two sisters who were Quakers. She recalls the beautiful living room

with a piano. This room remained closed except on Saturdays and Sundays.

After the Saturday housecleaning was finished, students were allowed to

play the piano. After dinner on Sundays, all sat in the living room

while the "Outing Mother" played for all to sing.

My informant was graduated in 1917. "Mr. Francis said I should

go to College so I stayed out with 'my family1 and went to West Chester

Normal for one year." (She is referring to John Francis, Jr., Carlisle

superintendent, April 1, 1917, to September 1, 1918.)

"When Mr. Francis wrote me that the school (Carlisle) was closing

that summer, I felt lost. You see, Carlisle was like home to us and

Mr. Lipps and Mr. Francis were like fathers to us, especially Mr. Fran­

cis." (Oscar S. Lipps was Carlisle superintendent during the years

1914-1917.)

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"I could have stayed at West Chester Normal College and fin­

ished. The Quakers were nice and wanted to help me. I probably would

have been much better off because I would have finished College. But we

loved Carlisle and when they closed it we had no place to go back to and

there was no one to visit us from the school. The sisters wanted me to

stay but I was lonesome so I went back home [Oklahoma] and later on I

went to business school in Tyler, Texas."

Conclusion

At Carlisle Indian School, the Outing System as a second-culture

learning instrument was honed to perfection by Richard Henry Pratt, the

master strategist in forced acculturation. The obvious purpose of the

plan was to give each student a usable knowledge of the English language,

agricultural and/or industrial earn-a-living skills, and the opportunity

to share the home and family life of stable, trustworthy U.S. citizens.

It was understood that these young Indians were placed in homes not as

servants per se but as learners for whose proper care, teaching, and

general oversight their patron-employers were responsible. No associa­

tions were knowingly permitted that were not vocationally helpful and

morally elevating.

Moreover, the experience of the Outing students in the East had

an impact on their families and kin in the West. In their letters, stu­

dents made loving inquiries about their siblings and implored anxious

parents not to worry. Many students sent money home— ten and twenty

dollars at a time— out of their meager earnings. Often they urged their

parents to send brothers, sisters, and cousins to Carlisle Indian School.

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Three observations are important. One, the unqualified success

of the system under Pratt was due to meticulously detailed and persis­

tent preparation and supervision- Two, the number of White families will­

ing to allow Indians in their homes went from zero to a numerical demand

that far exceeded the available supply of students. Three, the Indian

pupils were generally welcomed into the public schools where, in associa­

tion and competition with White children, their learning was accelerated.

The academic progress of these students in the winter was, in some cases,

measurably beyond that of their peers who remained at Carlisle for the

entire year without interruption in their classroom learning routine.

The Outing System was simultaneously a training program for par­

ticipation in the cultural system of the United States as legally consti­

tuted and a pattern of participation. Above all, it was proof that the

plan of Indian education for participation by 'involvement through so­

ciety's basic and primary channels of cultural communication, the home

and the school, could, and did, in fact, work.

Pratt was convinced that "native Americans have been, without ex­

ception, most harshly and by devious demoralizing devices excluded from

participation in our American family" (1964:311). Said he: "Preventi'ng

participation stops Americanization." In his own mind, the Outing fea­

ture of the educational program at the Carlisle School was its "right

arm" for as he said: "It enforced participation3 the supreme Americani-

zer" [emphasis mine].

His most famous biographer, Elaine Goodale Eastman, author of

Pratt: The Red M a n ’s Moses, interprets the Outing System with colorful

cogency (1935:224) :

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"Out" is the Carlisle watchword. . . . Out of the tribal bond, out of Indian narrowness and clannishness into the broad life of the nation. The Carlisle "outing" is by no means a summer holiday. It has become a fundamental part of the Carlisle training, a definite method— perhaps the method— of Americanizing Indians. The aim is not to produce an abnormal being, out of harmony with his environ­ ment, but a capable and acceptable citizen.

Precisely because the Outing concept did recognize total involve­

ment in the social system of the dominant culture as a second-culture

learning device, the Outing System became the most significant single

contribution of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to United States

government Indian policy from 1879-1918. Forced acculturation was its

goal; hence, it is concluded that the Outing System was a second-culture

learning strategy absolutely essential to the Carlisle Indian School

training program and, therefore, was critical to the implementation of

the boarding school program of forced acculturation.

Footnote

^The Lake Mohonk Conferences were annual autumn meetings of a group of 300-400 philanthropists and persons prominent in public life who referred to themselves as "Friends of the Indian." Beginning in 1883, they met as the private guests of educator-philanthropist Albert Keith Smiley at the family's Lake Mohonk resort estate near New Paltz, New York. The group was primarily responsible for the enactment of the Allotment Act of 1887. In 1890, by Act of Congress, Albert K. Smiley was made chairman of a commission of three persons to select reserva­ tions for the Mission Indians of California.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL ON

FEDERAL POLICY IN INDIAN EDUCATION

In the two previous chapters, the founding, the curriculum, and

special training features of the Carlisle Indian School have been pre­

sented as a distinctive program in Indian education. By design, the

total program sought to obliterate individual Indianness in favor of

preparation for absorption by or into the dominant society. The device

was forced acculturation. The goal was complete group assimilation.

This chapter will review concisely the critical role of the

Carlisle Indian School model in the education of American Indians

through more than 50 years of federal government policy in Indian educa­

tion after 1879. It will point up the significance of the existence of

Carlisle in the establishing of other non-reservation boarding schools.

It will further point out the policy and program features of the Carlisle

system of training that prompted certain policy directives by Commis­

sioners of Indian Affairs and influences recommendations by federal

Superintendents of Indian Schools.

The chapter will present, from historical records and fieldwork

observations, the similarities in admission policies, curriculum, and

general administration of three non-reservation boarding schools, con­

temporaries of Carlisle, west of the Mississippi and all founded in 1884.

It will discuss briefly similarities in administrative policies and the

214

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practical arts (vocational training) curriculum of a modern non­

reservation boarding and day school founded in 1971 in Albuquerque, New

Mexico.

In evaluating the results of the Carlisle policy of forced ac­

culturation, the chapter will (a) note both its positive and negative

effects on American Indians and (b) will indicate that the recurring

Congressional investigations identify the policy as "coercive assimila­

tion" and regard it to be persisting.

In the conclusions, the writer will make some observations and

suggestions that have come to mind during the course of the study.

Carlisle Role Reviewed

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was established by Lieuten­

ant R. H. Pratt on November 1, 1879, on the site of the abandoned U.S.

Army Cavalry School Barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The initial

student body consisted of 147 students, 111 male and 38 female, repre­

senting 5 different tribes. By September 1880, the enrollment had in­

creased to 239 students representing 17 different tribes. It was the

first multi-tribal, off reservation, coeducational, boarding school for

Indian youth.

In facilities, philosophy, and education program, the Carlisle

School became the model for all subsequent, non-reservation Indian train­

ing schools. An Act of Congress of July 31, 1882 (U.S. Statutes at Large,

XXII:181), authorized the Secretary of War

to set aside, for use in the establishment of normal and industrial training-schools for Indian youth . . ., any vacant posts or bar­ racks . . . not required for military occupation, and to detail one

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of more officers of the Army for duty in connection with Indian education under the Secretary of the Interior, at each such school.

Indian Commissioner Hiram Price (1881-1885) affirmed his support of the

Carlisle philosophy and program in his first report to Secretary of the

Interior S. J. Kirkwood, October 24, 1881, when he wrote (C.I.A., Annual

Report 1881:XXXIV):

. . . So long as the American people now demand that Indians shall become white men within one generation, the Indian child must have other opportunities and come under other influences than reserva­ tions can offer. He must be compelled to adopt the English language, must be so placed that attendance at school shall be regular, and that vacations shall not be periods of retrogression, and must breathe the atmosphere of a civilized instead of a barbarous or semi-barbarous community. Therefore, youth chosen for their intelli­ gence, force of character, and soundness of constitution are sent to Carlisle, Hampton, and Forest Grove to acquire the discipline and training which, on their return, shall serve as a leverage for the uplifting of their people [emphasis mine].

According to Alice C. Fletcher (1888:173), by 1884, the general

policy of the federal government in regard to Indian education was "to

teach the pupils to speak, read, and write the English language, to give

him knowledge of arithmetic, geography, and United States history, and

also to instruct him in farming, the care of stocks and the trades."

Girls were to be taught "all branches of housekeeping, butter and cheese

making, to cut and make and mend garments, to care for the sick, to cook,

wash and iron." This was a duplication of the Carlisle school plan and

extended not only to policy and program but also to mode of operation.

For Fletcher's report (prepared in response to a Senate Resolution of

February 23, 1885) goes on to point out that the published "Regulations

o. the Indian Department" (1884) required that a farm be connected with

each school; that one-half of the school time be devoted to industrial

training; that evening sessions be held for reading, study, singing, and

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other exercises, that Sabbath School attendance be required; that the

Superintendent and other employees be required to reside on the campus

of boarding schools with matrons residing in student dormitories

(Fletcher 1888:173). All the aforementioned were features of the Car­

lisle Indian School.

Carlisle-type boarding schools began to be established in the

west so that, by 1885, the federal government had established four new

off-reservation, multi-tribal, boarding schools located at Forest Grove,

Oregon; Lawrence, Kansas; Genoa, Nebraska; and Chilocco in Indian Terri­

tory (C.I.A., Annual Report 1885:XIII). Assistance from the Indian De­

partment was also being given the advanced education program for Indians

at two private institutions of higher learning— Hampton Normal and Agri­

cultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia; and the Lincoln Institution near

Philadelphia. Both of these school had unrestricted admission policies

but were originally established for the education of Negroes. The Car­

lisle pattern was being duplicated in both government and private schools.

The greatest proliferation of the off-reservation, multi-tribal

Indian boarding schools took place under the leadership of Indian Commis­

sioner T. J. Morgan (1889-1893) during the one-term administration of

President Benjamin Harrison. When he took over his duties July 1, 1889,

Commissioner Morgan found seven non-reservation industrial training

schools besides Carlisle. He added 12 such schools during his one term

in office.

Thomas J. Morgan was among the late nineteenth-century humani­

tarian reformers who sought a universal system of Indian education sup­

ported by the federal government and similar to the nation's public

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school system. When he took office, he outlined eight "strongly cher­

ished convictions" which would influence his administration of Indian

affairs. Paragraph four and selected sentences that follow are perti­

nent to this dissertation (C.I.A., Annual Report 1889:3-4):

. . . The Indians must conform to "the white man's ways, '' peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it. . . . The paramount duty of the hour is to prepare the rising gen­ eration of Indians for the new order of things thus forced upon them...... The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted [em­ phasis mine].

Morgan was part of a group of sincere philanthropic men and women who un­

abashedly called themselves "friends of the Indian." Pratt was not one

of the group, but he found in it support for Carlisle and his philosophy

of education for Indians and was frequently invited to its meetings

known as the Lake Mohonk Conferences. The conferees met for three days

as guests of the Albert K. Smiley family at its Lake Mohonk resort es­

tate near New Paltz, New York.

Commissioner Thomas J. Morgan began his term of office with an

initial field trip to familiarize himself with the workings of the In­

dian field service in all its facets. He observed Carlisle with some

care and spent several days with Captain Pratt visiting "Outing" students

on farms scattered about Pennsylvania. He was impressed. He considered

the educational program and methodology "revolutionary" and felt the

Outing System to be worthy of "expansion." In his first annual report,

he wrote (C.I.A., Annual Report 1889:6):

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The system of boarding-schools off from the reservations, now in successful operation, is slowly but surely accomplishing revolu­ tionary and desirable results. Children from different tribes are brought together under influences where all tribal differences dis­ appear. They learn to respect each other, and are prepared for as­ sociation together as fellow-citizens. They hear and use only the English language, are removed from the contaminating influences of camp life, become accustomed to the usages of civilization, and are trained to the habits of industry, thrift, and self-reliance [em­ phasis mine].

In the same report, Morgan extolled the exceptional learning op­

portunities provided by "Outing" and observed Lhat (C.I.A., Annual Re­

port 1889:7-8):

The system admits of large expansion and will be productive of the happiest results. These young Indians are brought into the most vital relationship with the highest type of American rural life. . . . They acquire a good working knowledge of English, and a prac­ tical acquaintance with all kinds of domestic and farm work. They associate with the farmers' children, eat at the same table, attend the same church and Sunday School, and four months of each year at­ tend the same day school. A better scheme for converting them into intelligent, honest American citizens, self-respectful and self­ helpful, could scarcely be devised [emphasis mine].

Morgan opposed the reservation systems and argued that if it was

"an obstruction" to the progress of the Indian "in the pathway of civili­

zation, their tribal reservations should be discontinued. On the other

hand, if schools were considered important to "the great transformation,"

then why not establish enough schools "to embrace the entire body of

available Indian youth"? This Indian Commissioner's 1891 report to the

Secretary of the Interior was entitled "A Settled Indian Policy." The

report covered a broad range of issues; but in education, he envisioned

a ten-year plan that would bring into existence an American-type public

school system for Native Americans. Declared Morgan (C.I.A., Annual

Report 1891:8):

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If we purpose to educate Indian children let us educate all of them. . . . There is now a widespread demand for education among the In­ dians; it has become comparatively easy to secure the attendance of their children, and the work of education has proceeded so far as to establish beyond question the advisability of educating them to self-support, so there would seem to be no good reason why the sys­ tem of education that has been, since 1879, gathering force and strength, should not at once be so far extended as to be entirely adequate for the end in view. If this were done, and there could be gathered by the end of 1893 into well-manned and suitably equipped schools nearly all of the Indian children, and they could be kept there for 10 years, the work would be substantially accomplished; for within those 10 years there would grow up a generation of English- speaking Indians, accustomed to the ways of civilized life, and suf­ ficiently intelligent and strong to forever after be the dominant force among them [emphasis mine] .

"Having determined upon a policy," he concluded, "we should regard it as

permanent until its work is accomplished. Whatever laws are to be passed

should be framed with reference to the perfecting and not the essential

modification of the plan."

His long-range planning concentrated on non-reservation, multi-

tribal schools. When he came into office in 1889, there were eight such

schools; and his plan called for 18 by 1891; 10 additional by 1893,

bringing the total to 20; and by 1899 and the turn of the century, 25

well-established, well-equipped adequately staffed, and well-administered

off-reservation boarding schools. His 1891 planning chart is shown in

Table 4.

Not only were the schools "little Carlisles," so were the cur­

ricula, the rosters of employees, the suggestions about the use of Out­

ing, and even the applications for employment of personnel. For example,

the last of the 13 questions each prospective employee was required to

answer was, "Do you use intoxicating liquors as a beverage?" Indeed,

Commissioner Morgan proceeded to devise and pattern the educational

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 75 130 175 150 160 350 150 450 400 250 200 150 100 100 600* 120 100 1,000* 4,660 Capacity capacity Proposed

1886 18

Date of Opening December 18, 1883 January 15, 1884 September 1, 1884 September 1891 December 1890 February 25, 1880 February 1891 November 1, 1879 February 20, 1884 August 1884 October 1890 October 1890

4

t a b l e

NON-RESERVATION SCHOOLS AND MORGAN'S LONG-RANGE PLANNING, 1891 School Name and Location SOURCE: Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual *By Report aid of 1891:56. outing. Total schools and capacity Haworth Institute, Chilocco, Indian Territory Harrison Institute, Chemawa, Oregon (Forest Grove) Grant Institute, Genoa, Nebraska Fish Institute, Albuquerque, NewMexico Stewart Institute, Carson, Nevada Howard Institute, Fort Stevenson, North Dakota Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas Dawes Institute, Santa Fe, NewMexico Teller Institute, Grand Junction, Colorado Pipestone, Minnesota Perris, California Pierre Indian School, Pierre, South Dakota Mt. Mt. Pleasant, Michigan Tomah, Wisconsin Riggs Institute, Flandreau, South Dakota Fort Mohave Indian School, FortPeel Mohave, Institute, Arizona Phoenix, Arizona In In operation prior to 1889: In In progress before June 30, 1889, but opened after June 1889: Established after June 30, 1889: New Schools now in progress:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222

program for the Indian Bureau in accordance with the Carlisle Indian In­

dustrial School model (U.S. Department of Interior, Annual Report 1891,

Vol. II, Indian Affairs, pp. 156-60, 173-77, 716-35). Thus forced ac­

culturation via the non-reservation boarding school with Outing became

the official United States government policy in Indian education.

Pratt's principles became public policy.

Constrained as he was in the direction of non-reservation train­

ing schools and the Outing System as a supplement and reinforcement to

useful all-around practical education, Morgan was not unaware of criti­

cism of the schools and the policy. His convictions remained unshaken,

but he was not inflexible. He recognized that there was wisdom and ad­

vantage in "differentiation" so that "each should have its own specific

work" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1891:56-57). He was inclined to suggest

that Haskell Institute, second to Carlisle in size, enrollment, and cur­

riculum offerings, might also give special attention to normal school

training; and that Chilocco might devote its 8,600-plus acres to the

development of farming, including stock-raising and fruit-growing. When

Carlisle Indian School was closed in 1918, these two schools received

the greater portion of the transfer students.

Observations: Four Schools Studied

A thorough study was made of the annual reports of the Commis­

sioners of Indian Affairs as presented to the Secretary of the Department

of Interior covering the period 1880-1885. The objective was to identify

any non-reservation, multi-tribal boarding school established after 1879

— the date of the founding of Carlisle Indian Industrial School at

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The formal opening of three such schools in the

west took place in 1884. The geographical location, the circumstances of

the founding of each, and the '.ttitudinal environment of the surrounding

communities were dissimilar enough to be of interest in terms of the di­

rection to be taken in American Indian education. The schools are:

Albuquerque Indian School, Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, and

Haskell Institute.

All these schools were conscious of the existence of Carlisle,

and letters from Richard Henry Pratt to the Commissioners revealed his

interest in the welfare of these schools. As the historical notes herein

will suggest, in many ways these three schools were carbon copies of

Carlisle. This investigator was interested in the programs and the

progress of the schools after 90 years.

For comparative purposes, the writer was also interested in the

beautiful, ultra-modem, four-year-old Southwestern Indian Polytechnic

Institute at Albuquerque, Hew Mexico. It was established for American

Indians interested in practical, short-term, industrial and commercial

training.

Introductions to the administrators of the four schools were ar­

ranged by the Director of Indian Education of the Bureau of Indian Af­

fairs. The writer found the administrators and the librarians of the

three 1884 schools to be very interested in documents in my briefcase

file as information was sought and shared on the 90-year history.

The research notes and the field observations on each of the

four schools follow.

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Albuquerque Indian School Albuquerque, New Mexico

1884 1974 Capacity: 250 432 Boarding students, grades Boarding students only 7-12 254 Peripheral dormitory (for public school enrollees), grades 4-12

Notes from the historic period

The earliest mention of the Albuquerque school in a Commissioner

of Indian Affairs report was made in 1883 by Commissioner Hiram Price

(C.I.A., Annual Report 1883:xxxi) expressing surprise that: "Southern

Utes allowed twenty-seven of their youth to be taken to the Albuquerque

Boarding School although not one of the tribe had ever attended any

school of any description." The next year Price noted that the enroll­

ment had increased by 200 (C.I.A., Annual Report 1884:xxi). However, it

was not until the appointment of Indian Commissioner J. D. C. Atkins dur­

ing the first presidency of Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) that we find a

complete report on the Albuquerque Indian School and the statement that

it had been organized originally in January 1881 (C.I.A., Annual Report

1885:254). Besides the Utes, Apaches, and Pimas, children were enrolled

representing 10 of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico. The school's superinten­

dent emphasized early in his report the "objects" in the education of

Indian youth as being the "training of the hand, head and heart as prep­

aration for lives of usefulness ..." (C.I.A., Annual Report 1885:255).

By 1891, the pattern of the dual curriculum of academic studies

and vocational training was well established. Every student spent one-

half day in the classroom and one-half day in some manual training and

work assignment. The arrangement was such that at all times one-half of

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the student body was at classroom study while the other half was engaged

in the work training program. There was also an alternative monthly ar­

rangement so that students who studied in the morning and worked in the

afternoon one month would have the reverse arrangement the following

month. The vocational program included: carpentry, shoemaking, harness-

making, tailoring, house-painting, farming, cooking and baking, laundry

work, serving, and fancy work of various kinds. The on-the-job training

had produced a girl's dormitory, laundry, carriage house, poultry house,

and a frame kitchen in addition to alterations and the general upkeep of

the main building, the assembly hall, and the school rooms (C.I.A.,

Annual Report 1891:571-75).

The prejudice against the Indian school had been widespread in

Albuquerque. One of the school's early superintendents, William B.

Creager, was an active churchman and served the school for some five

years during which time he won the support of the townspeople. With the

new buildings, the capacity increased to 300 and the enrollment to 314

(C.I.A., Annual Report 1892:579).

By 1893, there was a brass band of 22 pieces and a drum and fife

corps of nine prepared for the Chicago World's Fair. Like the Carlisle

band, it provided music daily as the students marched "in and out of

school" and "to and from meals" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1893:429).

The first report on a type of "Outing" appeared with reference

to the carpenter shop. Two boys were employed by a contractor during

the summer vacation at $1.50 per day (C.I.A., Annual Report 1895:382-83).

Conditions favorable to "Outing," Carlisle-style, were not present at the

Albuquerque Industrial Indian School for three reasons. First, for many

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years, the hostility of the Albuquerque community was intense. Second,

the student population consisted of large numbers of children from the

pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona whose parents only reluctantly per­

mitted their children to be enrolled in the boarding school in the first

place. (Laguna was an exception— sending 32 to Albuquerque in 1885 and

58 to Carlisle the same year.) Finally, the close supervision required

for "Outing" was difficult because the Albuquerque superintendents had

to contend with the staff sent from Washington, D.C. Staff members from

the federal Civil Service roster seem to have felt accountable to the

federal government only. After the Civil Service Agency was created in

1883, Pratt also had problems with employees sent from Washington.

Modern period: Notes from the field

In the fall of 1975, the superintendent of Albuquerque Indian

School, Keith 0. Lamb, described the school as having a "prescriptive

educational program." The emphasis is on individualization. This ap­

plies to his role as an administrator as well as his view of the train­

ing program for the students. His administrative style seems to be that

of supportive-facilitator for the programs and projects conceptualized

by the creative Native American principal of the school and his tri-

racial faculty and staff.

The impact of this administrative approach did not strike the

writer until she reflected on the fact that, upon her arrival at the

school, she was rather ceremoniously provided with a copy of the latest

edition (1975) of the school's prize publication, Escape, vol. 3; and

upon returning to express my appreciation to everyone before my departure,

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the administrative secretary had two more booklets for me— volumes 1 and 2

of Escape. All three were multigraph-lithograph type publications from

the U.S. Government Printing Office. A dedication appears in volume 1

which reads: "If you have allowed your imprisoned ideas to escape for the

joy of learning— or wish you had— then this book is dedicated to you."

The books present the original poems, poetic essays, graphic art

work, and paintings of students at the Albuquerque Indian School. Every

poem and piece of art is identified, and yet students feel free to write:

A.I.S. [Albuquerque Indian School] is like a week-end prison. [or] Reading is like pulling a hard chain. [or] English class is like coming into a half library and a half museum.

One picture in one of the books is of an Indian with a grim, half-white

face and shoulders wrapped in a red-white-blue star-speckled blanket say­

ing through an acrostic:

_I am N ot D ead 1^ am A live, my N ations are S trong

The superintendent challenges the reader "to study the pages with an

open heart and mind to try to interpret— feel— empathize" (Escape 1971-

72:Preface).

The principal of Albuquerque Indian School, Robert Pacheco, Jr.,

is from Laguna Pueblo. Both his parents are Albuquerque Indian School

graduates. He recalled the historic period when the student spent one

half-day in study and the other half-day in work up to grade ten and

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then went off to the Albuquerque public school but continued in residence

in the dormitories of the school. The school remains a peripheral dormi­

tory for some 250 students, grades 4 through 12, who attend the public

schools.

After World War II and up through 1959, according to Mr. Pacheco,

the school continued to try to maintain a balanced vocational and aca­

demic program. The vocational program included: a metal shop, wood shop,

electricity and electrical repair shop, auto mechanics with a filling

station operation training and management feature. There was also some

demand for courses in institutional cooking and waiter/waitress training.

However, when Johnson-0'Malley funds became available, public schools

began to make a "bid" for Indian students. Many are unable to cope with

the public school situation but receive "social promotions" for several

years. When it is" finally necessary for the public school "to fail" a

student (because the public school cannot permit such a student to be

graduated), a referral is made to Albuquerque Indian School because the

student's academic skills are deficient and he is not prepared to earn a

living. The Albuquerque Indian School program is now emphasizing general

education because the students need individualized, tutorial-type assis­

tance in reading and language skills, mathematics, and science. In light

of these facts, the Albuquerque Indian School principal has no interest

in faculty members who are not interested in the individual and willing

to work at remedial assistance and counseling aid for every student. "If

a teacher is afraid to give the best in quality education to my people,

then I cannot use such a person on this faculty," declared Pacheco.

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He is equally straightforward with the Indian students them­

selves. "The only salvation for the Indian people is a good education,"

he tells them. "We must be able to stand our ground, compete with other

qualified workers and defend ourselves. . . . You must be verbal; able to

speak standard English; say 'yes' or 'no1 at an interview. . . . You are

going to hate me now or you'll hate me later, but you must be prepared

and face the fact that the reservation is not big enough to support

everybody and you must move into the mainstream of society sooner or

later."

Principal Pacheco envisions Albuquerque Indian School as stabi­

lizing with a program of basic primary and secondary school education

and encouraging the students to look to Southwestern Indian Polytechnic

Institute or Haskell Institute for vocational training. [Note: Since

the completion of this interview, the All-Indian Pueblo Council has as­

sumed control of the Albuquerque Indian School through provisions made

available under the Indian Self-determination Act (93-638). Whether the

situations described by Mr. Pacheco in 1975 still characterize the opera­

tion of the Albuquerque Indian School has not been determined here.]

Chilocco Indian Agricultural School Chilocco, Oklahoma 1884 1974 Capacity: 350 Enrollment: 390 Boarding students Boarding students Grades: 9-12

Notes from the historic period

Chilocco Indian Agricultural School was established with 186

pupils (130 males, 56 females) on January 15, 1884, on a 119-acre tract

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of land located 5$ miles south of Arkansas City, Kansas. A generous gift

from the Cherokees increased the school's holdings to 8,640 acres of

fertile soil well-adapted to farming and grazing. The 1885 report indi­

cated that school work was minimal and at the most primary level, but

"all conversation in any language} except English is strictly prohibited

[emphasis mine] (C.I.A., Annual Reports 1884:204; 1885:222). From 1884

through 1890, the school had five different superintendents, each disap­

pointed in the slow BIA response to basic needs of the school in equip­

ment and supplies such as a bathhouse and sufficient soap.

A school band was organized by the shoemaker with instruments

purchased with a fund of $150 raised by the school employees. School

morale was further enhanced by the organization of the Young Men's

Christian Association and favorable contacts with the religious commun­

ity through visits of nearby clergymen (C.I.A., Annual Reports 1889:358;

1891:581).

The 1891 visit of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas J. Morgan

and Mrs. Morgan not only inspired the entire school-superintendent,

staff, and students— but it also brought BIA response to their requests

for improvements and supplies.

By 1893, the industrial program was well established embracing:

shoemaking, harness-making, blacksmithing, painting, carpentry, tailor­

ing, sewing, and fancy work. In agricultural trades, the emphasis was

on gardening, fruit-farming, dairy-farming, and stock-raising (C.I.A.,

Annual Report 1893:439-40). The plan for students to study one half-day

and work one half-day was placed into full operation.

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The 1893 report by Chilocco's superintendent states (C.I.A.,

Annual Report 1893:44):

Older boys were sent out at needed times to look after their work, to plow land, to sow wheat, to make hay, and to build fences. These outings help them to help themselves and stimulate their relatives in work, and- then they return to school for additional aid and training [emphasis mine].

This Outing is akin to the Carlisle farm outings but without the family

component.

By 1895, the uniform course of study for all BIA schools was in­

troduced and operative; a kindergarten was established, and two literary

societies were organized through which students were taught by extra­

curricular activities to debate and speak in public forums (C.I.A., An­

nual Report 1895:392).

When Carlisle Indian School closed, the Chilocco school paper,

Indian School Journal, began with a full-cover page and carried a five-

page article on Carlisle and General Pratt complete with pictures (Indian

School Journal, September 1918).

Modern period: Notes from the field

Chilocco Indian School had problems after the student revolution

of the 1960s and found itself the recipient of some unfavorable press in

Oklahoma during 1970 and thereafter. It was against this background

that the new superintendent came to Chilocco in 1974 with the message,

"It is time for renewal."

Superintendent Jimmy Baker thanked the students and staff "for

bearing the burdens at Chilocco" until his arrival and called upon them

to help him "to develop a realistic and meaningful future" by

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consultation with representatives in all areas as Chilocco and with the

Bureau of Indian Affairs office at Albuquerque. It was agreed that the

planning "must meet the demands of the educational program at Chilocco

and must not in any way restrict teaching methods or learning situations"

(Chilocco Master Plan 1975:Chapter 10, pp. 10-12).

The salient features of the Baker program are: (1) the year-round

school of four quarters; (2) the Skill Center to assist the college-bound

with reading skills, mathematics and computation skills, and career in­

formation; (3) construction priorities according to Four-Phase Master

Plan-, (4) the Custodial Service project with a janitor/supervising

teacher for 17 student trainees; (5) the renewal of agricultural plot

project; and (6) student banking.

Following a philosophy of a needs-related curriculum, the voca­

tional emphasis would continue in ten areas: (1) Auto Body Repair,

(2) Automobile Mechanics, (3) Drafting, (4) Dry Cleaning and Pressing,

(5) Electricity, (6) Heavy Equipment Operation. (7) Machine Shop Opera­

tion, (8) Welding, (9) Printing, and (10) Agriculture— all areas. The

administrator of the vocational program points out that there is no

graduation because no student is sent out for placement until he feels he

can succeed [emphasis mine].

During several different conversations beyond the appointment

interview, the Superintendent shared his views about many administrative

concerns, his hopes, and aspirations for Chilocco.

Regarding prospective students and Chilocco:

— "We do not want to look like a public school because that's

where the student began failing in the first place."

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— "We must do what we must to service students."

— "We say here with regard to each student: 'We have a program

for you .'"

Regarding placement:

Superintendent Baker has an interesting view of placement as he

sends students forth. Students are not simply placed on a job; they are

taught to regard that community as a place to live. Chilocco students

are counseled on becoming members of the community as one means of suc­

ceeding in one's job. It is even suggested that they might wish to be

related to some church and some community organizations. When Chilocco

students are placed, they are each provided with an advance of $200 sub­

sistence money to help out until the first paycheck. The student ar­

ranges a repayment schedule convenient for him or her— interest-free.

As with Carlisle students, Chilocco doors are never closed to Chilocco

students whenever they need to return for advice, additional training,

or counsel.

Regarding banking service:

The student bank is a service and teaching vehicle. Each student

has a savings and checking account. The checks are negotiable only at

the Chilocco Student Bank by students with accounts; but beyond that,

the banking service is exactly the same as any regular bank.

Regarding advice to students:

"Your attitude is more important than your aptitude."

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Regarding advice to teachers concerning students:

"Your attitude is more important than his (or her) aptitude."

Jimmy Baker is a Chilocco Indian School alumnus. Some of his

teachers are still on staff, and he was pleased to introduce them to me.

He asserts with enthusiasm, "Chilocco does have a rich heritage, but

we must not be that heritage— that history— that tradition. We must add

to it."

Haskell Institute Lawrence, Kansas

1884 1974 Capacity: 600 Enrollment: 1,067 Boarding students Boarding students Grades: K-12 Junior College since 1971

Notes from the historic period

In 1883, the citizens of Lawrence, Kansas, gave the United States

government 280 acres of land to establish an industrial school for In­

dians. There were 22 male students enrolled at the time of the formal

opening ceremonies, September 17, 1884. By January 1885, there were 280

students, 219 boys and 61 girls, representing five tribal groups: Ponca,

Ottawa, Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Superintendent James Marvin ob­

served that, from the outset, the prevailing thought among these Indian

youth seemed to be that they must "learn the white man's way." In plan­

ning the educational program, "two points have been made prominent,"

namely, that students were to be taught "how to speak the English lan­

guage; and . . . how to do any kind of work in hand quickly and well"

(C.I.A., Annual Report 1885:228-35).

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Haskell Institute (named in memory of Congressman D. C. Haskell,

at one time chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs), from the

beginning had the support of the community and the goodwill of the Uni­

versity of Kansas at Lawrence. Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, and

Methodist clergymen helped organize the school's religious activities.

Captain Richard H. Pratt of Carlisle welcomed Haskell Institute into the

small group of multi-tribal non-reservation schools with a gift of a

stereopticon with slides to assist in the evening entertainment for stu­

dents during the winter months.

By 1886, the enrollment had increased to 434, 313 boys and 121

girls, representing 31 tribal groups. The administration totally disre­

garded tribal affiliation and arranged the boys according to size and

organized them into a cadet battalion of five companies. Thereafter,

they were housed in dormitories and seated in the dining hall according

to companies.

All students, except the very young, were required to work for

four hours each day in some phase of the industrial or agricultural

training program which included: blacksmithing, tinning, wagon-making,

carpentry, shoemaking, tailoring, sewing, agricultural farming, vege­

table gardening, dairy farming, poultry farming, the baking, and laundry

work. As with Carlisle, much of the maintenance and repairs of the

buildings and grounds as well as the manufacture of shoes and clothing

for the students were done by students in the more advanced classes in

vocational training.

By 1893, the enrollment had increased beyond the built capacity

of 600 to 679 students, 444 males and 235 females, representing 34 tribal

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groups. A 16-piece brass band and a group of 15 boys and 15 girls repre­

sented Haskell Institute for Indians at the World's Fair from July 20 to

August 16, 1892. In addition to taking care of their rather extensive

exhibit of large photographs of the school and its grounds and samples

of the variety of products made by the students in industrial classes,

a daily program was presented at the Indian Building. The program con­

sisted of daily presentations of songs and recitations by the students,

a model school classroom in session with a teacher for one hour each

morning (10:00-11:00 A.M.) and one hour each afternoon (2:00-3:00 P.M.),

and daily band concerts (C.I.A., Annual Report 1893:419).

The boys' debating club and the girls' literary society were

among the extra-curricular activities. The Young Men's Christian Asso­

ciation and the Young Women's Christian Association were organized at

the school and met on Sunday evenings. Non-members of the YMCA and

YWCA were always welcomed.

Outing at Haskell Industrial Institute was a disappointment be­

cause the White families seemed only interested in hiring the Indians as

servants or plain hired hands. Wrote Superintendent Charles F. Meserve:

"There is not on the part of the people as deep an interest in the indi­

vidual welfare of the pupil as there should be to insure for him the

best results" (C.I.A., Annual Report 1893:417-21).

In 1894-95, Dr. W. N. Hailmann, the Superintendent of Indian

Schools, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C., visited Haskell;

and his several suggestions were implemented: (1) course of study was

revised in line with the national curriculum (which was based on the

Carlisle plan); (b) the kindergarten and Normal departments were added;

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and (c) a special music teacher was employed for voice and instrumental

music. This first Normal school class consisted of seven students who

had completed the grammar school course. The Normal program commenced in

October with seven girls and four boys as techers-in-training under a

teacher-supervisor and with a well-equipped kindergarten (C.I.A., Annual

Report 1895:383-74). Like the Carlisle faculty, the Haskell faculty be­

gan to be called upon by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assist with the

Summer Institutes conducted by the BIA Superintendent of Schools for

Indian school personnel. The proceedings (S.I.S., Annual Report 1895:

76) for the Reno, Nevada, Institute carries a paper by Mrs. D. C. Haskell

of Lawrence, Kansas, on "Means of Protecting Educated Indian Girls

Against the Evils of Tribal Life." Forced acculturation was in progress

at Haskell.

M o d e m period: Notes from the field

Haskell Indian Junior College, its administration, staff, and

alumni/ae are very proud of their alma mater as an industrial school that

has become an accredited Junior College (1970-1971) which can serve the

national Indian community. From interviews with non-Indian faculty and

staff, one receives the impression that the manual arts and industrial

training programs should be discontinued in order that the academic

emphasis can beoame the real focus. On the other hand, the Native Ameri­

can faculty and staff seem inclined to favor both programs— the academic

training for the senior college-bound students as well as those oriented

toward technical and vocational careers.

In 1974, Dr. Don Ahshapanek, Ph.D., physics, University of Okla­

homa, established a program described as experimental and designed to

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reinforce Indian culture. Students would learn through the use of

modules and mini-courses about parts of the Indian world other than

their own. The mini-courses in certain arts and crafts are taught by

representatives of the tribal group preserving that particular art or

skill. Displays from crafts modules of the past term included the Sac

and Fox Indian manner of using feathers in the construction of tail,

arm, and neck bustles. A Ponca Indian taught the use of feathers in fan

construction. The Division of Native American Culture is one part of the

curriculum that emphasizes cultural preservation.

At the time of the interview (November 1975), Dr. Ahshapanek had

20 parents and elders from as many different tribal groups assisting him

in the Native American culture program. There were approximately 1,200

students from 32 states representing 100 different tribes on the 320-acre

campus. Native American languages are taught and Native American art ex­

perienced in the Division of Humanities under the chairmanship of

Dr. Richard West, renowned Indian artist. Haskell Institute is not a

place where the old ways are severed.

Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute Albuquerque, New Mexico (Established 1971)

1971 1574 BIA Vocational and Enrollment: 1,169 Technical School Boarding students: 985 Day students: 184

Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) has the dis­

tinction of having its own Board of Regents incorporated under the laws

of the State of New Mexico, November 25, 1975. The Board consists of 11

members representing Indian tribes in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado

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in addition to the president of the SIPI Student Government. The Board

has the power to enter into contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs

for its own operating funds, to apply for federal funds for the Insti­

tute, and to approve the addition of new curricula to the instructional

program (SIPI Superintendent's Annual Report 1975:8-10).

Superintendent John L. Peterson describes his educational philos­

ophy as being one of "competency-based education." During our conversa­

tions, Mr. Peterson made many statements about his philosophy which

sounded less than orthodox; and yet as one visits the campus and its

acres of units, there is evidence of the practicality of his observa­

tions. The following examples are illustrative of this point.

Regarding curriculum:

Superintendent Peterson: "You can have a meaningful educational

program for people when you plan your curriculum for the people you have

— not the ones we wish we had."

The Division of Instruction seeks "to meet the contemporary and

projected needs of students." Instructional programs include the follow­

ing: Commercial Food, Drafting, Electronics, Civil Engineering Aid, Off­

set and Lithography, Business Education— Secretarial and Clerical, Mar­

keting and Distribution, Consumer Education, Numerical Processing, Opti­

cal Technology, Dental Assistant, Dental Laboratory Technology, Telecom­

munication, and Supportive Education courses such as Applied Economics,

Driver Education, and General Education Development (GED).

Regarding admission and graduation requirements:

Superintendent Peterson: "At Southwestern, admission is when the

student arrives with the desire to enter school. The semester starts

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— Now— Today! There is no graduation! No grades! When the student

feels he is prepared to go out and work in the area in which he has been

trained, we help him to get a job and get started."

In the Occupational Education program, special classes had to be

added to the Telecommunications program and a new electrical lineman

program added to the Telecommunications curriculum because the Navajo

Tribal Utility Authority sent 17 students over for training in the fall

of 1975. Moreover, the Navajo Tribal Authority donated and dispatched

to SIPI 20 wooden poles and nine transformers to be installed and used

to train students for climbing, installing, and maintaining equipment.

I inquired and was assured that I did see a girl among the trainees.

Regarding Indian student as an adult:

Superintendent Peterson: "We must prepare the Indian to live in

two worlds— the world of economic survival and the world of his Indian-

ness, his cultural identity. We say economic survival will help you main­

tain your Indianness. It will help you survive in the dominant society

as an Indian and not merge or be submerged."

To accomplish this objective, this perceptive member of the

dominant society sought the assistance of a Native American who was a

former Commissioner of Indian Affairs and is now living in Albuquerque,

Dr. Robert L. Bennett. A seminar ■>n "Contemporary Indian Issues" is

taught by Dr. Bennett, and he is available to the students for counsel­

ing before and after the seminar period. "The course seeks to prepare

students for the real world," says Superintendent Peterson. "We have

many tribes and, therefore, many cultures," he continued, "ar.d in this

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seminar each person can take each issue and bring it into focus for his

particular tribal frame of reference."

Southwestern Polytechnic Institute has two aspects of the on-the-

job training program that are reminiscent of the commercial and indus­

trial Outings of the Carlisle period. The first is found in the Market­

ing and Distribution curriculum and involves advanced full-time planning

by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. Students who have completed

the SIPI introductory courses in Marketing and Distribution may be in­

vited to continue in the field in an on-the-job training arrangement com­

pletely structured by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company after which the

successful students are referred to one of the local Firestone stores or

to one of the 1,400 Firestone stores in the United States. The second

program is in connection with the Civil Engineering Aid program and in­

volves field trips to surveying and mapping sites, road alignment and

right-of-way surveys in New Mexico. When the SIPI training is complete,

there is a list of industrial firms and agencies registered with the

Civil Engineering Advisory Committee that will supervise the advanced on-

the-job training and placement in permanent positions.

Superintendent Peterson is persuaded that the BIA goal is to as­

similate Indians into the public schools. As a vocational and technical

school, SIPI is committed to placing each of its students in a full-time

job in the field of his or her study. The SIPI Placement Office seeks

to locate available jobs in the various fields in any geographical area

to which students wish to go.

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Postscript to SIPI field visit

An interview with Dr. Robert L. Bennett, U.S. Commissioner of

Indian Affairs (1966-1969), at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institue,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, took place November 17, 1975. The writer was

interested in hearing Dr. Bennett discuss current public affairs issues

from the Native American perspective. It was fortunate that this was

possible because of two seminar sessions on "Contemporary Indian Issues,"

an elective course for advanced students taught by Dr. Bennett. During

the four quarters of the 1974-75 academic year, 155 students enrolled

for the course. The seminar was conducted in much the same fashion as a

seminar on the senior college level, and the students seem to appreciate

Dr. Bennett as a teacher and as a friend.

He had an extra copy of the October 1975 issue of the Indian

monthly newspaper, Wassaja ("Let My People Know") and presented it to the

interviewer.

Question: Do you think there is a time limit on the BIA separate school system for Indian children?

Dr. Bennett: Not in the foreseeable future. Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954 is not applicable to the Indian situation. As a matter of fact, there has been growth in the direc­ tion of separation within the last two years— for example, the conversations that would place the three post-secondary schools— Haskell Junior College, the Institute of American Arts and SIPI under a single area office. The BIA schools serve those who cannot get to the public schools in many cases. There are many social referrals, and the BIA schools can offer compensatory education and educa­ tion for survival. Public school education for Indians and other minorities (especially Third World people) equals or all too often produces a negative self-concept. We prefer the BIA philosophy and program as described by Philleo Nash^ when he was Indian Commissioner— "guided ac­ culturation." Indians who are required to attend public schools experience forced acculturation for there is no community input. Tribes have political power and their in­ sistence on being in on part of the planning is good be­ cause it is a good idea. It demonstrates power.

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Question: What's ahead in terms of this power?

Dr. Bennett: The tribes would like to establish sovereignty without inte­ gration or assimilation rather than come into the mainstream on equal footing. That's the significance of the January 4, 1975, "Indian Self-determination Act"— the sovereign nation concept persists— and the trust relationship continues.

Question: Indianness is a right. What about Indian resistance to accul­ turation of any kind?

Dr. Bennett: It is wishful thinking. In most areas it is inevitable. However, the Southwest is an exception. In the Southwest resistance to acculturation is possible because it is sup­ ported by tribal ownership of resources. The tribes own the large geographical areas in common. Too much Indianness will cause basic education for earning a living to be neglected. Students have to be pre­ pared for jobs. Too much emphasis on language and culture— no job! What is needed is balance between traditional influence on educational programming and student demands. Guided, acculturation is acculturation modified by input from traditional leadership.

Findings, Summary, and Conclusions

Findings

In evaluating the results of the Carlisle experiment, it must be

noted that both positive and negative outcomes were not pure, but quali­

fied negatives. The following results can be considered more or less

positive:

1. For White skeptics, the success of the School— with its

forced acculturation— offered proof that the American Indian was educable.

2. Pratt's success at Carlisle identified education as a key

element in the survival kit for American Indians in the competitive,

industrial, urbanizing society of the United States.

3. In terms of its defined objectives, Carlisle was a successful

experiment. American Indians did learn the "ways of the White man"—

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received a functional literary education, vocational training skills, and

were encouraged to live among White people in communities apart from the

reservation.

4. At Carlisle, American Indian children were taught and drilled

in knowledge about their civil and political rights, their land claims

(i.e., allotment policy), the responsibilities, duties, and liabilities

of the citizenship for which they were being prepared.

5. During the Pratt years, the Carlisle Outing System was an

effective second-culture learning device. The damage to self-concept

attending the destruction of the first culture of the Indian child was

not a concern for Pratt.

6. The Outing System as implemented at Carlisle was a commend­

able inter-racial amity device with emphasis on the notion that Whites

would learn as they taught.

7. The multi-tribal school environment in all of the off-

reservation boarding schools produced a large population of young Ameri­

can Indians with English as a common language. "Pan-Indianism" has been

something of an outgrowth of the realization that a national "pow-wow"

among educated Indians on the issues of common concern to all American

Indians was not only possible but, in a measure, desirable.

The following were the negative results:

1. The schooling was used by the dominant group in United

States society to destroy the culture of a dominated group without re­

gard for the disastrous personal or group consequences.

2. Pratt erred in his lack of, or at least limited, apprecia­

tion of tradition. Tradition is not necessarily inimical to

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civilization and, therefore, need not be sought out, pursued, and de­

stroyed. Tradition can be adapted and transformed to promote social

change.

3. White American school education divorced the American Indian

from his heritage and contributed to the breakdown of tribal life and

cultural continuity. It caused the Indian child to develop a measure of

contempt for his traditional heritage, his family, and his tribal life-

ways.

4. Educated Indians became more disadvantaged in that hopes and

expectations were raised, sensitivity increased, and then they encoun­

tered incredible discrimination and unthinkable indignities to their

persons. Education was not the key. Most doors to equal participation

in democratic society remained closed.

5. Carlisle Indian School and General Pratt were and are remem­

bered by alumni "without bitterness." Their loyalty militates against

any criticism of Pratt or his forced acculturation policies. The re­

sentment expressed to this writer was in terms of the government closing

of Carlisle Indian School, not because the army needed a hospital, but

because "It was the 'Harvard' for the Indian people."

Disadvantaged and depressed minorities have learned through the

centuries to make accommodations and adjustments. When their self-image

is imperiled and they have few things of which to be proud, they can

adjust their thoughtways and behavior so as to absorb a great deal of

emotional stress and strain.

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Summary and conclusions

The educational program for Indian children in the United States

had its basic formulation in the philosophy which led to the establish­

ment of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879. General Richard Henry Pratt

believed that education was the only humane solution to the Indian ques­

tion. He was persuaded that if all Indians dressed and behaved like

Whites, there would be no Indian problem. He addressed the issue through

a four-part program implemented by means of a system of education in a

non-reservation, multi-tribal, boarding school institutional setting.

Pratt believed that American Indian children should be taught to

speak, read, and write English and English only. They should be taught

some manual trade by which they could earn a living. They should be

separated from the reservation and tribal life long enough to gain suffi­

cient confidence to work and live among other than their tribal groups.

And they should be given sufficient general education (arithmetic,

geography, history, hygiene, music, art, and manners) to live and move in

the ordinary world of work among ordinary citizens. This was Pratt's

prescription for Indian survival and for reducing the prejudice of Whites

against Indians. Pratt's idea was one of an intentionally planned and

managed individual transformation of Indian students to fit into White

society. The concept is termed acculturation. Pratt's program at Car­

lisle Indian School was forced, acculturation.

I have demonstrated the concept to be the principle and philos­

ophy at the Carlisle Indian School functioning with phenomenal success.

It was so successful under General Pratt that the Carlisle system became

a model to be duplicated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the founding

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and operation of all the federal off-reservation boarding schools during

the subsequent 50 years. I have sought to prove this through the formu­

lation and validation of two hypotheses. They are:

First - that the federal program for American Indian education had its genesis in a policy of forced acculturation exemplified in the founding and operation of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918.

Second - that the Carlisle Indian School Outing System, as a second-culture learning strategy, was critical to the implemen­ tation of the boarding school program of forced acculturation.

The first hypothesis is fully validated in Chapter IV with the sub-title

"Acculturation under Duress." The second hypothesis is fully validated

in Chapter V with the sub-title "Involvement as a Method of Second-

Culture Learning."

It seems important to note that education is only one segment of

the culture and the school is only one of the institutions in a society

that seeks to improve the social order. And yet, it was the educational

system that was expected to carry the burden of social change in Indian-

White relationships. Pratt and the Bureau of Indian Affairs attempted

to assign to the educative process the dual role of (a) solving the every­

day problems which society must face and (b) maintaining cultural sta­

bility at the same time. These are two different tasks and cannot be

handled as if they were one.

Forced acculturation cannot solve the problem of Indian-White

relations in the United States. Forced acculturation can only compel an

individual to live (and not without some difficulty) in two worlds—

fully belonging to neither. Forced acculturation leads to the denial of

one's birthright. People must not arbitrarily be denied their biologi­

cal and cultural heritage— their birthright.

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To expect American Indians to become assimilated into the so­

ciety and culture of the United States as if they were European immi­

grants is an impossible expectation. Regardless of the conditions of a

given homeland, in the final analysis, immigration is by choice. Immi­

grants can always "go back home," return to their "roots." Being colo­

nized and conquered on one's own territory is a circumstance of an en­

tirely different order. American Indians are the only carriers of their

traditions. Therefore, group assimilation is not a viable option. To

require that American Indians adapt themselves totally to the cultural

environment of the United States by becoming assimilated is to invite

the American Indian to disappear.

American Whites cannot proceed with their planning for the

development of the United States as if the American Indian population did

not exist. American Indians cannot proceed to plan their future as if

the events of history had not taken place. The American Indian peoples

(nations) have been dispossessed, repressed, and oppressed. The lands

which were theirs are occupied. In the inexorable march of time, some

circumstances become irreversible. Eventually, however, all preoccupa­

tion with the sanctity of group boundaries, visible or invisible, must

give way to the larger concern of human survival in a just and sustain­

able society.

Footnote

^Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash, an anthropologist, was appointed by President John F. Kennedy and served the Bureau of In­ dian Affairs from 1961-1966.

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THE LUCE REPORT

Washington, November 11, 1840 Sir: In compliance with your request, I have the honor to submit the following statement concerning the manual-labor school, recently established, under the superintendence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the Fort Leavenworth agency. As my visits to this institution were without any particular design of procuring information for the department, the observations were not as careful, nor the results noted as accurately, as could have been desired: therefore, only a general idea of the institution can be given. There were in August last, I think, over fifty scholars, boys and girls in nearly equal proportion. These are taught the branches usually comprised in a "common English education." I called at the boys' school one morning, when such a visit could not possibly have been anticipated, and remained some time, while the teacher, Mrs. Kinnear, went on with the ordinary routine of instruction. The scholars ranged from six to eighteen years of age, and gave very gratifying— in fact surprising— evidence of improvement. Nearly all could read: many composed and wrote sentences; and the number that could readily give answers to questions in the "rule of three," without referring to book or slate, was astonishing. It is due to both teacher and scholars to say that nothing appeared to be learned by rote. It was evident that pains had been taken to make the boys understand what was taught them. For

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instance: many of them readily told what were the characters indicating addition, subtraction, &c., at the same time illustrating their use on the blackboard. It may not be amiss to add, that one of the two or three white boys that attend this school (an intelligent youth) told me that, in his opinion, Indians were generally apter scholars than whites— an opinion in which many of the teachers concur. Out of the school-room, the boys are taught to split rails, plough, mow, &c. When the workshop now in progress is completed, it is intended to teach them the carpenter's, blacksmith's, and other mechanical trades; but I did not understand that they receive such instruction at present. As I happened to call on the day set apart for washing, the girls' school was not in operation. They are taught the same branches, but in a separate room. Besides ordinary household duties, they learn spinning, weaving, &c.; and it is expected that they will ultimately, make most of the clothing used in the establishment. Two three-story brick buildings (one for the farmer, the other for the boys' school and lodging) have been erected, and are nearly finished. A third, for the girls, is under way. There is, also, a frame building occupied by the principal, Mr. Browning; another one for the blacksmith's residence; a blacksmith shop, barn, stables, &c., &c. Between five and six hundred acres are fenced and under cultivation. The crops gathered this year were abundant and it was thought that grain to the amount of $1,500 would be sold in the fall. When the improvements now going on are completed, the superintendent says he will be enabled to receive 200 scholars, at an expense not exceeding $70 per head. It is not considered desirable that the students1 labor should be sufficient to cover their expenses, because it might lead the Indians, naturally suspicious in such matters, to think their children were imposed upon,

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and thus defeat the benevolent design of the institution, which, as at present conducted, is exceedingly popular; so much so, that applications for admission are constantly refused, the accommodations being insufficient for those already there. This popularity is not to be wondered at, as every attention is paid to the comfort as well as the instruction of the children. On several occasions I dined at the same table with them: they always had an abundance of wnolescme food; were well clad; and I understood, from one of the scholars, that very few, and those chiefly new comers, were dissatisfied. I cannot close this report, without adverting to the great progress in civili­ zation made by the Indians in the Fort Leavenworth agency. Many of the Shawnees and Delawares live as comfortably in houses of their own building, on as fine farms, broken and fenced by themselves, as an equal number of frontier settlers any where selected. It is not uncommon to see them employed by the whites as blacksmiths, carpenters, &c. During the last summer the Delawares sold the Govern­ ment contractor the greater part of the beef furnished the recently emigrated Stockbridge band. The Shawnees have a semi-monthly newspaper, edited, and, if I mistake not, printed by a Shawnee, extensively circulated through the nation. Warriors, violently prejudiced against the whites and their customs, have been known suddenly to abandon their savage habits and join the "Christian" party— some of them even voluntarily giving up the use of spirits, and exerting their influence to induce others to do likewise. Without intending to derogate from the merits of other denominations, or of the Government agent, much of this improvement must be ascribed to the efforts of the Methodist Society. Their agents, by combining agricultural and mechanical with religious instruction, have practically met the standing objection to missionary operations— that civilization should

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precede Christianity. And their efforts among the tribes alluded to having been so eminently successful, there is strong ground for hoping that the manual-labor school will give the world additional proof that Indians can be civilized. Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, JOHN B. LUCE. Hon. T. Hartley Crawford.

SOURCE: Annual Report, Commissioner of Indian Af­ fairs, T. Hartley Crawford, to Secretary of War, J. R. Poinsett, 1840-1844:163-64.

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THE METHODIST COMMITTEE REPORT

WAR DEPARTMENT, Office Indian Affairs, July 11, 1840. Sir: I have attentively considered the expediency of establishing a manual-labor Indian school at Fort Coffee. Since it became my especial duty to advance the civilization and general welfare of the Indians, by all lawful means in my control, I have uniformly considered education as the great and primary object; and shall regard myself to be fortunate if I can, while charged with the administration of their affairs, put the application of Indian school funds into such a channel as will afford them all the advantages they can receive from them: or, if this may not be, even to give such an impulse to official effort on their behalf as may ultimately, but soon, place their schools upon the best footing. It appear to me that the establishment proposed will be, with proper direction, a a measure of great consequence. The buildings have been abandoned as a fort. They are suitable for an extensive school establishment; the farm is open, so as to connect the manual-labor and farm benefits with the others; the situation is healthy: and, although in the Choctaw country, it is on the Arkansas river, near the boundary line, and quite convenient to the Creeks, Cherokees, Senecas, Senecas and Shawnees, Seminoles, and not very remote from the

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Chickasaws and Osages. All the advantages that could be reasonably looked for seem to be here combined. I indulge the hope that I shall be able to make the beginning of opening a fountain of many blessings to the Indian race. This school should, in my judgment, be on an extended plan. For the present, reading, writing, and a competent knowledge of figures, will be all that is required, or could be used by them. As they advance, if the disappointment that has attended all exertions hitherto shall not continue, their education may be carried to other branches. To this should be added at once the teaching of the males to farm, as a most, if not the most, important auxiliary in leading them into the walks of civilized life, and necessary to their comfortable subsistence. The females, of whom I would have at all times at least one-half at school, should be taught to sew, spin, and weave; and, as we progress, it would be an excellent feature in the plan, (that at the proper time I will endeavor to execute,) to buy the materials for clothing the whole school, which, under proper tuition, the girls should make up for wear. I would, further, have the different mechanic arts taught at this school. I know all this will take time; but it is the outline of a plan which I would be much gratified to be the instrument of carrying out, and which, if I remain where I am, I will try to execute. With primary schools, where the young could be taught their first lessons all over the Indian country, and from which, at suitable ages and stages of advancement, as many as circumstances, capacity, and other consider­ ations, made it proper to educate further at Fort Coffee, could be removed to the larger establishment. This would be a system analogous to those prevailing among ourselves, and give the Indians all the opportunities for improvement, which I hold it to be my imperative duty, as far as in my power, to extend to them. To my mind, it is full of promise. We must begin moderately, and gradually extend establishment as means may be obtained. Perhaps,

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of the nine schools now maintained in the Choctaw nation, or those among other tribes, one or more might be discontinued with the consent of the nation or tribes, and the funds now appropriated to their use applied to the new establishment. I can furnish $2,000 from the civilization fund per annum, and in two years the funds now used at the Choctaw Academy will cease to be expended at that institution, and may be, in my opinion, more beneficially and satisfactorily used at Fort Coffee; always looking, however, to their own consent and co-operation in this measure, to which you will direct your attention from the beginning. With­ out their hearty aid, little good is to be antici­ pated; with it, much. The Choctaw fund, now appropriated to the academy, is $18,000; the Creek, $2,000; the Chickasaw, $5,500; Florida, $1,000; Miami, $1,000; Pottawatomie, $3,000; and Quapaw, $1,000. If the Indians could be con­ vinced of the great benefits that would result to them from the application of so much of their education funds to the Fort Coffee manual-labor school, as would still leave them sufficient for the support of the primary schools, (which is a leading object with me to spread over every Indian district,) I should consider myself as having done something for these unfortunate people, and for my own official reputation; the latter, however, is not the object, but would, I confess, be a gratifying consequence, which I could only value as the evidence of proper attention rightly directed. Much must be left to your discretion. As soon as the necessary incipient measures are taken, a competent teacher must be selected; and, in doing this, he must be a man of irreproachable morals, and of capacity and acquirements far above what is usually sought for in an Indian tutor. He must be fully qualified to be the principal of the institution when it shall have reached the full extent to which my views look, and with which alone I will be satisfied. He must there­ fore, not be inferior to gentlemen placed at the head of academies in the populous States. On this, every thing will depend. A false step here will be fatal; and, of course, the most independent and

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judicious selection made, considering only the interest of the Indians and the success of the project. As soon as the condition of the school will require or admit of it, a farmer must he employed to teach the boys, and a matron (who will be a good seamstress) engaged to instruct the girls, who must not be less in number than one-half the pupils, in sewing, and cutting out, and fitting clothes. Spinning, weaving, and the mechanic arts can be introduced gradually, as we shall be provided with funds. In these suggestions you will see what I wish. The foundation must be laid so broadly, as to support the extended superstructure that it is hoped will be raised upon it. The most rigid economy must be observed. Our present means are very limited, and not one dollar must be expended which cannot be lawfully applied to the object, and that is not within the fair and legitimate scope of the intention of Congress in making appropriations, or of the various treaties existing between the United States and the different Indian tribes. Very respectfully, yours, T. HARTLEY CRAWFORD Capt. Wm. Armstrong, Superintendent of Western Territory

SOURCE: Annual Report, Commissioner of Indian Af­ fairs, T. Hartley Crawford, to Secretary of War, J. R. Poin­ sett, 1840-1844:165-66.

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REPORT ON PRATT-ARMSTRONG COOPERATION

IN INDIAN EDUCATION— 1878-1880

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, September 20, 1879

Sir: According to request, I have the honor to submit the following report of the work which has been accomplished at the Hampton Institute for Indians. They have arrived and left as follows: From Saint Augustine, Fla., April 1878 (ex-prisoners of war), men, 17. From Dakota Territory, November, 1878, as follows: Fort Berthold, 9 boys, 4 girls; Standing Rock, 3 boys, 1 girl; Cheyenne River, 9 boys; Crow Creek, 5 boys, 1 girl; Lower Brule, 6 boys; Yankton Agency, 8 boys, 3 girls— 49. Omaha and Winnebago Agency, January 22, 1880, 3 boys, 2 girls; Cherokee Indian (John Donning), Wichita Agency, Indian Territory, September, 1878, 1 boy; Menomonees from Wisconsin, October, 1879, 2 boys; November, 1879, 2 boys. Pawnees from Indian Territory, October, 1879, 2 boys. Absentee Shawnees from Indian Territory, October, 1879, 2 boys; September 16, 1880, 2 boys. From Cheyenne River, Dakota, November 1879, 2 girls. From Standing Rock, Dakota, November, 1879, 3 girls. From Yankton, Dakota, December, 1879, 7 boys and 9 girls, making a total of 103. Saint Augustine Indians left, 13; died, 3; Dakotas died at school; 14; Dakotas sent home for misconduct, 2— 37. Number of Indians present, 66; number of Dakotas died since return, 4. Of the Saint Augustine Indians who have died

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there came diseased 1; of the Dakotas who have died there came diseased 3; very delicate 3; apparently sound, 1. Almost all those who came last fall arrived with heavy colds, five have since had hemorrhages, and others show signs of lung trouble. The Florida boys have all left but one; the others are at Carlisle or at their homes; one has relapsed into barbarism, the rest are doing well. There has been some difficulty in getting girls but none as to boys, and in spite of our efforts there is not yet the right proportion of girls. With the race, coeducation of the sexes is most important and is successful. We are now assured that from one agency alone (Cheyenne River) our schools could be filled with girls. Hundreds of both sexes are eager to come, and not one is here but by free choice and the consent of parents. The result of fourteen months' edu­ cation is shown in several photographic groups representing parties of our students as they appeared on their arrival in November, 1878, and in January, 1880. I think they would impress the most skeptical that the Indian is, like other people, improved by education. The majority of our Indian pupils have now been under instruction from November, 1878, twenty-two months. The chief trouble is with their health. Out of ninety-six there have been eight deaths; in all cases but two, the disease, con­ sumption, was brought with them and their friends at home were not surprised. One chief upon learning of the death of his adopted boy, of whom he was very fond, called his people together and said,"if only one sent from this tribe to Hampton comes back to us it is all right." Fourteen have been sent home for ill- health, of whom four have died. Many who came last fall were seriously injured

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by exposure on the way. There has been an acclimating process and a holding of their own, with a few exceptions. They do not thrive as well during the hottest weather, and accordingly the hours of study and labor have been temporarily cut down. Some experienced persons prophesy a relapse of educated Indians on their return to their homes, from opposition, ridicule, and shock at the old life, and from the former circumstances. By their studying one-half the day and working the other half, by being built up in ideas, and in working skill and habits, and by a radical change of the inner life, we believe they will, as a whole, stand the test of returning home. But no little care must be taken when they go back that favorable arrangements shall be made for a start in life; neglect at this point will imperil all the fruit of our labors. Their studies are rudimentary; teaching is chiefly by the object method. They are now reading simple stories, are eager to learn, and most interesting as pupils. As a rule they understand ordinary conversation, and many can write a grammatical letter, but these very ones are most reluctant to display their knowledge of English, except to their teacher, and do themselves injustice when addressed by strangers. During the summer there has been almost entire cessation from study, but regular habits and days' works have been kept up, They are greatly improved in ability to do steady manual labor. In work they are slow, but, as a rule, willing, and have made satis­ factory progress. In the Indian workshops the following articles have been made; A one-horse cart complete, and quantities of spokes and other materials used in wheel- wrighting; a variety of small and useful articles of blacksmith work; all the wooden tables used in the school, and many articles of wood-work; all the tinware needed by the

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school; most of the shoe-mending and a few pairs of shoes. They have replaced broken window-panes, and done many small jobs in painting and other mechanical work. They have, under the direction of a carpenter, built a two-story carriage- house, 24 by 50 feet, weather-boarded and shingled. The farm squad has worked regu­ larly half a day, cultivating the various crops. The girls have had instruction in household industries— washing, ironing, and cooking. They are learning to make and mend their own clothes. Instead of receiving clothing as fast as it was worn out, the boys have been put on wages, out of which they are expected to purchase their clothing; there is some waste, but the consequences of any folly are sure to be felt, and a valuable lesson in the use of money is thus given. Putting men on a manly footing is the best way to promote manhood. Places for the summer in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, were secured for twenty-five Indian boys and girls, each one in a separate home to work out his living expenses under the care of kind and excellent farming people, with whom they have learned our language rapidly, and got a three-and-a-half months' drill in practical living and working, as valuable, I think, as any school experience; and their health has improved by it. These farmers testify that "no like number of American boys and girls could have done better." Three years at Hampton will, I believe, fit Indians for a life of use­ fulness and decency in their own homes. Our 66 Indians are maintained as follows: By private charity, 6; by government aid ($150 per year) and private aid (from $50 to $70 per year), 60. The regular school charges are as follows: Board, fuel, washing, mending, lights, medical attendance, &c. (at $10 per month for 12 months), $120; tuition (pro rata cost of education of each student of the school) $70; clothing, $60— $250. Therefore, at the rate of government payment, $150 per

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year, there is, after allowing $30 per year for the value of the labor of each Indian, an annual deficit. This is met by indi­ viduals and societies, who provide for clothing from $50 to $60, or a scholarship of $70. Indian pupils require more teachers in proportion than other students; they wear out clothing rapidly, and are on hand the entire year. By this method there has been excited an interest in the welfare of Indians in many of the Eastern States, from Virginia to Massachusetts. The people care for those they keep, and an increasing and deep interest unknown before is spreading over the country. The demand for magazine articles on the Indian question is an evidence of this. A right public sentiment is half the battle with all public questions. Our appeal to the benevo­ lent will result in a widespread and intelli­ gent interest in Indian civilization. Aside from current expenses, the entire cost of building and outfit for the benefit of Indians at this institution since November, 1878, has been $13,726.72, all from private contributions. It has been proposed by friends of this race to enlarge our work for Indian girls, by erecting for their benefit a building which shall cost complete and furnished $15,000, to be owned and managed by the institution. A beautiful site has been kindly given by a lady friend and benefactor of the school, adjoining the school premises on the north. All progress is based on the intelligence and integrity of women. We claim most en­ couraging results thus far from nearly two years1 experience in training Indian girls sent here from Dakota territory and else­ where . Our Indian pupils are fond of writing letters home, averaging one a week apiece. I believe that, while some misstatements have been made and mischief done, there is, on the whole, ulUCIi benefit to their parents from this correspondence. The monthly report of each pupil as to conduct and progress in study is eagerly looked for by the Sioux parents, who quidkly complain of any neglect in this matter.

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The policy of showing Indians our great guns and enormous resources is not, I believe, so wise as that of showing them how those resources were secured, letting them witness and learn the steady, thrifty habits that are at the bottom of our prosperity. We are try­ ing to teach them these by school methods and by a practical experience of what the best industrial life of our country is. From a recent report of the school officer in charge of our Indian boys I made the follow­ ing extracts: "From half-past 8 a. m. to 12 has been given to class-room recitations; from 1 p. m. to 5 in the winter, and to 6 in the spring, they have been trained in farm-work and me­ chanics. In dividing the work among the boys the first consideration was to have the agencies represented by as many different trades as possible. The second consideration was the boy's physical constitution, and in what trade he would be most likely to excel. In a few instances the boy's taste has been consulted, when we believed him capable of making an intelligent choice, but as many would choose to work at some trade because their particular school friends did, the general assignment of work was made without consulting them. "The Indians have charge of the cleaning in the wigwam under the supervision of the colored janitor; their work has been very satisfactory, on the whole. The boys get down on their knees voluntarily and scrub the floors of their own rooms. Many of the most promising boys are those who have been se­ verely disciplined. It takes hard rules to bring out the hidden beauty in the character of some. "After a year's study of the Indians it was thought proper and necessary to pay them in cash for their labor. The amount of wages is based upon the market price of the goods they will need and the number of hours they work, rather than upon the value of the work, although its quality is constantly improving. It is believed that large wages to begin with would demoralize them; they will have to study

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economy, to make both ends meet? the aim of the school is to make them feel that there are future as well as present needs, and so guard against any foolish expendi­ ture of money. We realize more and more that the most pressing need of Indian youth is practical education. With it, they may hold their own against the race that is pushing them from point to point; without it, they must inevitably go down. "We are often asked if the Indian students will not go back to their blanket and their old life. Necessity, not choice, may drive them to it. They must return to the surroundings of their former life, but whether they will sink to its level will depend very much upon the success of the work which we have begun here, upon the amount of practical knowledge which they will take home with them, upon the strength of their own character, and upon their friends at the other end of the line. The experiment does not end with the school life; it is then that it actually begins. This is only the preparation for the effort. The question is not can the Indians learn, but will he put his knowledge to practical use. "In dealing with the Indians at Hampton we see that they have a warm, sunny side to their nature. We are preparing them for home usefulness. We do not flatter or coax them. We are trying to develop a self-reliant man­ hood and womanhood, strengthen their weak points, and prepare them to resist the degrading charms of savage life. This training is a strong stroke up the tide of civilization. If we can send them back to live just a decent and industrious life, their influence, if ever so small, must be a lever to their people." The following letters illustrate the Indian interest in the improvement of the children, as we have found it during the past two years: From an Indian father: Crow Creek Agency, January 14, 1879 My Son: I am going to write you a letter again. I want you to write letters to me often.

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I am glad that you are trying to learn. Don't run away from the school. It will be your own good if you learn. Do all the work they tell you to do, and learn to be a carpenter and a blacksmith. I would like to see how the Indian boys learn. The boys down there, their fathers would like to go down and see them. Then they would come back and tell the other Indians. Then they would like to send all their children. Learn to talk English; don't be ashamed to talk it. Another father writes from Fort Pierre, Dak.: I want you to learn how to be a printer. I want you to learn to talk English. I would like to have you learn how to be a carpenter. I would like to go down there and see how you are getting along. If I was down there— if I saw all the boys down there, then I would come back and tell the Indians and they would all be glad. I hope some of the boys will learn to be a teacher when they come back that they can teach the boys and girls. This is the only chance you have; get all the good you can. This is all I have to say. From an Indian mother: Keshena, Wis. I am sorry you are not coming home next summer, dear child, but if you like to learn something it is a good place for you. Learn all you can; it will be for your own benefit. Your affectionate mother, WANHANNO KIEIR

A father writes from the same place: Try to learn fast and study hard, so that you will be a smart man. Try to learn the trade of blacksmithing.

A brother to his sister: Dakota. My Sister: I want you to learn all you can and learn something good, and God watch you all the time. I want you to learn some­ thing. That's the reason I let you go to Hampton. BULL HEAD.

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An Indian father to his boy's teacher: Yankton Agency, Dak. January 26, 1880 Gen. Armstrong: My Friend: You got my letter, and you answered it, and when I saw your letter my heart was very glad. But when I saw your face in it I was most pleased of all. Then I made a feast and called the parents of children that have gone to school. They were all so glad, they passed it around and each one gave it a kiss. So now we have all seen you, and it seems as if we can now trust you to take good care of our children. Perhaps you don't know that Indians think of their children a great deal, and don't know how to have them out of their sight one day. So now, my friend, you know how I felt about my two boys, but I can trust you now, and I want you to look after them and take good care of them, and if anything happens to them I want you to tell me soon. I shake hands with you. Your friend, FAT MANDAN

A full-blood Indian chief writes to his half brother from Crow Creek, August 25, 1879: I am going to write you a letter; I never forget you. Try to learn all you can while you are down there. I wish I were young so I could go down and learn too. I want you to learn all you can and come back and teach your brothers. Try to learn and talk English too. Don'e thing about coming home all the time. If you do you can't learn much. I like to have you write a letter back and tell me how you are. WIZI-THAT'S I

Our 250 negro and 66 Indian youth have for twenty-two month been in constant contact at this institution. There has been slight, not serious, friction. There is no difficulty from race prejudice. The negro is a help to the Indian as an example, by his habits of study and of labor, or obedience, of behavior, of general decency, and by his knowledge of

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English. The latter here is in an atmosphere of industry, good conduct, and of our language, which does much for his progress. Colored teachers have been remarkably successful in influencing and training Indians. The objective point with both races is the same development of character, of industry, skill, and of good habits, through a sufficiency of English studies and by a manual labor system, under good discipline and strong moral and religious influence. To do this work rightly requires complicated and expensive establishments, but it is far cheaper then the extermination policy. I trust the government will provide generously for this and all other work for the elevation of the Indian race. The great demand upon the chari­ table of our country makes the work of raising funds for our Indian effort one of difficulty. I trust that the public officers who have legislative or executive duties with reference to the red race of our country will visit and inspect the institution as they shall have the opportunity. I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,

S. C. ARMSTRONG, Principal.

SOURCE: Annual Report, Commissioner of Indian Af­ fairs, R. E. Trowbridge (1880-1881):182-85.

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CARLISLE REPORT NO. 1 - 1880

Training School for Youth, Carlisle Barracks Carlisle, Pa., October 5, 1880

Sir: I have the honor to transmit the annual report of this school, required by your letter of July 18, 1880. In order that the whole number of students, tribes, increase and decrease may be understood, I furnish a tabulated statement. Under your orders of September 6, 1879, I proceeded to Dakota, and brought from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Agencies 60 boys and 24 girls. This detachment reached Carlisle, October 5, 187 9. I then went to the Indian Territory, and brought from the Cheyenne, Kowa, Pawnee, and other tribes, 38 boys and 14 girls, and returned to Carlisle on the 27th of October. On both of these visits I was accompanied by Miss. S. A. Mather, of Saint Augustine, Fla., from whom I received valuable assistance in the care and management of the youth. With the consent of General Armstrong, I had brought from the Hampton Institute, 11 of the young men, who were formerly prisoners under my care, in Florida, and had at that time been under the care of the Hampton Institute 18 months. These formed a nucleus for the school, and rendered most valuable assistance in the care and management of the large number of new children, most of whom came directly from the camps. The school opened on the 1st of November, 1879, with 147 students. On the 6th of November, we received 6 Sisseton Sioux and 2 Menomonees. On the 28th of February, 1880, 8 Iowa and Sac and Fox children reached us,

267

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under the care of Agent Kent. On the 9th of March, a Lipan boy and girl were sent to us by order of the War Department. They had been captured three years previous, by the Fourth Cavalry, in Old Mexico. On the 20th of February, 11 Ponca and Nez Perces children were received from Inspector Pollock, and on the 1st of April, 10 Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita children were added to those previously received from that agency. July 31, Rev. Sheldon Jackson brought to us 1 Apacne and 10 Pueblo children from New Mexico. September 6, Agent John D. Miles brought to us 41 Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Comanche children from his own and the Kiowa Agencies. This aggregated us 239 children in all. Our losses have been 28 boys and 9 girls, returned to their agencies. Nine of these were of the former Florida prisoners, who being sufficiently advanced to render good service at their agencies as workers and examples to their people, and being rather old, and some of them heads of families, it was considered best to return them to their tribes, and fill up with children, great numbers of whom were anxious to come. Of the remaining 19 boys and 9 girls returned, Spotted Tail, because of disatis­ faction on account of the non-employment of his son-in-law, carried away 9 of his own children and relations; 4 of the others were allowed to go home with the chiefs for special reasons, and the remaining 15 were returned because of imperfect physical and mental condition. We have lost by death 6 boys, and have heard of the death of 4 of those returned to their agencies. These changes leave us at the date of this report, October 5, with 196 pupils, 139 of whom are boys and 57 girls. About one-half of these had received instruction at agency schools; the remainder came to us directly from the camps. Two- thirds are the children of chiefs and head men. About 10 percent are mixed blood. The school work is organized into six graded departments, with additional side

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recitations. In the educational department the instruction is objective, although object-teaching is subordinate to the study of the language. This is the first point, the mastery of the English language. We begin this study and that of reading by the objective word method. The object or thought is presented first, then language given to express the idea. We use script characters first, reading and writing being taught at the same time by the use of the blackboard. Drill in elementary sounds aids in securing correct pronunci­ ation. Spelling is taught only in this way and by writing. Numbers are taught objectively as far as the knowledge of language will permit, following Grube's method. Geography is taught by oral lessons and by drawing. For beginners we use no text-books. Keep's First Lessons for the Deaf and Dumb has been serviceable and suggestive for teachers' use. To a limited extent we have followed this method. We use Webb's Model First Reader and Appleton's Second, Keep's Stories, with questions, and in arithmetic Franklin's Primary. Picture-Teaching, by Janet Byrne, is especially adapted to Indian work, but is expensive. We find pictures and objects of great service, furnishing material for sentence-building and conversations. The progress in our school-room work is most gratifying. It is not too much to say that these Indian children have advanced as well as other children would have done in the same period. They have been especially forward in arithmetic and in writing, and their correspondence with their parents and friends is becoming a source of great interest and satisfaction. Industrially, it has been our object to give direction and encouragement to each student of sufficient age in some particular branch. To accomplish this,

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various branches of the mechanic arts have been established, under competent and practical workmen, and a skilled farmer placed in charge of the agri­ cultural department. The boys desiring to learn trades have generally been allowed to choose. Once placed at a trade, they are not changed, except for extraordinary reasons. A number of the boys who have passed the age of maturity, and have expressed a desire to become proficient mechanics, are kept continu­ ously at work, and are given the benefits of a night-school; but the general system has been to work at the trades a day and a half or two days each week and attend school the other days. Under this system we have a blacksmith and wagon-maker with ten apprentices, a carpenter with seven apprentices, a harness- maker with thirteen apprentices, a tinner with four apprentices, a shoemaker with eight apprentices, and a tailor with three apprentices. There are three boys in the printing office, under competent instruction, and two baking bread. The mechanical branches, except the shoemaker and carpenter, were established last April. All boys not under instruction at trades have been required to work, periodically, under the direction of the farmer. The progress, willingness to work, and desire to learn on the part of the boys in their several occupations have been very satisfactory. Being guided, and watched by competent mechanics, the quality of the work turned out challenges comparison. The carpenters have been kept busy in repairing and remodeling, &cs, and in con­ structing the chapel and an addition to our mess-room. The blacksmith and wagon-maker, in addition to fitting up the shops and getting ready for work, has made a number of plows, harrows, and other agricultural implements; has done all our repairing, horse and mule shoeing, and has constructed one carriage and two spring wagons suitable for agency use. In the harness-shop the

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boys have developed a special capacity. We have manufactured 55 double sets of wagon harness and 3 single sets of carriage harness. In the tin-shop we have manufactured 177 dozen tinware, consisting of buckets, coffee-pots, teapots, pans, foot-baths, oil-cans, and cups; and in addition have repaired our roofs, spouting, &c., to the extent of about a month's work for the instructor and apprentices. In the shoe­ maker's shop we have been unable, so far, to do much outside of repairing. We have half-soled and otherwise repaired about 800 pairs of shoes. The tailoring depart­ ment was only established the 15th of August. Already our boys are able to do all the sewing on a pair of trousers very satisfactorily. Two of the boys in the printing office are able to set type and assist in getting off our school paper, printing lessons, &c., and one of them is so far advanced as to edit and print a very small monthly paper, which he calls "The School News," and which has won many friends for the school. Our bakers make good wholesome bread, in quantities suffi­ cient to supply the school. The products of the farm are given in the general statistics. In all these several branches of labor, we have found capacity and industry sufficient to warrant the assertion that the Indian, having equal chances, may take his place and meet successfully the issues of competition with his white neighbor. The girls have been placed under a system of training in the manufacture and mending of garments, the use of the sewing- machine, laundry work, cooking, and the routine of household duties pertaining to their sex. All of the girls' clothing, and most of the boys' underwear and some of the boys' outer garments, have been manufactured in the industrial room, in all of which the girls have taken part and give very satisfactory evidence of

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their capacity. About twenty-five of the older girls do effective work on the sewing-machine. At our recent fair here we placed on exhibition samples of the work of all the departments, all of which attracted much favorable comment. The report of the committee appointed to examine and report on the exhibit made by the school is appended hereto. Under the authority of the department, last spring I sent two boys and one girl to Lee, Mass., where they were placed in the family of Mr. Hyde for the summer months. Arrangements were made for twenty- five others, through Captain Alvord, of Easthampton, Mass. A misunderstanding having arisen with regard to the ages and probable working qualities of the youth to be sent, I did not send this last party. Five girls and sixteen boys were placed in families in this vicinity for different periods during the summer months. The children have generally given satisfaction. The coming year, with a better understanding of the Indian on the part of the whites, and a better understanding of English and in­ creased desire to work on the part of the Indian, there is reason to believe that all the children we may desire to put out during vacation will find places. This plan is an individualizing process most helpful to the work [emphasis mine]. The discipline of the school has been maintained without difficulty and punish­ ments have been called for but infrequently. When offenses have been serious enough to demand corporal punishment, the cases have generally been submitted to a court of the older pupils, and this has proved a most satisfactory method. No trouble has arisen from the coeducation of the sexes; on the contrary, it has marked advantages. The boys have been organized into companies as soldiers, and the best material selected for sergeants and corporals. They have been uniformed and drilled in many of

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the movements of army tactics. This has taught them obedience and cleanli­ ness and given them a better carriage. A lady friend in Boston gave us a set of brass instruments. Under the direction of a competent instructor, twelve of the boys have in a little over two months learned to play these instruments so as to give us tolerable music for our parades. There has been no epidemic, and we have had but very few deaths that could not be traced to hereditary causes or chronic affections. The good people of the town have given us active sympathy and aid, and have welcomed the children to the different Sunday schools and churches. All of the boys have been divided'into classes, and regularly attend the different Sunday schools in the town. This has been an in­ estimable benefit and a great en­ couragement to teachers and scholars. Several of our older and more intelli­ gent boys have become members of the Presbyterian Church, and in their daily conduct show a proper regard for their profession. The Episcopal Church has baptized and confirmed most of the Sioux children. The Rev. Dr. Wing, of the Presbyterian Church, and Professor Lippincott, of Dickinson College, have been kind enough to give us regular religious services on Sabbath afternoons. Numerous letters from many parts of the Indian country, and from parents and relations of the children here, and from other Indians, show that there is an awakening among the Indians in favor of education and industrial training for the young. I have to acknowledge with gratitude the deep interest and liberal support of the department, the hearty and

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efficient co-operation of teachers and other employees, and the sympathy and kindness of a multitude of friends all over the country, which, with the blessing of God, have rendered this effort so far a success. With great respect, I am your ob ed ient s ervant.

R. H. PRATT First Lieutenant, in charge.

SOURCE: Annual Report, Commissioner of Indian Af­ fairs, R. E. Trowbridge (1880-1881):178-81.

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TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY

Saturday, the 6th of October being the Twenty-first anniversary of the opening of this school [Carlisle Indian School], the day will be duly observed according to the fol­ lowing program, viz:

1. An extra good dinner for pupils [noon meal].

2. A half holiday for all, and a chance to witness the football game with the Gettysburg College team.

3. A meeting in the Assembly Hall, from seven to eight-thirty, with program as follows, viz.:

Music, by Band

Opening Address, Elmer Simon, Class 1896.

Singing, by Choir.

Short addresses by Graduates, viz.:

Miss Robertson, Class 1890. Miss Martin, Class 1898. Miss Smith, Class 1897. Mr. James Wheelock, Class 1896. Mr. Siceni Nori, Class 1894. Mr. Edward Rogers, Class 1897.

Singing, School Song, "Out of Darkness," Healy Wolfe.

Address, "Indian School Thirty [20 - sic] Years Ago," Mr. Standing.

Singing, by School.

Addresses, Misses Cutters, Burgess, and others.

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Address, Major Pratt.

Chairman of the evening, Prof. Bakeless.

The graduates and other speakers will occupy seats on the platform.

SOURCE: The Red Man and Helper, October 5, 1900:3.

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CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE

INVINCIBLE DEBATING SOCIETY

The classic Palmer Method of penmanship was used in

the teaching of all cursive writing at Carlisle Indian School.

Illustrative of this fact is this first copy of the Consti­

tution and By-Laws of the Invincible Debating Society— the

prestigious male devating group popularly known as "The In-

vincibles."

SOURCE: National Archives, Record Group No. 75, Minutes of the Invincible Debating Society (Selected Docu­ ment) .

277

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Evelyn C. 1946 American Indian Education. New York: King's Crown Press.

American State Papers (1780-1837) 1826 Superintendency of Indian Affairs, House Document No. 146, 19th Congress, 1st Session. Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton.

Beais, Alan R., George, Spindler, and Louise Spindler 1967 Culture in Process. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Beals, Ralph 1962 Acculturation. I n Anthropology Today. Sol Tax, ed., pp. 375- 95. Chicago: Phoenix Books, University of Chicago Press.

Beatty, Wiiiary W. 1953 Education for Social Change. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Betzinez, Jason 1959 I Fought with Geronimo. Wilbur S. Nye, ed. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole.

Brophy, William A. and Sophie D. Aberle 1966 The Indian: America's Unfinished Business. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press.

Bruner, Edward M. 1956a Cultural Transmission and Cultural Change. Southwestern Jour­ nal of Anthropology 12(2):191-97. 1956b Primary Group Experience and the Process of Acculturation. American Anthropologist 58:605-23.

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