AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF NATIVE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED ST ATES by CARY MICHAEL CARNEY Bachelor of Arts University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma 1969 Master of Business Administration Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma 1992 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION May, 1998 COPYRIGHT By Cary Michael Carney May, 1998 AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF NATIVE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES Thesis Approved Thesis Advisor oer;(H~ ii PREFACE Many phases of Native American education have been given extensive and adequate historical treatment. Works are plentiful on the boarding school program, the mission school efforts, and other select aspects of Native American education. Higher education for Indians, however, has received little attention. Select articles, passages, and occasional chapters touch on it, but usually only regarding selected topics or as an adjunct to education in general. There is no thorough and comprehensive history of Native American higher education in the United States. It is hoped this study will satisfy such a need, and prompt others to strive to advance knowledge and analysis in this area and to improve on what is presented here. The scope of this study is higher education for the Indian community, specifically within the continental United States, from the age of discovery to the present. Although, strictly speaking, the colonial period predates the United States, the society and culture of the nation as well as several of its more prominent universities stem from that period. Consequently, the colonial period is included due to its important contribution to subsequent developments. The history of Native American higher education is seen as iii comprised of three eras; the colonial period, featuring several efforts at Indian missions in the colonial colleges: The federal period, when Native American higher education was largely ignored except for sporadic (and frequently interrupted) tribal and private efforts; and the self-determination period, highlighted by the recent founding of tribally controlled colleges. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Whoever first coined the term "independent research" either had never done any, or was a master of the oxymoron. A more keenly felt collective peering over one's shoulder cannot be imagined. I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dr. Dave Webster for his infectious supervision, constructive guidance, excellent editing, and friendship. My sincere appreciation also extends to my other committee members, Ors. L. Nan Restine, Lynn Arney, and L. G. Moses, whose guidance, assistance, and support are also invaluable. Beyond my committee, I wish to thank Dr. Martin Burlingame, Theda Schutt, Brenda Brown, and the rest of the faculty and staff of the Department of Educational Administration and Higher Education, as well as those of Edmund Low Library at Oklahoma State University, McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, the Oklahoma State Historical Society, the library at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, and the library of Dartmouth College. Not that the list of those deserving acknowledgment for their support and encouragement ends there. Deserving of special mention are Ors. V Adrienne Hyle, Molly Tovar, Mary Jane Warde, and Tom Stone of Oklahoma State University. Particular gratitude goes out to long-suffering friends Dana Christman and Matt Runs-Above, and to that most excellent and incisive companion of endless trips back and forth across Oklahoma, Celia Stall­ Meadows. Impromptu visits to Bacone yielded unexpectedly plentiful assistance, not to mention new friends, in the persons of Dr. Marlene Smith, Professors John Williams, Mary Lou Ziegenfuss, Ann Marie Shackelford, and Librarian Frances Donelson. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my wife, Pam, for encouragement, love, and understanding throughout this whole process. And, last but not least, special thanks to Jeff and Gail Huber, proprietors of the best unofficial rest stop of the Oklahoma highway system. I am surprised the collective sigh of relief at the completion was not audible across the land. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS . Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION. 1 Research Objectives . .. 12 Definition of Terms and Concepts ... 1 5 II. METHODOLOGY . .20 Ill. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 24 Beginnings. 24 Henrico ...... 39 Harvard .............. 44 William and Mary . 49 Dartmouth .... 57 Overview . 68 IV. THE FEDERAL PERIOD . 79 Federal Policy. ........ 79 Cherokee and Choctaw Educational Programs. 98 The Academies. 1 06 The Oneida Academy . 107 The Foreign Mission School. 1 09 The Choctaw Academy . 1 09 The Federal Assimilation Policy . 11 4 White Colleges Out of Indian Schools . 1 3 7 Ottawa University . 138 Sheldon Jackson College. 1 43 The University of Tulsa . 1 44 Northeastern State University. 146 Fort Lewis College . 1 48 vii The Indian Colleges . 1 49 Bacone College. 149 Pembroke State University 1 57 Overview . 1 6 5 V. THE SELF-DETERMINATION PERIOD 171 The Stirrings of Reform . 173 The New Deal Reforms . 180 The Tribally Controlled Colleges . 190 Overview. 206 VI. CONCLUSION . 209 VII. THE CURRENT STATUS OF NATIVE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION 221 Future Implications . 233 REFERENCES. 237 APPENDICES. 263 APPENDIX A--CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORT ANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF NATIVE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES . 263 APPENDIX B--PRESIDENTS, SECRETARIES OF WAR/INTERIOR, AND COMMISSIONERS OF INDIAN AFFAIRS TO 1980 ..................... 275 APPENDIX C--CURRENT UNITED ST ATES TRIBAL AND TRADITIONALLY NATIVE AMERICAN COLLEGES ... 282 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION [The purposes of Harvard College are] The aduancement of all good literature, artes, and sciences. The aduancement and education of youth in all manner of good literature, Artes, and Sciences. All other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this Country in knowledge; and godliness. - Harvard College charter, 1 650 (Morison, 1935, p. 248). [William and Mary College has among its purposes] that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the Gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good Letters and Manners, and that the Christian faith may be propagated amongst the Western indians, to the 1 Glory of Almighty God. William and Mary College charter, 1693 (Szasz, 1988, p. 67). [Dartmouth College would exist] for the education and instruction of youths of the Indian tribes in this Land in reading, wrighting, and all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing Children of Pagans as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences; and also of English Youth and any others. Dartmouth College charter, 1769 (Layman, 1942, p. 87). With these statements, three of the original nine U. S. colleges founded during the American colonial period embraced the education of the indigenous Native American population as central to their purposes. A fourth, the College of New Jersey (Princeton) did not formally name Indian education as a stated purpose, but did admit a few Indian students during the same period. These original nine schools (Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Pennsylvania [Philadelphia], Princeton, Columbia [King's], Brown [Rhode Island], 2 Rutgers [Queen's], and Dartmouth) represent the beginning of what would grow to be one of the largest, most diverse, and arguably the best system of higher education of any nation in existence. With such an apparent substantial level of interest and involvement in American Indian higher · education during this early period, one might expect to find that Native American higher education had likewise subsequently grown and expanded to similarly impressive heights. However, the record does not support such an inference. In spite of these professed goals and the construction of specific buildings to house the Indian colleges on the campuses of William and Mary and of Harvard, the number of Indian students to attend and to graduate from these early colleges during and subsequent to the colonial period is not particularly impressive. Harvard had only five Indian students with one graduating in the 1 650-1 693 era during which its Indian college existed, and only one more Indian student by 1776 (Smith, 1950; Weinberg, 1977). William and Mary's record of Indian education is less clear due to the loss of records in a 1705 fire (Szasz, 1988). Several students likely attended, but the majority were preparatory, not college. The only years with evidence of Indian enrollment are 1705-1721, and show little activity. The Brafferton Building to house its Indian college was built in 1723, thirty years after the founding of the college, and no Indian students enrolled and 3 were housed there until 1743, a full twenty years later (Wright, 1988). Only five or six Indian students attended William and Mary after the building of Brafferton until the Indian college was closed in 1776 (Wright & Tierney, I 1991 ), for a total of 16 students overall (Belgrade, 1992), with none taking the baccalaureate degree. Dartmouth, the colonial college that has the strongest "Indian college" tradition attached to its founding (Axtell, 1981; Szasz, 1974), had only 25 Indian students with three graduating prior to 1800 (Belgrade, 1 992), and 33 more with eight graduating prior to 1893 (Wright & Tierney, 1991 ). In fact, right up