Outline:
Trafzer, C. E., Keller, J. A., and Sisquoc, L. (2006). Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences.” Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Child, B.J. (1998). Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Hoxie, F. E. (2001). A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Kidwell, C.S. & Velie, A.R. (2005). Native American Studies, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Bloom, J. (2000). To Show What an Indian Can Do: Sports at Native American Boarding Schools. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Trennert, R. A. (1986). Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920″ – In Nichols, R. L. The American Indian: Past and Present (3rd edition). Cologne: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG.
Valle, S. D. (2003). Language Rights and the Law in the United States: Finding Our Voices. New York: Multilingual Matters.
Olson, J.S. & Wilson, R. (1984). Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Cologne: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG.
Annotated Bibliography:
Trafzer, C. E., Keller, J. A., and Sisquoc, L. (2006). Boarding School Blues: Revisiting American Indian Educational Experiences. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Trafzer, Keller, and Sisquoc (2006) note that children who lived through the experience of American Indian boarding schools became heroes, heroically facing a monster that was not of their own making. In some instances, the difficulties they encountered swallowed them up, but nevertheless, they grew stronger. The book draws on how American Indian boarding schools provided both constructive and unconstructive influences for Native American children. The boarding schools would become an essential part of American history since the Native Americans turned the power and became a force to reckon with in American society.
Child, B.J. (1998). Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
The book Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940″ provides an enlightening look at the strong emotional history of Indian boarding schools as experienced during the first half of the twentieth century. The author noted hundreds of letters that were written by parents, children, and school officials at Haskell Institute in Kansas. The revealing letters highlight how profoundly whole families were impacted by the boarding school experiences.
Children in boarding schools were often cut off from their families due to the long distances involved. They suffered from homesickness, and their parents suffered from loneliness as a result of the separation. Child (1998) notes how parents worried incessantly about the physical, emotional health, and academic development of their children. As such, families clashed repetitively with school officials over uncontrolled illnesses and appalling living conditions in the schools. Child discusses how family intimacy was broken by the separation of children from society as a result of their inclusion in boarding schools.
Even though the boarding schools were perceived as a source of depression, Child (1998) discusses how they became a place of refuge during the Depression when the loss of conventional economic stability and rampant poverty proved to be a greater threat than the schools. The author thus portrays the positive and negative sides of Native American boarding schools.
Hoxie, F. E. (2001). A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Hoxie (2001) notes how the Americans strove to settle the Indian question” by building boarding schools in which Indian children would be brought up the American way. The result was a series of tussles, including court cases and the formulation of famous laws such as the Dawes Act of 1887. School teachers and missionaries were sent in large numbers to reservations. Some reservations were sold to create resources for the development of boarding schools that would effectively separate Native American children from their parents and hence their culture. The move was seen as dubious but would later be noted to not have helped unify American society.
Kidwell, C.S. & Velie, A.R. (2005). Native American Studies, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Native American Studies is a guide to Native American history and culture that outlines new ways of comprehending American Indian cultures in present-day contexts. The book addresses fundamental issues, such as the close relationship of culture to the native land, the type of cultural exchange and conflict in the period after European contact, the exceptional rapport between the Native communities and the United States government, the connotation of language, the vivacity of contemporary cultures, and the diversity of Native artistic styles, from poetry and literature to painting and sculpture to concert arts. Native American Studies highlights how Native American boarding schools in the United States help assimilate the Native Americans.
Bloom, J. (2000). To Show What an Indian Can Do: Sports at Native American Boarding Schools. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
The Haskell Institute and the Carlisle Indian School in Kansas were among the numerous federally operated boarding schools that implemented the U.S. government’s education policy regarding Native Americans from the late nineteenth to around the mid-twentieth century. Bloom (2000) gives an account of how Native American children were forcefully integrated into the American education system as well as culture. The author gives recollections of accounts from various students who went through the system that alienated them from their parents and Native American society in general.
To show what an Indian can do, sports at Native American boarding schools demonstrate how Native American children would later excel in sports such as baseball and cards, and also become famous in pop culture. Therefore, while the boarding schools imposed disadvantages on the native people’s closely-knit society, they also brought numerous benefits in terms of assimilating the Native American society into the contemporary unified American society.
Trennert, R. A. (1986). Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920″ – In The American Indian: Past and Present Nichols, R. L. (3rd edition). Cologne: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG.
This article by Trennert (1986) addresses another phase of assimilationist efforts to disintegrate tribal societies through the use of education. Trennert (1986) notes that since the early colonial era to the days around the twentieth century, teachers sought to forcefully integrate Indian children into the American mold. As such, missionaries, reservation teachers, agents, as well as personnel at federally supported boarding schools all made efforts to inculcate American practices and attitudes into the wider non-American populations. In this regard, young men and boys were required to work as farm assistants or farmers, whereas Indian girls and young women were to be taken through training in domestic tasks and housekeeping. The motivation behind this was that education officials were of the opinion that if they trained Native American girls to become good housewives, the young women would, in turn, act as a positive force in facilitating the civilization” of their generally less receptive husbands. Hence, by the late 1870s, education officials had adopted the idea that boarding schools would offer a better opportunity than reservation day schools as they would keep the learner away from home for a considerably long period of time, going into years at a time. But even as they did this, they failed to ask how Indian parents would react to this move of taking away their offspring to persevere lonely lives in distant boarding schools. They also ignored the repeated objections to the suggestion from parents as well as Indian tribal leaders.
The essay Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920″ thus considers the regular abuses within the Native boarding school system and traces the steps to reform the Indian American education system, which had become influential by around 1930.
Valle, S. D. (2003). Language rights and the law in the United States: Finding our voices. New York: Multilingual Matters.
This book offers an all-inclusive review of the legal standing of minority languages in the United States. It also highlights the political and historical perspective for the legal maneuvering that ended up in landmark civil rights victories. All of the most important cases in the United States relating to language rights are discussed in-depth and in an easy-to-understand manner for the non-legal audience. In addition, the book’s topics range from employment discrimination to international law and from the English-only movement to consumer law.
Olson, J.S. & Wilson, R. (1984). Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Cologne: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG.
Olson and (1984) discuss in detail the issue of reservation and how it became almost a bankrupt idea within American society in the context of dealing with Native Americans. Instead of creating reservation areas, reformers and other interested groups opted to launch a triple assault on Native American society and its sovereignty: they created a federal school for Native Americans, extended federal law to include all tribes, and allotted all tribal lands.
Reservation land was sold and the proceeds were used to fund the development of federal schools for Native American children. Boarding schools were created so that children would be secluded from their societies for long periods of time, thus killing their cultural identity or, in a way, limiting the children’s ability to freely interact with their society when they returned. The move meant that Native Americans, after attaining education, would be self-sufficient, legally subjugated, and ultimately acculturated, soon becoming fully assimilated into American society.
The book further highlights how Richard Pratt, an army officer and founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1879, argued for the assimilation of Native American children. He noted that the creation of distant boarding schools would break ties to local cultures. By consistently learning English in the boarding schools, the Native American children would be prepared for immediate assimilation.
Activity Timeline:
Activity:
- Week 1
- Week 2
- Week 3
Introduction: Review of topic.
Analysis of the positive and negative aspects of Native American boarding schools.
Conclusion and summary of findings.
