NPR Reports on the Strange History of Native American Boarding Schools
by Latoya Peterson
This is Tom Torlino.
He attended the Carlisle School - a special boarding school for Native American students. The picture provides both a before and after spending time at the school. The before and after photo is but one illustration NPR uses to tell the story of Native American boarding schools in the US. In a report titled “Native American Boarding Schools Haunt Many,” correspondent Charla Bear digs deep into the practices and processes used to forcibly strip young Native Americans from their heritage.
Check out the chilling reason these schools were developed in the first place:
The federal government began sending Native Americans to off-reservation boarding schools in the 1870s, when the United States was still at war with Indians.
An Army officer, Richard Pratt, founded the first of these schools. He based it on an education program he had developed in an Indian prison. He described his philosophy in a speech he gave in 1892.
“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one,” Pratt said. “In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
Even more frightening to me is the familiar ritual of colonization:
In 1945, Bill Wright, a Butwin Indian, was sent to the Stewart Indian School in Nevada. He was just 6 years old. Wright remembers matrons bathing him in kerosene and shaving his head. Students at federal boarding schools were forbidden to express their culture — everything from wearing long hair to speaking even a single Indian word. Wright said he lost not only his language, but also his Native American name.
“I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, ‘Grandma, I don’t understand you,’” Wright says. “She said, ‘Then who are you?’”
Wright says he told her his name was Billy. “‘Your name’s not Billy. Your name’s Tutum,’” she told him. “And I went, ‘That’s not what they told me.’”
All of these actions were part of a long term strategy. Tsianina Lomawaima, head of the American Indian Studies program at the University of Arizona, explains:
“They very specifically targeted Native nations that were the most recently hostile,” Lomawaima says. “There was very a conscious effort to recruit the children of leaders, and this was also explicit, essentially to hold those children hostage. The idea was it would be much easier to keep those communities pacified with their children held in a school somewhere far away.”
These schools provided education to Native children for years. Lucy Toledo, who attended one such school in the 1950s, explained how the children were not even taught the basic principles of arithmetic or grammar. Instead:
“Saturday night we had a movie,” says Toledo. “Do you know what the movie was about? Cowboys and Indians. Cowboys and Indians. Here we’re getting all our people killed, and that’s the kind of stuff they showed us.”
Corporal punishment, abuse, manual labor, and malnutrition were common problems at the schools. Bear notes:
In the 1960s, a congressional report found that many teachers still saw their role as civilizing Native American students, not educating them. The report said the schools still had a “major emphasis on discipline and punishment.”
However, in more recent years, many of these schools have closed down. In the few that remain, a cultural shift has occurred where the school encourage the preservation of cultural activities:
One school that remains is Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, Calif. — the same boarding school Toledo attended.
Hershel Martinez, a Navajo student, gathers with a group of friends in a school hallway to form a drum circle. The school encourages cultural activities like this. That’s one reason Martinez feels more comfortable here than at his former public school in Los Angeles.
“Everyone was wondering what nationality, what race am I,” Martinez said when asked about being at a public school. “I’d tell them and they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re Indian. You’re like the only guy I know who’s Native.’ But here, at Sherman, they know how I feel about being Native. And they understand where we’re all coming from.”
Unfortunately, the piece ends with a familiar problem:
[T]his year, the federal government made a budgeting change that reduces funding to the off-reservation boarding schools. And their future is in doubt.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Cynthia wrote:
Is that coming on or has it already aired?
I think that’s really the American mentality, if it doesn’t make sense to us (to our rules and standards) we must force them to assimilate, so we can better identify. Since our way is the ‘civilized’ way.
We have isolated the people who were here before us, so much so, that they feel like strangers on the land that originally belonged to them.
It’s sad.
I remember when they opened up the Native American museum in DC. I saw so many Native Americans out in public and proud of their heritage adorned in their tribal clothing. I loved it, it was breathtaking.
In my opinion, I feel they need more than a museum on the Washington Mall.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:00 am ¶
RobynT wrote:
I heard this story on the radio this morning. On one hand, I think it’s really interesting that these schools that have such a horrible history are now doing some good things or seen as doing good things. They interviewed one graduate who said she was doing poorly in school and stuff, but after attending the boarding school, she’s at Berkeley. She explained the way that she made sense of the schools’ pasts really well. Like to me that should’ve been the key point of the story–that tension between what was and what is (or may be).
I mean I’m suspicious. They said some students go voluntarily, to take themselves out of “high-risk” situations, but others are forced to go in place of juvenile detention centers. And boarding schools are so stringent–it seems like the view is “some people” need that kind of discipline. Plus, “culture” is seen as so harmless nowadays. It’s not revolutionary that they’re promoting language classes and other aspects of culture. That’s just the new way of doing things now.
But they did say that like 50% of the schools are now run by Indians for Indians so that probably bodes well.
Oh, and I couldn’t believe how NPR wrapped up the segment: “Hear boarding school students drumming on our website.” Dance, monkey, dance.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:26 am ¶
Kai wrote:
Interesting that they don’t mention the most widely reported problem at the boarding schools: rampant institutionalized sexual abuse. The entire subject is an important part of US history, so I guess it’s good that it’s getting a bit of national airtime and consciousness. Last time I stopped by the Museum of American Indians in NYC, they had a special exhibit on photographs from boarding schools.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:28 am ¶
Erica B. wrote:
I heard the tail end of this yesterday on my drive home. You can probably find an archive of it at NPR though.
I had never heard of “Indian schools” until a few years ago, at a museum in Oregon (Bend I think?). It was shocking, and I couldn’t believe this would happen… or rather, didn’t want to believe, because how could any civilized country be so cruel? All we learned in school about Native Americans was various wars, Thanksgiving dinners, and long-past issues… not that only one generation ago they had been shipped off to boarding school to pacify their families.
Shameful history like this need to be publicized, confronted, and apologized for. Gutting a culture by removing its children is horrifying.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:33 am ¶
wendi muse wrote:
they did this to the aboriginal people in australia as well…including kidnappings and legal proceedings to permanently remove the aboriginal children from their families
it’s disgusting how education can be used as a means of cultural genocide
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:41 am ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:
@ wendi muse–you took the words right out of my mouth.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 10:06 am ¶
Samantha wrote:
My grandmother and her sisters were sent to those Indian schools in Wisconsin. She shared her experiences with me and it was horrible the things she and her sisters endured.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 10:43 am ¶
Natasha Vincent wrote:
First time poster…
@Kai Agreed.
@wendi muse The same goes for here in Canada.
To add to the conversation, since seeing national demographic statistics a few years ago, I’ve confirmed the reasoning behind a seemingly innate kinship with this cultural group.
The parallel experiences between North American bands and the black diaspora - now “settled” in North America - are such that our communities would to well to have more intercultural discussion to help healing, progress and reconciliation.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 11:03 am ¶
June wrote:
We had the same thing happen in Canada except they were called residential schools and education was not definitely part of the equation. Residential school survivors now receive compensation for the their time in residential school which leads to a now bunch of problems. Elders have their money being stolen, people blowing their money as they are psychologically damaged by their experiences. Canada will be having a Truth and Reconciliation process where survivors can tell their stories. Unfortunately, people in Canada still think there were positives to residential schools. The outfalls have been awful as generations of parents didn’t learn how to parent and lost their cultures. It will be a few generations yet to recover from the “schools.”
http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/en/goc/cep/index.shtml
http://indigenousaction.blogspot.com/2008/01/confusion-over-common-experience.html
Posted 13 May 2008 at 11:09 am ¶
Canfield wrote:
There’s a children’s book set in the Carlisle School, My Heart is On The Ground, that whitewashes the facts considerably. If you’re looking for more information about the residential schools, This article (a critique of the kid’s book) also has quite a bit of information about the schools and their history.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 11:16 am ¶
Ali wrote:
@Kai - I agree. The rampant sexual abuse is usually one of the most discussed topics surrounding the abusive boarding school system. It seems odd to find it missing.
@wendi muse - Not sure if you’ve seen it but there is an excellent film called the Rabbit Proof Fence about two Aboriginal girls from the “Lost Generation” who escape from boarding school and head home to their families. It’s beautifully shoot and excellently written.
@Natasha Vincent - Couldn’t agree more. One of my favorite books growing up was called Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage by William Loren Katz.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 11:59 am ¶
Abu Sinan wrote:
I did a write up of this one at my blog as well. I find it odd how we, as a nation, see fit to lecture other countries when less than 50 years ago our government was still involved in cultural genocide!
Posted 13 May 2008 at 12:47 pm ¶
deesha wrote:
C0-signing Ali re: “Rabbit Proof Fence.” The film is based on a true story and a book of the same title written by the daughter of a mixed-raced Aboriginal woman who had been kidnapped and institutionalized as a child.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 1:46 pm ¶
schmidt wrote:
@ ali: I totally agree about “rabbit proof fence”. amazing movie.
http://www.oyate.com is a great resource for reviews and info on books about and by American Indians.
I hope in part 2 NPR will also address some of the current issues and activism in American Indian communities. There’s so much going on now with health care, education, sovereignty, cultural activism, that I sort of hate to see the whole “historical victim” stereotype being played up more. @ June: we have similar issues in the US of communities still dealing with the fallout, even though we talk about it less probably.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 2:26 pm ¶
Nadra wrote:
There’s also a book called “First Days at Carlisle” by Luther Standing Bear that documents the assimilation process he went through very well. Also, there is an African American connection to this. Hampton University, formerly Hampton Institute, was used as a model for Carlisle Indian School.
Pratt referred to relations between European and Native Americans in terms of the “Indian problem” and compared it to a similarly widespread attitude toward the “Negro problem.” In 1890 he wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
“If millions of black savages can become so transformed and assimilated, and if, annually, hundreds of thousands of 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.”
Source: http://www.ouachitalk.com/carlisle.html
Posted 13 May 2008 at 2:38 pm ¶
Nicole wrote:
I believe Native Hawaiians and Aboriginal people went through similar situations. This is really sad and it angers me when Europeans hid behind the “making the savages civilized” excuse. Tsk tsk
Posted 13 May 2008 at 2:46 pm ¶
uu wrote:
I wonder if the piece mentions something that my native american studies teacher mentioned in my class. That there was a case of a priest from one of the boarding schools in Arizona I believe that wasn’t until 50 years later caught molesting the male students from the boarding school.
For 50 some odd years that priest was sexually molesting native children taken away from their family. The most vulnerable position anyone could be in.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 2:59 pm ¶
Kendra wrote:
There is another documentary about one man who brought to light the issue of Canada’s residential schools and how their inhuman doctrines and discipline were supported by the false veil of “religion.”
I like his conclusions toward the end of the video, and I don’t really view him as some “great white savior.” He really tries, and he lost so much (in particular his wife, his children, his financial stability, etc.) That by no means puts him on the same level as the natives that have suffered and continue to suffer, but it shows that he was willing to help out despite his losses.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&hl=en
“Unrepentant”.
It’s over an hour long, but if you have time watch it. It’s been out for about a year now and I just saw it. I thought that the US was the only one, but Canada and Australia have a lot of dirt too. It’s odd, this idea that you’re the only one civilized and everyone is just dying for a taste of your “civilization.” Well, they’ll end up dying even if they don’t want to consume your medicine.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 3:42 pm ¶
Sin Vergüenza wrote:
I can’t say enough good things about Brenda Child’s (Ojibwe) “Boarding School Seasons.” She uses archived letters in order to tell the stories of students in Minnesota. It’s a beautiful book and very accessible to the non-academic reader.
Posted 13 May 2008 at 7:15 pm ¶
Ratrace wrote:
wendi muse wrote:
they did this to the aboriginal people in australia as well…including kidnappings and legal proceedings to permanently remove the aboriginal children from their families
it’s disgusting how education can be used as a means of cultural genocide
Posted 13 May 2008 at 9:41 am ¶
I agree with your sentiment entirely. The only thing I would change is, “it’s disgusting how cultural genocide can be labeled as education.”
Posted 13 May 2008 at 8:43 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
One of the most shocking things about this piece of history is how late it ended; the last ’school’ closed, the Phoenix Indian School, was shut down in 1990. I forget which Canadian school was the last one closed but it happened in 1984.
I know Ward Churchill is a highly controversial figure but I still really recommend his book ‘Kill the Indian, Save the Man’ and for a Canadian focused book I liked ‘Stolen from Our Embrace’ by Suzanne Fournier and Ernie Crey. In Churchill’s book he discusses the similarities between ‘residential school syndrome’ and ‘concentration camp syndrome’; RSS could be collapsed under the latter but that would require an admission that these ’schools’ were just as bad as concentration camps. They weren’t schools, they were torture centers, genocide centers, and their death rate matched that of many Nazi concentration camps.
Posted 14 May 2008 at 2:54 am ¶
bdsista wrote:
I am a middle school librarian and I just removed the Nannie Little Rose book from my collection and sent an email and post from the link to Oyate to all of the librarians in Montgomery County Schools to remove it from their collections. I personally will be writing a disapproval of the book to go on the permanent book information database. I am part Piscataway but go to NM every year and to powwows. I am tired of the liberality with which we tolerate stereotypes of Native people that would not stand one second if they were any other race. Check your children’s schools to see if this book is in the collection. I bet it is in every elementary and middle school, print out the Oyate review and challenge it to have it removed for stereotypes.
Posted 14 May 2008 at 8:32 am ¶
Katie wrote:
I grew up on the Dear America series. I loved those books, but I never thought they were real; they were in the fiction section and had a note about the author’s research and historical changes in the back.
I do definitely see the problems with the Nannie Little Rose book now, but I read it when I was younger and was absolutely horrified that children had to experience that. The picture in the back of children before and after absolutely haunted me.
I knew the “schools” were bad, but I never realized how awful they were. That is truly horrifying.
Posted 14 May 2008 at 6:56 pm ¶
Free wrote:
The boarding schools have a precedent. Established in 1769 by Congregationalists, the original mission of Dartmouth University was to to educate and christianize Native Americans. Rev. Samson Occom a Mohegan who converted to Christianity in his teens, raised the majority of the funds for the founding. Although promises were made, he never received the same salary as his white peers: he died in poverty and obscurity. This despite the fact that he served as a missionary to Native Americans and was the first Native American to publish documents in English.
Today, the University has a Native American studies program as well as the Morris K. Udall Scholarships program. Morris Udall was a Congressman from Arizona who championed Native American and Alaska Native rights. He was also instrumental in the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The ICWA attempts to a redress the removal (abduction) of Native children from their homes and states that tribes have jurisdiction over Native children. Tribes were also guaranteed the right of return of their children. http://www.nicwa.org/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act/
Posted 18 May 2008 at 12:58 am ¶
Cecelia wrote:
I am Ojibway. My ancestors and relatives luckily were not in any boarding schools in Michigan. But, we do have many stories of shame of being a Native person in the world. We also have stories of discrimination, racism, prejudice, etc. I have been very lucky to hear stories recently about how my Grandfather felt being an Ojibway in Detroit in 1950’s-1980’s. These stories are absolutely amazing to hear! I am actually writing a book about healing the family soul and these stories will be included. It is important to understand internalized oppression and how it carries down generationally. It is also important to know that we have a power and a choice to move though this and fully heal it!
Posted 18 May 2008 at 11:38 pm ¶