1PAPER1–EDUCATIONANDNATIVEAMERICANASSIMILATION.docx

1
PAPER 1 – EDUCATION ANDNATIVE AMERICAN
ASSIMILATION
PRIMARY SOURCES
In 1906, Helen Sekaquaptewa “awoke to find [her] camp
surrounded
by troops.” She later recalled that a government official “called
the men together,
ordering the women and children to remain in their separate
family groups. He told the
men . . . that the government had reached the limit of its
patience; that the children would
have to go to school.” Helen went on to relate how “All children
of school age were lined
up to be registered and taken away to school. 82 children,
including [Helen], were taken
to the schoolhouse ...with military escort.”
Helen Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi girl from Oraibi, was just one of
many American Indian
children who, from the 1880s up to the 1930s, were forced by
U.S. government agents to
attend school against the wishes of their parents and
community.
A BATTLE FOR THE CHILDREN: American Indian Child
Removal
in Arizona in the Era of Assimilation, Margaret D. Jacobs,
University of Nevada, March 2004

A. VIEWPOINT OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, AND
CONCERNED
CITIZENS:
Many people had different viewpoints on what to do with the
“Indian problem,” though
most agreed that education was fundamental to solving this
issue.
DOCUMENT1: George Grant, Presbyterian minister, 1872
As the Indian has no chance of existence except by conforming
to civilized ways,
the sooner that the Government or Christian people awake to the
necessity of
establishing schools among every tribe the better. Little can be
done with the old,
and it may be two, three or more generations before the old
habits of a people are
changed; but by always taking hold of the young, the work can
be done.
https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958/
BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1
DOCUMENT 2: Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
in 1903:
To educate the Indian in the ways of civilized life, therefore is
to preserve him
from extinction, not as an Indian, but as a human being. As a
separate entity, he
cannot exist [enclosed], as it were, in the body of this great
nation.
The pressure for land must diminish his reservations to areas
within which he can
utilize the acres allotted to him, so that the balance may become

homes for the
white farmers who require them.
To educate the Indian is to prepare him for the abolishment of
tribal relations, to
take his land in severalty, and in the seat of his brow and the
toil of his hands to
carry out, as his white brother has done, a home for himself and
family.
DOCUMENT 3: Excerpts from “Kill the Indian, and Save the
Man,” 1892,
presented by Richard Henry Pratt.
Captain Richard Henry Pratt fought for the United States
against Native
American Tribes including the Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho,
and Kiowa. After
the U.S. won the “Indian Wars,” Pratt founded the Carlisle
Indian Industrial
School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He presented his thoughts at
the Nineteenth
Annual Conference of Charities and Correction in 1892. He is
famous for his
philosophy: “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man.”
2
Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to
the nation at large.
It 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. Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of
loyalty to the stars
and stripes [the USA], 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.
…. When we cease to teach the Indian that he is less than a
man; when we
recognize fully that he is capable in all respects as we are….—
Then the Indian
will quickly demonstrate that he can be truly civilized, and he
himself will solve
the question of what to do with the Indian.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929/
DOCUMENT 4: Indian Commissioner Thomas Morgan speaking
at the
establishment of the Phoenix Indian School in 1891
"It's cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them."
B. “ENROLLING” STUDENTS INTO THE SCHOOLS
By the 1880s, the federal government mandated that Indian
children be educated in either
boarding schools or schools on the reservation. Some parents
were eager to get their
children in schools; however, others did not want their children
to go.
DOCUMENT 5: Eyewitness testimony on forced removals.

Often, the children were forced from their families to attend
school:
“Everything in the way of persuasion and argument having
failed, it became
necessary to visit the camps unexpectedly with police, and seize
such children as
were [school age] and take them away to school, willing or
unwilling. Some
[parents] hurried their children off to the mountains or hid them
away in camp,
and the police had to chase and capture them like so many wild
rabbits. This
unusual proceeding created quite an outcry. The men were
sullen and muttering,
the women loud in their [crying] and the children almost out of
their wits with
fright.”
DOCUMENT 6: A white woman who worked in many boarding
schools explains the
issue with getting children to attend school.
“In the fall, the government stockmen, farmers, and other
employees go out into
the back country with trucks and bring in the children to school.
Many [children]
apparently come willingly and gladly; but the wild Navajos, far
back in the
mountains, hide their children at the sound of a truck. So
stockmen, Indian police,
and other mounted men are sent ahead to round them up. The
children are caught,
often roped like cattle, and take away from their parents, many
times never to

return. They are transferred from school to school, given white
people’s names,
forbidden to speak their own [language], and when sent to
distant schools are not
taken home for three years.”
C. SCHOOL CURRICULUM
3
The government established a set curriculum for the students to
follow. These schools
were “industrial” schools, meant to teach male students jobs in
the trades (manual labor),
and female students the traditional western female roles of
mother and homemaker.
DOCUMENT 7: Memo sent out by the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs on what is to
be taught in Indian schools, 1878.
It is the policy of the Department to combine with the ordinary
branches of the
English education...instruction to the boys...in cultivating the
farms and gardens;
and also in a sufficient knowledge of the use, not only of
agricultural implements,
but of ordinary mechanical tools...The girls should also be
taught all household
industrials such as bedmaking, plain cooking, cutting, making
and mending
garments for both sexes, the work of the dairy, and proper care
of the house.

PHOTOGRAPH 1: Furniture Building Shop, 1901. (Library of
Congress, Frances Benjamin
Johnson Collection, https://www.loc.gov/item/98503020/)
PHOTOGRAPH 2: Home Economics class, 1901.
https://www.loc.gov/item/2004676524//
Library of Congress, Frances
Benjamin Johnson Collection,
4
D. THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VIEW OF THE SCHOOLS
Photographs such as these class photos (before and afters) were
taken for the purpose of
showing the "successful civilization" of the Indian students. The
schools marketed

themselves extensively to the American public as they believed
this would get broad
support, both political and financial, for their Indian schools.
PHOTOGRAPH 3: – Before and After Publicity photographs for
the Carlisle
Industrial School.
Chiricahua Apache children upon arrival at Carlisle Indian
Industrial School from Fort
Marion, Florida.
J.N. Choate, photographer, Barry Goldwater Collection #GI-44,
Arizona Historical Foundation,
University Libraries, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
Chiricahua Apache children four months after their arrival at
Carlisle Indian Industrial
School.
J.N. Choate, photographer, Barry Goldwater Collection #GI-44,
Arizona Historical Foundation,
University Libraries, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
5
DOCUMENT 8: Indian Girls at Hampton - The
accompanying picture (right) was published in
Harpers Monthly, April 1881.
“The improvement made in the appearance of the
Indian students, boys and girls, a three years’ course of

study at Hampton has convinced more than one observer
from the Western frontier that there is something better
to do for the red man (Indian) than to shoot him on
sight. Miss Helen W. Ludlow, one of their teachers says
of the two older girls that appear in the picture: “They
have been among the farmers of Berkshire County,
Massachusetts, working for their board, sharing the
home life and improving in health, English and general
tone…their [] labor has its compensation in a better
physical condition…and their uplifting may prove the
most important factors in the salvation of their race.”
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysources
ets
/assimilation/
DOCUMENT 9: Educating
the Indians--a female pupil of
the government school at
Carlisle visits her home at
Pine Ridge Agency

6
E. LIFE AT SCHOOL
The students were fully “Americanized” as soon as they arrived
at the school. This
included cutting the boys’ hair, and changing the students’
names to Western names that
were easier for teachers to pronounce and remember.
DOCUMENT 10: A young man recollects having his hair cut.
Late in the morning, my friend Judéwin gave me a terrible
warning. Judéwin
knew a few words of English, and she had overheard the
paleface woman talk
about cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us
that only unskilled
warriors who were captured had their hair shingled [cut] by the
enemy. Among
our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair
by cowards!
We discussed our fate some moments, and when Judéwin said,
"We have to
submit, because they are strong," I rebelled.

"No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!" I answered.
I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and
scratching wildly.
In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a
chair.
I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold
blades of the
scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my
thick braids. Then I
lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother I had
suffered extreme
indignities…And now my long hair was shingled like a
coward's!
DOCUMENT 11: An Indian Boy's Story: Ah-nen-la-de-ni
[Daniel La France] 1903
After my bath and re-clothing and after having had my name
taken down in the
records I was assigned to a dormitory, and began my regular
school life, much to
my dissatisfaction. The recording of my name was accompanied
by a change
which, though it might seem trifling to the teachers, was very
important to me.
My name among my own people was "Ah-nen-la-de-ni," which
in English means
"Turning crowd" or "Turns the crowd," and at the institution my
Indian name was
discarded, and I was informed that I was henceforth to be
known as Daniel.
It made me feel as if I had lost myself. I had been proud of
myself and my
possibilities as "Turns the crowd," for in spite of their civilized
surroundings the

Indians of our reservation in my time still looked back to the
old warlike days
when the Mohawks were great people, but Daniel La France was
to me a stranger
and a nobody with no possibilities.
http://www.rcs.k12.in.us/files/an_indian_boys_story.pdf
F. THE DAILY ROUTINE
School life followed a military routine, as these schools were
based on military practices,
and many schools were located in former military barracks. It
was also expected that
students convert to Christianity and attend church.
DOCUMENT 12: A typical school day:
We got up at 6:00 a.m. and we were sitting in church about
6:45. Then we went to
breakfast and did chores after breakfast and at 8:30 a.m. we
were in the
classrooms until 12:00, then we went down for lunch. [At] one
p.m. we were back
in the classrooms until 5:00. At 5:00 we went to benediction
(church) for a half-
hour and then went to supper. We did chores after supper to
8:30 and then had
free time.
(https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/958
/BowkerK1207.pdf?sequence=1)
7
G. THE CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS

The schools were expected to be self-sufficient with the
students producing clothing, and
growing their own food. The schools were often underfunded,
and experienced terrrible
sanitary conditions. Illness and epidemics were not uncommon.
Some schools even had
their own graveyards.
DOCUMENT 13: Hoke Denetsosie, a Navajo, described his
boarding school
experiences at Leupp, Arizona, in the early twentieth century:
Conditions at the school were terrible...Food and other supplies
were not too
plentiful. We were underfed; so we were constantly hungry.
Clothing was not
good, and, in winter months, there were epidemics of sickness.
Sometimes
students died, and the school would close the rest of the term. It
was run in a
military fashion, and rules were very strict. A typical day went
like this: Early in
the morning at 6 o’clock we rose at the sound of bugles. We
washed and dressed;
then we lined up in military formation and drilled in the yard.
For breakfast,
companies formed, and we marched to the dining room, where
we all stood at
attention with long tables before us. We recited grace aloud,
and, after being
seated, we proceeded with our meal...Some teachers and other
workers weren’t
very friendly. When students made mistakes they often were
slapped or whipped
by the disciplinarian who usually carried a piece of rope in his
hip pocket.

DOCUMENT 14: Recollection of a death in the boarding
school.
My saddest and worst memory was when there was a girl that
went to school
there and she was from one of the communities on our
reservation and she died
there. They didn’t take her to the doctor. I remember all the
girls talking about
when she died and I remember thinking why didn’t they take her
to the doctor. I
remember the parents coming and getting their child and we all
got to see
what...we didn’t get to see her...but we knew what happened and
they came after
her, but she died there in the little girls section. I think she died
from pneumonia.
That’s what kids were saying. I couldn’t believe it happened. I
don’t remember
seeing doctors there, I just remember one day she was sick, sick
for three or four
days, and then she died.
H. SCHOOL PUNISHMENT
Students were punished harshly for not following the rules.
DOCUMENT 15: Physical discipline was used by teachers at
most boarding schools.
It was common for a student to be punished for speaking their
native language.

Here, a young student describes an example of this:
“One time I was given enough demerits so I had to miss two
movies in a row for
speaking my native Lakota language…Missing two movies was
bad enough, but
this [teacher] also made me bite down on a large rubber band,
and then he
stretched the rubber band to its limit, and let it snap back
against my lips. It was
very painful. All of this punishment for speaking my Lakota
language.”
8
DOCUMENT 16: One girl remembers the types of punishment
she experienced at
school.
I remember you had to hold your hands out and you were hit
with the ruler on one
side and you had to flip them over and they hit you on the other
side. They pulled
the back of your hair behind your neck. They made you kneel in
the broom closet
in the dark. They spanked you with a big old board..
I. STUDENT RESISTANCE
Many students resisted by running away or continuing to

practice their culture secretly.
DOCUMENT 17: Helma Ward, Makah, interview with Carolyn
Marr:
Two of our girls ran away...but they got caught. They tied their
legs up, tied their
hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway
so that if they fell,
fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she'd
get out there and
whip them and make them stand up again.
DOCUMENT 18: Native American Leader, Dennis Banks on the
Overlooked
Tragedy of Nation’s Indian Boarding Schools
But there was severe punishment for running away from that
kind of system. I ran
away. I kept running away. Almost once a week, I’d run away
from those schools.
They’d catch me. They’d bring me back to the school, beat me.
And it was—it
was terrible.
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/8/native_american_lea
der_dennis_banks
DOCUMENT 19: Resistance - “Letter from Superintendent
Padgett to
Commissioner of Indian Affairs on January 11, 1921.”
“I came upon Albert Whitecalf [a student] beating upon a tin
pan and singing an
Indian song with a bunch of boys around him dancing and

singing to his
accompaniment. When Albert espied me he shamefacedly put
the tin pan down
and the singing and dancing stopped. However, after I had
gotten into the building
the singing started again.”
J. LEGACY OF THE SCHOOLS
Assimilation came at a great cost to the students. They found
that once they went home,
they could not relate or even speak to their families. They felt
they had lost all sense of
who they were.
DOCUMENT 20: Native American Leader Dennis Banks on the
Overlooked
Tragedy of Nation’s Indian Boarding Schools
[T]hey cut off all communication with your parents, and a lot of
letters, which I
found later in—I stayed there for six years without
communicating to—with my
parents at all. And finally, they let us go home for six years. Of
course, we
couldn’t speak the language. We could speak only English…
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/8/native_american_lea
der_dennis_banks
DOCUMENT 21: Interview with a former student about losing
their Indian identity
Going to school at boarding school, I guess I was really
traumatized that they
didn’t let me speak my language, so I was kind of ashamed of

who I was. I never
got into the traditional or cultural part of our Lakota ways, even
my language.
9
When I went to school I really felt ashamed of being Indian.
DOCUMENT 22: Wright, a Pattwin Indian who was sent to
boarding school at six
years old, recollects a conversation he had with his
grandmother.
“I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk
Indian to her and I
said, ‘Grandma, I don’t understand you,’ “. “She said,“then who
are you?’”
Wright says he told her his name was Billy. “ Your name’s not
Billy. Your
name’s TAH-rruhm,’ ‘ She told him. “And I went, ‘That’s not
what they told
me.”
DOCUMENT 23: An interview with former student, Anne
Bender
I seldom heard from my parents and was so young when I came
away that I did
not even remember them…When I arrived at the station, I was
met by my mother
who had with her my two younger sisters, and two young
brothers whom I had

never seen. They greeted me kindly but they and everything
seemed so strange
that I burst into tears….
When my father returned from work he greeted me kindly but
scanned me
carefully from head to foot. He asked me if I remembered him,
but I had to
answer "No". He talked to me kindly and tried to help me recall
my early
childhood, which proved unsuccessful. At last he told me I had
changed greatly
from a loving child to a stranger and seemed disappointed which
only added to
my lonesomeness.”
http://www.twofrog.com/hamptonstories1.html
DOCUMENT 24: A student from the Hopi tribe was confronted
by her uncle when
she visited home about how she had changed while at school:
“You proud and stubborn girl! Why are you straying from the
Hopi way of life?
Don’t you know it is not good for a Hopi to be proud? Haven’t I
told you a Hopi
must not pretend to hold himself above his people? Why do you
keep trying to be
a white man? You are a Hopi. Go home. Marry in the Hopi way.
Have
children…Leave these white people who are leading you away
from your own
beliefs.”
PART 3 - POPULAR NOTIONS OF INDIANS

[In the late 1800s] the rampant exploitation of natural
resources, and the conquering, or in
some cases extermination of Natives was recast in the popular
imagination as a necessary
consequence of progress.
Indians could be depicted in all of their "natural" glory, as
noble savages, mythical icons
of America's wilderness past. This phenomenon allowed
Americans to largely forget the
ugly consequences of their expansionist past. Additionally, even
though the Noble
Savage is defended as being a "positive" stereotype, the result is
historical amnesia and
the dehumanization of real people who still exist. By cementing
the Indian as an "other"
from the past, it allows modern society to largely ignore the
existence and plight of
Native Americans today.
10
PHOTO 4: PHOTO 5:
(Below) Handpainted print of a young
woman by the river. Early 1900s. Photo by
Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature
and Science.
(Above) Charles American Horse (the
son of Chief American Horse). Oglala
Lakota. 1901. Photo by William Herman Rau.
Source - Princeton Digital Library.

PHOTO 6:
(Right) Piegan men giving prayer to the
Thunderbird near a river in Montana.
1912. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source -
Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
11
PHOTO 7:
(Right) Cheyenne Chief Wolf Robe. Color
halftone reproduction of a painting from a F. A.
Rinehart photograph. 1898. Source - Denver
Public
Library Digital Collections.

PHOTOGRAPH 8: Oglala War Party
"a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of inter
tribal warfare, carefully
making their way down a hillside in the vicinity of the enemy's
camp." Curtis Photograph,
1907.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/nati
ve/ns1-brave/index.html
12
DOCUMENT 25: Bubble Gum Card
“Indian Gum: The Original Picture Book Gum. This is one of a
series of cards illustrating

Indian and Pioneer romantic days”
http://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2014/04/luqaiot.jpg
DOCUMENT 26: Cough Medicine. Dr. Kilmer’s Indian Cough
Cure
13
DOCUMENT: Chase and Sanborn’s Teas and Coffees

PAPER 1 – EDUCATION ANDNATIVE AMERICAN
ASSIMILATION
Education programs were instituted in the late 19th century
to remove Indian
children from the influence of tribal traditions and
offer them a proper American ed-
ucation. To make Indian children patriotic and
productive citizens, government-run
boarding schools, reservation boarding schools, and
day schools were introduced.
These schools strictly adhered to the speaking of
only the English language. They
were conducted with military-like schedules and discipline,
and emphasized
farming and othermanual skills. The dailyschedule
was split between academics
and vocational (job) training. By 1893, such
education for Indian children was
mandatory.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
Using the primary source documents and
photographs provided, investigate
the causes and effects of forced assimilation on
the Native American people in
the late 1800s and early1900s; and how did the
reality compare with popular
American views of Native Americans?
Writing process:

Using the sources in the document packet, you
should answer the following
questions in the paper:
1. The first part of your paper should answer
the following questions:
a. What was the purpose of assimilating the Native
American people?
b. What were the perspectives of the US government
officials, and the
American public?
2. The second part of the paper should address
the following questions:
a. What was the reaction of the Native American
peoples?
b. What were the effects of forced assimilation on
Native American
culture, and society?
c. How did Native Americans resist these
assimilation attempts?
3. Finally, in the third part of the paper, answer
the following question:
a. By looking at the photographs and documents,
how do the views
presented by the government officials and students’
themselves
compare to the popular vision of Indians as
presented in postcards,
and advertisements of Part 3 of the document packet?

This is your
opinion; I am looking at how you interpret the
documents and
photos.
GUIDELINES: DUE SEPTEMBER 19, 11:30pm
• Length: 1000 - 1200 WORDS
• Font: 12 point, Times New Roman. Default, 1-
inch margins.
• Submit to the Dropbox on D2L only.Do not give
me a paper copy or email a
copy to me.
• Please ensure that your name is on the paper.
• Make up a title for the paper – you can be
creative.
• There should not be any spaces between the
paragraphs – indent the first
word of the paragraph to indicate a new paragraph.
• Do not use any othersources for this paper –
use only the documents
provided on D2L.
o Use at least two documents from the primary
source reading
packet per topic(see outline below)
o When using the documents, do not quote

the entire document,only
one sentence. Use your own words to explain what
the specific
documents might mean when you use them as
evidence.
• Write an outline to organize your ideasand lay
out validreasoning to
support your claims.
Paper Outline:
Use the “writing process” questions as topics for
the paragraphs.
•
• Introduction
o Thesis: What your paper is going to be
about.
• Body Paragraphs (does not have to be 5
paragraphs!)
Part 1
o Paragraph 1
§ Topic sentence + evidence to support your topic
• (What documents/photos can be used here?).
o Paragraph 2
§ Topic sentence + evidence to support your topic.

Part 2
o Paragraph 1
o Paragraph 2
o Paragraph 3
Part 3
o Paragraph 1
• (What documents/photos can be used here?)
• Conclusion
o Briefly, summarize your findings from Parts1, 2
and 3.
• Bibliography (Placed below the main essay)
o Even though I have given you the information,
always add a
bibliography if you are citing sources.

• Swart, Lisa (ed). Education and Native American
Assimilation:
Primary Sources. MTSU: Murfreesboro, 2018.

1PAPER1–EDUCATIONANDNATIVEAMERICANASSIMILATION.docx

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