Native Schooling
For many years Native American people have been discriminated against in the United States as well as in the Public School system. Beginning with the common-school movement of the 1830s and 1840s, which attempted to stop the flow toward a more diverse society, the school systems have continued to be geared exclusively toward WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Native Americans have been forced to abandon their culture and conform to our “American” ways (Rothenberg, 1998, pp. 258-259.)
Thomas L. McKenney focused on deculturalizing the children through public schooling (Spring, 1997, p. 16). McKenney served as superintendent of Indian trade for fourteen years. After that office was abolished in 1823, he was appointed as the first head of the Office of Indian affairs. His idea was that a person could “civilize” the Native American children in schools when they were away from their parents. He tried to force assimilation on these Native American children. He wanted them to convert to Christianity, and adopt the WASP’s beliefs and morals. In 1827 McKenney wrote to the Secretary of War, James Barbour stating that, “children, who only needed to be protected from evil . . . and under the conditions of isolation and education Indians could be civilized in one generation (Spring, 1997, p.18).”
Missionaries were sent to the tribes to spread the word of Christianity under the Civilization Act. Today the act of sending in missionaries would be viewed as a violation of the First Amendment. The amendment states that there shall be no governmental support of any religion. In that time though they were still beginning their school day with a reading from the Protestant Bible (Spring, 1997, p. 18). The Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches brought into existence the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1810. Their mission was worldwide and they sent missionaries abroad as well as the Native American tribes. According to Spring, the missionaries viewed the Native Americans as foreign “heathen.” A powerful example of the path to deculturalization was Reverend James Ramsey’s visit to a Choctaw school in 1846. As quoted in the Spring text, Ramsey stated, “`I showed them [on a map] that the people who speak the English language, and who occupied so small a part of ...
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... p. 103), which encouraged Indian involvement in the school systems. This required a separate local committee to represent the population if the majority of the school board was not Native American. This committee was given control over all Native American education programs affiliated with the United States Government. The ideals of this act were expanded upon in 1988 with the Tribally Controlled Schools Act. This act provided for grants to be given directly to tribes to fund the operation of their schools. With these positive modifications equality is in the possible, but distant future.
Native Americans have been oppressed for hundreds of years since the their land was taken from them. The United States Government simply expects the Native American’s to assimilate to our society. Their culture and tribal ways have been stolen without a second thought. The government should provide some sort of retribution for these people. Perhaps Native American culture should be taught in our schools as well as American culture. Hopefully, someday everything will be equal in the world as well as in the public school system no matter what the person’s heritage.
People know about the conflict between the Indian's cultures and the settler's cultures during the westward expansion. Many people know the fierce battles and melees between the Indians and the settlers that were born from this cultural conflict. In spite of this, many people may not know about the systematic and deliberate means employed by the U.S. government to permanently rid their new land of the Indians who had lived their own lives peacefully for many years. There are many strong and chilling reasons and causes as to why the settlers started all of this perplexity in the first place. There was also a very strong and threatening impact on the Native Americans through the schooling that stained the past and futures of Native Americans not only with blood but also with emotion. It was all a slow and painful plan of the "white man" to hopefully get rid of the Indian culture, forever. The Native American schools were created in an attempt to destroy the Native American way of life, their culture, beliefs and tradi...
Today there are more than a million Indians in America in all phases of development, some still attempting to adjust to American civilization, others completely Americanized and some still holding on to their Native heritage. There are 300 federal Indian reservations and about 21 state reservations present in the United States today. These reservations are considered sovereign nations, however these people still poses American citizenship. In my opinion, the process of assimilation in the United States was an extremely cruel and unnecessary one. Although it did work out for the best in the long run and today the Indian Americans have the freedom to live the way they chose on their reservations, I firmly believe that the process of getting to where we are today could have been much better had it taken a different route.
At these boarding schools, Native American children were able to leave their Indian reservations to attend schools that were often run by wealthy white males. These individuals often did not create these schools with the purest of intentions for they often believed that land occupied by Native American Tribes should be taken from them and put to use; it is this belief that brought about the purpose of the boarding schools which was to attempt to bring the Native American community into mainstream society (Bloom, 1996). These boarding schools are described to have been similar to a military institution or a private religious school. The students were to wear uniforms and obey strict rules that included not speaking one’s native tongue but rather only speaking English. Punishments for not obeying such rules often included doing laborious chores or being physically reprimanded (Bloom, 1996). Even with hars...
The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...
Talking Back to Civilization , edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, is a compilation of excerpts from speeches, articles, and texts written by various American Indian authors and scholars from the 1890s to the 1920s. As a whole, the pieces provide a rough testimony of the American Indian during a period when conflict over land and resources, cultural stereotypes, and national policies caused tensions between Native American Indians and Euro-American reformers. This paper will attempt to sum up the plight of the American Indian during this period in American history.
“Ask him, before he comes into the presence of the Lord, if he is willing to conform to the laws of the country in which he lives, the country that guarantees his idle existence.” This is the general belief shared among the missionaries, in order for the Native Americans to enter the “utopia” which the evangelists have created, the Indians must throw away their way of life and adapt completely to the white man’s culture. Mrs.Rowell’s claim and Miss Evans acceptance of this ideology reveals that the American missionary society believes that they are above these Native American “heaths”. Furthermore, in Gretchen Ronnow’s, “Native American Writers of the United States”, Ronnow declares, “He [John M. Oskison] often juxtaposes issues without indicating his own opinion about them: traditional values versus mainstream values, formal education versus the teachings of Native American elders, intermarriage versus separatism… (254).” The relation between American settlers (in this case, the missionaries) and Native Americans is enlightened since Oskison has been exposed to both cultures as a Cherokee American by birth. Therefore, Oskison works are based upon his observations growing up. Overall, from the perspective of Oskison and history, it is easy to prove that Americans believed their ways to be better. With this understanding, it is not surprising that Mrs.Rowell and Miss Evans would treat Harjo with contempt and believe themselves to be
The Native Americans were once a proud and power race but now they are become discriminated upon. As the united states continue expand and improve in technology; it pretty much left the Indians
The history of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples of the North America and European settlers represents a doubtlessly tragic succession of events, which resulted in a drastic decline in Indigenous population leading to the complete annihilation of some Native groups, and bringing others to the brink of extinction. This disastrous development left the Indigenous community devastated, shaking their society to its very pillars. From the 1492 Incident and up to the 19th century the European invasion to the North America heavily impacted the social development of the Indigenous civilization: apart from contributing to their physical extermination by waging incessant war on the Indian tribes, Anglo-Americans irreversibly changed the Native lifestyle discrediting their entire set of moral guidelines. Using the most disreputable inventions of the European diplomacy, the colonizers and later the United States’ government not only turned separate Indigenous tribes against each other but have also sown discord among the members of the same tribe. One of the most vivid examples of the Anglo-American detrimental influence on the Native groups is the history of the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Indian Removal Policy. The Cherokee removal from Georgia (along with many other Indian nations) was definitely an on-going conflict that did not start at any moment in time, but developed in layers of history between the Native Americans, settlers of various cultures, and the early U.S. government. This rich and intricate history does not allow for easy and quick judgments as to who was responsible for the near demise of the Cherokee Nation. In 1838, eight thousand Cherokees perished on a forced march out of Georgia, which came to be called the T...
These public policies focus on giving Native Americans in various ways to be independent in their own reservations. While these policies also attempt to motivate the integration of Native Americans into the mainstream society of the United States, they largely focus on ensuring that the Natives are independent in their respective reservations. An example of a public policy that reflects cultural relativity is the Indian Reorganization Act that resulted in the award of some compensation to Natives for lost land and property. This policy has numerous positive effects on Native Americans with regards to cultural and economic
Looking back at the history of the United States, there are many instances and issues concerning race and ethnicity that shape the social classes that make up the United States today. There are many stories concerning the American Indian that are filled with betrayal, but there is probably none more cruel and shameful as the removal of the Cherokee Indians in 1838. Blood thirsty for money and property, the white settlers would soon use dirty methods to drive the Cherokee out of their home- lands. The United States government played a critical role in the removal of the Cherokee. “Soon the state governments insisted on the removal of the native peoples, who were already out numbered by the white settlers and considered to be uncivilized “heathens,” not worthy of the land they held” (Sherman 126). This was the attitude of the white settlers. Because of the color of their skin, they spoke a different language, and they were not accustomed to the white mans’ way of life, the Cherokee people suffered many great afflictions even unto death.
In 1887 the federal government launched boarding schools designed to remove young Indians from their homes and families in reservations and Richard Pratt –the leader of Carlisle Indian School –declared, “citizenize” them. Richard Pratt’s “Kill the Indian… and save the man” was a speech to a group of reformers in 1892 describing the vices of reservations and the virtues of schooling that would bring young Native Americans into the mainstream of American society.
The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 brought about the policy of Cultural Assimilation for the Native American peoples. Headed by Richard Henry Pratt, it founded several Residential Schools for the re-education and civilization of Native Americans. Children from various tribes and several reservations were removed from their families with the goal of being taught how to be c...
Most all ethnicities and cultures have been prosecuted at one time or another from an oppressing source. In the case of the Native Americans, it was the English coming in and taking their land right from underneath them. As the new colonies of the cohesive United States of America expanded, they ran into the territories of the then referred to Indians. These people were settled down south on the east coast, for example Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas. America obtained this land through the Louisiana Purchase, where they bought it from France. The Native Americans were already there before anyone, yet the big power countries bargained with their land. The Native Americans did not live the way the American democracy did, and they
Contrary to popular belief, discrimination of Native Americans in America still widely exist in the 21st century! So you may ask, why? Well, to answer that one question, I will give you 3 of the countless reasons why this unfortunate group of people are punished so harshly for little good reason. So now, let’s get into it, shall we!
You simply cannot justify ripping a child from a loving home and stripping them of their culture and placing them in prison like dormitories where you attempt to “civilize” them. Deculturaliztion will never be a right or just act. Decades later the Native Americans are still picking up the pieces from the wrecking ball that was the Indian Boarding School experience.