In the late 1870’s, while the American-Indian war was still being fought, another war began against Native American culture. It began when the American government took Native American children away from the families and placed them into boarding schools that were far from their homes and taught them the ways of the white man. Native Americans have since struggled to survive on the lands where they were placed many years ago, a place of destitution and mostly despair. Reservations are amongst the poorest places in the Western hemisphere. They have the highest rates of addiction, domestic violence, and suicide in the United States. Is this a situation of cause and effect; and is there hope for a better future for those that seem to be haunted by the past? Hopelessness Rooted In History In 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first off-reservation Indian school opened by Army officer, Richard Pratt. Pratt based the program off of a program he started at an Indian prison. Pratt quoted an Army general in a speech he gave, “A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one.” Pratt said that while he agreed with the sentiment, he felt it was better to, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” (npr.org/templates). Consequently, Indian children were taken to these schools in an effort to civilize them and upon arrival were given European style clothes, haircuts, and new names. They were forbidden to speak in their native tongue or to engage in cultural practices and were severely disciplined if caught doing so; this total immersion into white culture put these children into an inconceivable torment. While attending the school, white families could make application for pupils to work their land, now the “In... ... middle of paper ... ...opher D., PhD. “Indian Boarding School Experience, Substance Use, and Mental Health among Urban Two-Spirit American Indian/Alaska Natives.” The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 38(5) 2012: 421-427. Print Lowrey, Annie. “Pain on the Reservation.” NYTimes.com. The New York Times. n.d. Web July, 2013. Trimble, Charles. “New economic hope on Pine Ridge Reservation.” Indianz.com. Indianz.Com. n.d. Web February, 2014 Ambler, Marjane. “Sustaining our home, Determining our destiny.” Tribal College Journal. Vol. 13 Issue 3, P8, Spring Selden, Ron. “Working Together, Unlimited Things Can Happen.” Tribal College Journal. Vol. 16 Issue 1, P18-19, Fall 2004 White, Tracie. “Broken Promises: The state of health care on Native American Reservations.” Scopeblog.Stanford.Edu. Stanford Medicine. Web November 2013 NPR American journal of drugs college tribal journal
In 1875, Captain Richard Pratt began an ambitious experiment that involved teaching Indians in Florida to read and write English, putting them in uniforms and drilling them like soldiers. "Kill the Indian and save the man," was Pratt's motto. With the blessing of Congress, Pratt expanded his program by establishing the Carlisle School for Indian Students. Native Americans who attended these schools help tell the story of an experiment gone bad and its consequences for a generation of Indians.
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...
Banks, D., Erodes, R. (2004). Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement. Ojibwa Warrior. Retrieved January 20, 2005, from http://www.oupress.com/bookdetail.asp?isbn=0-8061-3580-8
The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE
In the late 1800s, the United States proposed an educational experiment that the government hoped would change the traditions and customs of Native Americans. Special schools were created all over the United States with the intention of "civilizing" Native youth. This paper will explore the history and conditions of Native American boarding schools and why they were ultimately unsuccessful.
American Indians have had health disparities as result of unmet needs and historical traumatic experiences that have lasted over 500 hundred years.1(p99) Since first contact American Indians have been exposed to infectious disease and death2(p19), more importantly, a legacy of genocide, legislated forcible removal, reservation, termination, allotment, and assimilation3. This catastrophic history had led to generational historical traumas and contributes to the worst health in the United States.2 American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) represent 0.9 percent of the United States population4(p3) or 1.9 million AI/AN of 566 federally recognized tribes/nations.5 American Indians/Alaska Natives have significantly higher mortality rates of intentional and unintentional injuries, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease than other American.6
Historical trauma has brought psychological effects on the Native American community. Many suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, depression, and poverty. I wondered why they do not get help from the government and after watching the documentary California’s “Lost” Tribes I began to understand that in any reservation the tribe is the government, so they do not have the same rights as a city outside the reservation. Many of the the reservations were placed in areas where they could not do any form of agriculture, so they did not have a source of income. Many of this reservations have to find ways to get themselves out of poverty and many of the reservations within California have found a way to get out of their poverty by creating casinos
Loew, P. (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: histories of endurance and renewal. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Villanueva, Michael, Tonigan, J. Scott, & Miller, William R. (2007). Response of Native American clients to three treatment methods for alcohol dependence. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 6(2), 41-48. doi: 10.1300/J233v06n02_04
"Native American Youth 101." Aspen Institue. Aspen Institues, 24 July 11. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Mental illness is an addition to all of the previously listed perceived disadvantages of Native Americans by those of other ethnicities. Many believe that Native Americans are at a higher risk for mental illness than those of European descent. Many also believe that Native Americans have more people suffer from depression than their white counterparts (Stark & Wilkins, American Indian Politics and the American Political System, 2011). There have been studies conducted to test whether or not this is the case, with mixed results. Some studies say that Natives are at a higher risk and others say they are not. This discrepancy makes the answer unclear. If Natives are actually at a higher risk for and have more people suffering from depression than individuals of European descent, the question to ask is, “why?” Several factors play into depression and other mental illness, including biology, social standing, history, family, and any preexisting/comorbid diseases that could contribute to or cause depression.
Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian
Sandefur, G. (n.d.). American Indian reservations: The first underclass areas? Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc121f.pdf
of Native American Culture as a Means of Reform,” American Indian Quarterly 26, no. 1
Irwin, Lee, ed. Native American Spirituality. Nebraska: The University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Kehoe, Alice Beck.