Long Forgotten: The Education of Indian Children through Government-Run Day Schools

Timothy Handy History 591: The Dawes Act

2 March 2016

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By the 1880s, the American government had embarked on an ambitious, albeit

misguided, program to assimilate Indians into Anglo-American society. The assimilation

program, kicked off by the passage of the Dawes Act of 1887, proceeded to target various parts

of Indian society where the federal government thought it would make a significant impact. On

one front, the federal government did away with the reservation system, as it was known.

Instead, it began allotting land to encourage individual farming.1 As many Indians lived on the

reservations and partook in a communal farming system prior to assimilation efforts, Americans

sought to instead supplant the Victorian, nuclear family ideal in its place. This, effectively,

attempted to reorganize the family and gender roles for Indians as well as upending the farm

system Indians had used.2 On another front, the federal government forced an education policy

on Indian children that would not only teach them subjects on par with their white brethren, but

also to teach them “valuable” life skills, such as laundry, farming, and harvesting.3 However,

many historians have argued that policies instituted under the Dawes Act were not just

misguided, noble actions, but rather worked to eliminate the Indian culture entirely.4

Scholars concentrating on Indian education policies have largely examined the creation

and implementation of boarding schools. Indian families either voluntarily gave up their children

to the schools in hopes of the children receiving better nourishment and living conditions, or the

federal government coerced families into sending their children away. Either way, parental rights

1 Dawes Act of 1887, Public Law 49-119, U.S. Statutes at Large 24 (1887): 387-91. 2 Wendy Wall, “Gender and the ‘Citizen Indian.’” In Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the

Women’s West, ed. by Elizabeth Jameson & Susan Armitage (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 203-4 3 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Course of Indian Study for the Indian Schools of the United States:

Industrial and Literary,” 5. 4 Margaret D. Jacobs, “Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective.” In Boarding School Blues:

Revisting American Indian Education Experiences, ed. by Clifford E. Trafzer (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 211-15

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were typically signed away in their entirety.5 These boarding schools became notorious for their

substandard living conditions; children were underfed and malnourished, ventilation was almost

non-existent, and the schools were poorly constructed, which led to unsanitary settings allowing

diseases to propagate.6 Boarding schools, however, were not the only tool employed by the

federal government. Day schools, missionary schools, and public schools were utilized as well.

However, little historical inquiry has been done on the government-run day schools. This seems

odd considering that in 1900, government-run boarding schools totaled 106, with capacity of up

to 16,485 children (although, these schools were overcrowded by almost 600 students), while

day schools totaled 147, with enrollment and capacity matching at almost 6,000 students.7

Although boarding schools construction allowed for a larger capacity than day schools, the fact

that day schools greatly outnumbered boarding schools should mean that there would be troves

of data. Thanks to government reports, some limited data such as enrollment figures exist for the

day schools. However, little information exists that address illness and death rates in day schools,

nor the educational curriculum. For historians, this is a topic that has received little attention, as

most scholarship has focused on boarding schools. What scholarship does exist either views

Indian day schools as a positive tool or as a neutral force, rather than analyzing the conditions

and expectations.

What scholarship exists suggests that the major timeframe for a comparative analysis of

boarding schools and day schools occupies a space between approximately 1900 and 1914,

although some important works surface in 1928. By looking at what scant information is

available, such as statistical records, reports by the federal government, as well as recent

5 Ibid., 215-16.6 U.S. Department of the Interior, The Problem of the Indian Administration: Report of a Survey Made at

the Request of Honorable Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, and submitted to him, February 21, 1928, by Lewis Meriam, 314.

7 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the Year 1905, part 1,” 635.

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historical scholarship, it appears that the experiences of children attending day schools on

reservations were not entirely different than those who attended boarding schools. The federal

government underfunded the schools and the Office of Indian Affairs officials took the same

blasé attitude towards health concerns. In many regards, the experience of Indian children in day

schools could be considered to be comparable to children who were taken to boarding schools.

With infectious diseases and the curriculum largely mirroring each other, day schools were

expected to function as training grounds for boarding schools. In order to gain a more

comprehensive view of the federal government’s education policies, day schools should be

included in any analysis.

OFFICIAL REPORTS

Direct evidence for the differences between boarding schools and day schools is hard to

come by. Due to the nature of assimilation efforts following the Dawes Act, the Office of Indian

Affairs (OIA) administrators and Congress placed a heavy importance on boarding schools,

while day schools appeared to be mostly an afterthought. Throughout official documents, such as

yearly reports and education curriculum, statements addressing day schools are limited to short

passages confirming that many of the same principles applied to the day schools as they would to

the boarding schools, such as educational standards or health conditions. For example, in the

“Report of the Superintendent of Indian Schools” for 1900, the superintendent for Indian

schools, Estelle Reel, traveled extensively throughout the United States to survey schools and

their conditions. At best, this report portrays the boarding schools in a very positive light, and

makes little mention of day schools. To Reel, education, sanitation, and conditions in buildings

were typically all satisfactory. What merited special mention, according to Reel, was the

potential that day schools students held for being successful students at boarding schools. From

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her explanation, it is clear that the course of education at the day schools was to include

agricultural work for the boys and domestic service for the girls, as those were the same

expectations of children at boarding schools.8 In 1905, the “Report of Superintendent of Indian

Schools” barely mentions the day schools at all. The small space given to this discussion argues

that day schools should be expanded, but only to alleviate the strain on boarding schools. By

expanding the day school system, the report argues, American values would be instilled in

children. In turn, those values would be taken home and negate any hostility that parents or the

older generations would hold toward American schooling.9

Although most government reports continuously spoke to the effectiveness of schools, it

would be several decades before the first honest study was conducted. The government published

the Meriam Report in 1928; this report was an in-depth study on Indian conditions under the

various assimilation efforts of the Dawes Act. For years, official reports for OIA had been

suspiciously positive, but the Meriam Report served as a rebuke to years of official government

surveys. The report lambasted the boarding school system extensively, noting day schools

provided a clear, healthy alternative that would allow children to remain with their families and

develop social and familial ties. However, existing day schools garnered less attention – this

short statement sums up the report’s view: “The weaknesses of the government day schools are

the usual weaknesses of the Indian Service: low training standards and lack of qualified

personnel to work with the families from which the pupils come.”10 Terse missives like this are

common, showing that although not widely expanded upon, the same conditions that bred

problems in boarding schools were also affecting the day schools. In fact, chronic underfunding,

8 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the year 1900,

part 1” 421, 429. 9 U.S Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1905, part 1,” 400. 10Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration, 413.

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as well as disdain for Indian and tribal culture, acted as severe impediments to day schools being

adopted even after the Meriam Report.11

Extensive scholarship on Indian day schools remains elusive. Even in the first major

monograph on day schools, the focus is less on day-to-day operations and more on the

interaction between the OIA officials and the Indian tribe. The text, Lessons From an Indian Day

School, written by Adrea Lawrence, was published in 2011. She relies on correspondence

between OIA agent Clara True, who was stationed at the Santa Clara Pueblo, and Clinton

Crandall, her supervisor and superintendent at the Santa Fe Indian School. This correspondence

is significant, because there are few, complete records such as this. Lawrence readily admits that

the dearth of scholarship on day schools needs to be addressed. However, even though her focus

is how the OIA agent interacted with the Indians, the correspondence between True and Crandall

addresses illness and disease outbreaks at the school, as well as conditions at the pueblo.12

Thanks to her work, Lawrence has provided some important insight into the day school

experience.

ILLNESS AND DISEASE

Concerns over the spread of tuberculosis, diphtheria, measles, and trachoma were

widespread, particularly in the Indian boarding schools. Disease was also commonplace on

reservations as well, which suggests that reservation day schools also struggled with keeping

students healthy. Although primarily concerned with boarding schools, reports argued that

poorly built structures, overcrowding, underfunding, and general ineptitude contributed to the

11Brenda J. Child, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families 1900-1940 (Lincoln: University

of Nebraska Press, 1998), 14. 12 Adrea Lawrence, Lessons From an Indian Day School: Negotiating Colonization in Northern New

Mexico, 1902-1907 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2011), 8-10, 12.

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breeding and transmission of disease.13 In fact, disease (primarily tuberculosis) had become so

rampant in boarding schools, that special sanatorium schools were established as a place to send

sick children to recuperate and rest. According to Dr. Jacob Breid, a doctor for the East Farm

Sanatorium, the sanatorium schools were designed as short term facilities for children to rest and

continue their schooling, as children who were “sent back to the reservations…did not receive

good care, many of them did not recover.”14 By his account, the sanatorium’s primary functions

were simple: infected children only needed rest, sunshine, fresh air, and a steady diet of healthy

foods. His only discussion about educating Indian children to prevent the spread of infectious

disease was merely that everyone should refrain from spitting on the floor.15 It is curious, since

by time of publication in 1914, OIA had been recommending many other measures to prevent the

spread of disease, including trying to improve sanitation and segregation of sick individuals.16

Even though Breid is largely sanguine about the positive effects of the sanatorium and why it

was necessary, he probably had been right in his conjectures as to how children on the

reservation would fare. By all accounts, the sanatorium was up to par on health and dietary

requirements that should have been in place in all schools – including boarding and day schools.

Since Breid argued that diet and fresh food were paramount to curing tuberculosis, it can be

inferred that he viewed reservations as lacking in these resources to adequately nourish the

children. It should be noted that even though East Farm Sanatorium was the largest operating

tuberculosis hospital, it was limited to accommodation of only 100 patients and was considered

underfunded and overcrowded by 1924, ten years after publication of his findings.17

13 Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration, 315-19. 14 Jacob Beird, “The East Farm Sanatorium School,” The Red Man, May 1914, 362. The implied meaning

here is that the reservations were unable to take care of those who were infected. 15 Ibid., 363-65. 16 Christian A. McMillen, “’The Red Man and the White Plague’: Rethinking Race, Tuberculosis, and

American Indians, 1890-1950.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 614.17 Ibid., 614.

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Numerous accounts from doctors, OIA, and other onlookers largely agree that conditions

at boarding schools allowed diseases like tuberculosis to spread. Problems with ventilation,

caused by an insufficient amount of windows, and overcrowding have all been argued as one of

the major factors that caused disease. Other issues like poorly constructed shower and toilet

facilities (and a lack of functioning toilets), as well as insufficient access to soap, and clean

towels and linens all contributed to the spread of disease.18

Overcrowding and lackluster sanitary conditions helped spread disease. Ineptitude and

poor funding were equally responsible for the squalid conditions of the boarding schools. Even

in the optimistic reports filed by the Superintendent of Indian Schools, a number of boarding

schools were well over capacity.19 Enrolling students over the capacity meant that often beds

were shared, in some situations, as many as fifteen beds were shared. Beds were put wherever

they would fit, while the physical footprint of each child was negligible. One report stated,

“Viewing these dormitories at first hand, it was hardly necessary actually [sic] to compute this

factor when in dormitory after dormitory beds were found very close together, often even

touching each other.”20 The Meriam Report of 1928 recommended that overcrowding end, and

that if at all possible, children be shifted back to day schools on reservations.21 The same report

cited deplorable dormitory conditions, stating they were not much better than barns, with

occasions of students living in condemned buildings. In fact, barns and other farm buildings were

more likely to have been renovated instead of dormitories.22 In the girl’s dormitory, windows and

fire escapes were boarded up to prevent comingling with the boys, a tactic that not only created a

18 Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration, 314-19. 19 U.S Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1905, part 1,” 387-92. 20 Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration 315-16. 21 Ibid., 336. 22 Ibid., 316.

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fire hazard, but also prevented fresh air from flowing into the dormitories.23 Many children came

from reservations that were in the midst of a virgin-soil epidemic; affected schools became

inherently unhealthy, causing them to become breeding grounds for disease.24 Because children

were overworked in difficult conditions, the likelihood that they would develop some of sort of

illness was high.25

Although it was widely reported that diseases spread rapidly, one major unknown

element is at what rate diseases spread, both in boarding schools and days schools. Another

unknown factor is what type of conditions children were subject to at day schools. Breid,

however, implicitly states that students with tuberculosis were likely to die if they returned to the

reservations.26 In the same year, the “Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs” was much

more direct, stating that sending diseased children home from boarding schools was not for the

child’s benefit, but rather, for the benefit of the healthy children at the school.27 Fourteen years

later, the Meriam Report concurred with that assessment: “When a child is acutely ill, he is

usually sent to the hospital for care. He may not remain until convalescence is complete, and in

the case of tuberculosis, the child is frequently sent home, even though the conditions in the

home may be the worst possible for the child.”28 Within the same report, special notes were

made that at several day schools, adequate access to doctors and other medical care was not

23 Ibid., 316. 24 Alexander S. Dawson, “Histories and Memories of the Indian Boarding Schools in Mexico, Canada, and

the United States,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 5 (September 2012): 82. A virgin-soil epidemic is when a new disease is introduced to a Native population that had no prior experience or immunities to it. How much the theory of virgin-soil epidemic and its affect on the Native populations has come under attack lately as being a primary driver of infections, but it still should not be discounted. Although a virgin-soil epidemic may refer to an epidemic resulting from the initial wave of disease following a conquest, several historians, including Dawson use the term more liberally.

25 Child, Boarding School Seasons, 42. 26 One would believe that the reservations probably allowed for a generous amount of open air to help

children recover. Although one is suspect to believe that they had access to the swath of fresh foods available at the sanatorium.

27 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the Year 1914,” 12.

28 Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration, 334.

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provided. Routine procedures such as checking heart rate and temperature were barely completed

and few things were documented. In another case, a doctor failed to check both eyes when a

child had been referred for an eye infection. Lack of competent doctors was enough of a concern

that it was addressed several times, and mentioned that incidents such as these happened on more

than one occasion on more than one reservation.29 By 1904, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs

recognized that children were especially prone to infection, especially in crowded classrooms,

which existed both at day schools and boarding schools.30 In her records, OIA agent True notes

that she was expected to act as a pseudo doctor, engaging in multiple tasks that typically fell to

doctors. But she was also subordinate to the doctor who was assigned to the pueblo –her

supervisor wouldn’t take her statements at face value without corroboration of the pueblo

physician.31 Although she was able to witness accounts first hand, her statements were not taken

under advisement until the doctor validated her accounts. The lack of qualified medical

personnel on reservations has been further corroborated through various reports, including the

yearly OIA reports, as well as the Meriam Report.

This lack of qualified medical personnel compounded the problem. While rampant,

tuberculosis was not the only concern that boarding schools, or even day schools, had to worry

about. Trachoma, an infectious disease that affected the eyes, was increasingly common, and by

1909, Surgeon General Walter Wyman considered the disease “to be a menace to the public

health.”32 The Surgeon General argued at the time that trachoma was an issue that largely

originated at boarding schools, meaning it should have been less common or nonexistent on

reservations. At the time, the disease had no viable cure, meaning those children who were

29 Ibid., 333-34. Although not necessarily representative of reservation day schools as a whole, it was significant enough to be mentioned.

30 McMillen, “’The Red Man and the White Plague,’” 619. 31 Lawrence, Lessons from An Indian Day School, 80, 89. 32 David H. DeJong, “’Unless They are Kept Alive’: Federal Indian Schools and Student Health, 1878-

1918.” American Indian Quarterly 31, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 269.

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infected were sent home to the reservation where they in turn could affect family members and

others in the tribe.33 This likely could have caused a new disease to be introduced onto the

reservations, much like the virgin-soil epidemics that they were already facing. In her assignment

at the Santa Clara Pueblo, True noted the outbreak of trachoma on the reservation. Considering

that her superior expected children to ultimately be funneled to his boarding school, it is natural

to assume that children from the boarding school returning home or interacting with family (who

were only a short distance away) would be a key source of transmittal. Coupling True’s account

of trachoma outbreaks at the Santa Clara Pueblo with the Surgeon General’s report that trachoma

was limited to boarding schools reinforces that point. 34

Were health conditions at the reservation day schools as bad as they were at the boarding

schools? Unfortunately, there is little data from that time period that would address that specific

claim, and official reports tend to lump day schools in with boarding schools on major issues.

Unique and special circumstances at day schools were only mentioned if they were considered

large problems. But how much of these reports apply solely to boarding schools is open for

debate. However, historians have alluded to the fact that diseases and infections at the boarding

schools were likely just as bad as conditions on the reservations. Some contend that conditions

were so poor on reservations, that parents willingly sent their children to boarding schools

assuming conditions were better, in an attempt to save the child. In fact, infection, disease, and

health in the day schools likely mirrored the conditions on the reservations as a whole, meaning

disease was likely commonplace.35 Coupled with the fact that day schools were expected to

operate at capacity, and only allowed to close under the most extreme circumstances, this is a

33 Ibid., 271-72.34 Lawrence, Lessons from an Indian Day School, 77-78, 162. 35 Keith R. Burich, “’No Place to Go’: The Thomas Indian School and the ‘Forgotten’ Indian Children of

New York,” Wicazo Sa Review 22, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 93, 96, 99.

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logical assumption. At best, reports and stories of infections and disease at day schools are

anecdotal, but they provide valuable insight into how the schools were run.

By 1897, Interior Department Indian Inspector William J. McConnell made it his priority

to investigate health concerns of Indians. In one visit to San Carlos Apache Day School in 1898,

he concluded that children were only given a cursory medical examination, if an examination

was given at all. McConnell also found that the desire to keep schools at capacity led to

devastating results – children were to be in the day school, unless they were in the final stages of

tuberculosis, thus disease would spread throughout the school, and as such, to their homes.36

While it has been infamously widespread that OIA policy was to pack boarding schools as full as

they could, it is also evident that the same policy applied to day schools as well.37 In 1914,

several articles in The Red Man magazine were dedicated to the plight of Indians caused by

infectious diseases. Even then, setting aside the now discredited opinion that Indians were more

prone to tuberculosis due to genetics, the assistant commissioner of Indian Affairs and several

doctors complained about the lack of sanitary conditions on Indian reservations, which led to the

epidemic spread of disease, with several making specific note that children were most

susceptible.38 The Public Health Service even reported that reservations had problems not unlike

the boarding schools: poor sanitation, lack of funding, and a lack of proper recordation of

infection and death rates.39 The1906 OIA report extolled building and sanitary conditions at

boarding schools. So much so that the report argued that homes constructed on reservations

36 Dejong, “’Unless They are Kept Alive,’” 263-64. 37 How strictly OIA policy was carried out at day schools is clearly up for debate. Much of the work has

been anecdotal at best. True, for example, shut down the school rather than bring in sick children. Lawrence makes it clear that True often acted independently of OIA policy if she found it to be inane.

38 Dr. F. Shoemaker, “Important Phases of the Tuberculosis Problem,” The Red Man, May 1914, 361-67. 39 Edgar B. Merrit, “Health Conditions Among Indians,” The Red Man, May 1914, 349.

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should be of the same quality to reduce the spread of diseases and infections, however ironic that

seems now.40

Curiously missing from any official reports were statistics on the rate of infections on

reservations or the boarding schools. It appears that few statistics existed, as few mentions

actually exist in reports. For example, death statistics in OIA reports list death totals per

reservation and whether the death was attributable to other Indians, whites, or if it was a

suicide.41 Statistical information about schools is confined to how many students attended each

school, the number of employees working at the school, and the total cost to the government.42 It

appears that any official records of illness or death would either be held by local OIA officials or

doctors. Starting in 1884, OIA was required by law to keep vital records through local Indian

agencies. However, in 1888 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs argued that maintaining such a

census would be too arduous of a task, not to mention costly. In a study of the Yakama

Reservation by Clifford E. Trafzer, he notes that in a twenty-year span, from 1888 to 1907, the

agents for the reservation only recorded nine deaths. In his extensive statistical work, he had to

review almost 4,000 documents to create a far-reaching tally of deaths and infection rates on the

reservation.43 Trafzer claims that OIA statistics published in their annual reports are likely

incomplete due to the shoddy nature of record keeping, at least until the 1920s. Using Trafzer’s

work, the annual death rates on reservations were likely significantly underreported.44 While that

may not necessarily be true for every reservation throughout the country, it gives an idea that

40 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the Year 1906,”

443. 41 U.S Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1905, part 1,” 638-39. Similarly formatted statistics are

available in some form through most OIA reports. However, into the twentieth century, the wording on some reports appears to have changed.

42 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1906,” 469-80. Similarly formatted statistics are available in nearly all OIA reports from the late ninteeth century into the twentieth century.

43 Clifford E. Trafzer, Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997), 12-13.

44 Ibid., 79.

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death rates and illnesses were likely higher than recorded. With how widely reported tuberculosis

was at the turn of the century, the numbers are practically ensured to be much higher. By

Trafzer’s estimates, from 1888 to 1964, 28 percent of deaths on the Yakama Reservation could

be definitely attributed to tuberculosis.45 Tuberculosis was able to spread rapidly in areas where

unsanitary living conditions existed near homes, as well as in areas where food supplies were

low or considered inadequate to supply nutrition – two shortcomings that have been directly

linked to OIA policies for reservations.46 The findings of his study show that tuberculosis was

the number one cause of death in children across all age ranges. Children, ages five to nine, died

from tuberculosis at a rate double to the next cause of death, and was exponentially higher in the

next two age groups.47 The fact that OIA and other government agencies did not keep sufficient

records on death rates or cause of death on reservations has not been lost on historians, nor was it

lost on officials and advocates at the time.

Lack of sufficient recordkeeping at the time was not the only problem. OIA policies and

bureaucracy often created problems for field matrons assigned to the reservations. Much like

True experienced as a day school agent, those assigned to the Round Valley District encountered

disease and underfunding by OIA officials. At least in one instance, requests were made for

proper clothing, medicine, and food supplies to disseminate to Indians in need. Often, OIA

officials in Washington rejected the requests, as policy dictated that they only provide advice and

education – essential supplies like food and clothing were not within their purview. After making

requests for almost twenty years for additional supplies, one matron scaled down her request to

two beds so she could provide an emergency room in her home. OIA policies like this meant

45 Ibid., 96. The actual rate of death due to tuberculosis is probably much higher. While Trafzer relies on

death certificates to determine cause of death, in many cases the cause was not listed, listed as unknown, illegible, or undiagnosed. The rate of unknown deaths was almost as high as the rate of death due to tuberculosis.

46 Ibid., 126.47 Ibid., 219.

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forcing Indians on the reservation to become self-supporting, even with their assimilation efforts

lagging. In True’s experience, OIA was willing to send supplies like medicine, but refused to

reimburse Indians for any material items that were destroyed at the time, such as clothing and

housewares that were contaminated from infectious diseases. Without reimbursements, Indians

on reservations refused to allow their goods to be destroyed, which perpetuated a cycle of

infectious disease.48 To some extent, the bureaucratic structure of OIA was entrenched in the

school system – True’s experience seemed to be commonplace.49 Considering that many Indians

were having troubles with farming and adjusting to the agricultural lifestyle OIA wanted,

conditions on the reservation were substandard. However, in the Round Valley District, Indians

held protests over children being sent to the boarding school, demanding a day school be

established. Ultimately, OIA relented. From the Indians’ viewpoint, they considered the day

school as a better alternative, even if conditions were lacking.50

Although the federal government refused to provide proper supplies to the reservations in

a misguided attempt at forcing them to succeed in farming and assimilation, there are other

factors present that caused poor conditions, including poor sanitation and to a lesser extent, the

Indian culture. At the Santa Clara Pueblo, a caretaker for many young orphaned children resisted

efforts for treatment by a doctor for the sick children. This refusal, as well as tribal customs, kept

the entire family in the house without sanitizing anything after one of the children had died. All

of the children had eventually died due to exposure. The refusal to allow the house to be

disinfected was due to the religious belief that held that in order for a recently deceased’s soul to

depart, the family was required to stay in the house for four days, which resulted in the house

48 Lawrence, Lessons from An Indian Day School, 68.. 49 Child, Boarding School Seasons, 40.50 Wall, “Gender and the ‘Citizen Indian,’” 213-14, 218-220.

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acting as an incubator for disease the entire time.51 With that said, the sanitary conditions on the

reservation as a whole also allowed for diseases to spread greatly. Although not entirely to blame

for poor conditions, a significant amount of fault lies with the whites that were allowed onto the

portions of the reservations that had been opened under the Dawes Act.52

PROBLEMS WITH CURRICULUM

The goal of education for Indian children was to remove tribal influence and help the

assimilation process. However, scholars have failed to examine the curricula used at day schools.

The sanitary conditions and spread of disease in boarding schools and day schools can be

compared through reports and narratives left by officials at the time. What is perplexing,

however, is the lack of records on what was taught specifically at the day schools. Although

meticulously maintained, the letters between Crandall and True give no indication of specific

course material that was taught. In fact, True explained that it was not a custom for her, or any

other day school teachers, to maintain such records.53 Government reports argued that day

schools should ensure that Indian students could read, write, and speak English, as well as

prepare young children for the agricultural and industrial education that they would receive once

they attended boarding schools.54 Without any direct evidence to the contrary, it must be

assumed that the educational plans were more or less the same in the day schools as they were

for the boarding schools. In regards to education, it became clear that True acted somewhat

autonomously, hewing close to OIA policy, but allowing for deviation or divergence when it was

necessary or benefited the local Indians.55

51 Lawrence, Lessons from An Indian Day School, 88. 52 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1914,” 12-13. The fact that waste was so close to homes

threatened the accessibility of clean and fresh air, something that was considered incredibly important for avoiding tuberculosis.

53 Lawrence, Lessons from an Indian Day School, 204. 54 U.S Office of Indian Affairs, “for the year 1905, part 1,” 399. 55 Lawrence, Lessons From an Indian Day School, 160.

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The official education curriculum was set each year by OIA and approved by the Bureau

of Education within the Department of the Interior. Although the expectation was that teachers

would follow this plan, they were given limited autonomy to deviate, but only when “his or her

individuality [would bring] the pupil’s mind to a realization of the right way of living and in

emphasizing the dignity and nobility of labor.”56 Even a cursory review of the contents in “The

Course of Indian Study” and the introduction show that the program was designed to educate

Indian children in agricultural and farming matters, with regard to little else. The introduction

underscores this point by arguing that the child should be encouraged to assimilate, become

responsible Christians, and be patriotic. The only deviation seems to be references sprinkled

throughout that those students from reservations (presumably day schools) should already have

training in agriculture, so that they could quickly put their education to good use upon arrival at

the boarding schools.57 This is further documented by correspondence showing that Crandall

relied on True to talk to and spur local Indians to send their children to the Santa Fe boarding

school.58

Although the primary focus of this essay is the comparison of government-run day

schools and boarding schools, it is worth mentioning another track of education for Indians – the

missionary schools. Missionary schools were substantially similar to boarding schools, but

occasionally acted as day schools, or a combination of both. For example, the Thomas Indian

School in New York operated as a missionary school originally founded by Quakers, but

primarily acted as a boarding school towards the end of the nineteenth century, while admitting

children for day school occasionally. Because the government did not operate the missionary

school, the school lacked the resources and oversight that the federal government would provide.

56 U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, “Course of Indian Study,” 5-6. 57 Ibid., 38-39. 58 Lawrence, Lessons from an Indian Day School,162.

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Even though it was under the auspices of the state by 1932, no oversight was provided. This

continued until the 1940s, at which point the New York Department of Social Welfare

determined that children were no better off in the school than they were on reservations or at

boarding schools.59

THE RETURNED STUDENT

Only in a few instances are we left with straightforward examples of how day school

Indians had a better experience than those who were sent to boarding schools. The prime

example is the interactions and expectation of students who remained on reservation and the

expectation of assimilation at the boarding schools. The entire purpose of boarding schools was

to remove all Indian influence, by forcing children from the same families and tribes apart,

teaching exclusively in English, and making children practice American customs. Boarding

schools also forced Indian children to get haircuts, which was an affront to their cultural beliefs,

as Indians valued long hair.60 The father of the boarding schools was Richard H. Pratt, who

founded the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania. This school served as a template

for assimilation efforts, according to Pratt, because they were taken far away from their families

and tribal influence. His now famous words explain his ultimate goal: “Save the child, kill the

Indian.” The expectation was that all tribal influence would be removed from the child, and upon

returning home, he or she would pass on the Americanized teachings to family members. As

Pratt declared, the expectation was to kill any remaining Indian influence and leave the student a

capable, assimilated man. 61 In this regard, boarding school children were definitely worse off

than their day school equivalents. In some cases, children were abandoned or forgotten, and the

59 Burich, “’No Place to Go,’” 97-100. 60Jacobs, “Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective,” 216. 61 Richard H. Pratt, “The Advantages of Mingling Indians with Whites.” In Americanizing the American

Indians: Writings by the “Friends of the Indian, 1880-1900” (Cambridge: Havard University Press, 1973), 260-71.

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boarding schools became the only home that they knew.62 With no remaining Indian or tribal

influence, this could be considered the ultimate assimilation to American culture. However,

something more sinister was in play – the government preferred sending children to boarding

schools to subdue any Indian unrest, pacify them, and make them subservient to the American

government.63

Day schools fit into a somewhat nebulous position in this conversation. Dating back to

the early first part of the 1900s, day schools were neither held in high esteem or with disdain, but

instead viewed from the vantage that they should do everything that they could to ultimately

transition the children to the boarding schools. While never explicitly written, removing tribal

influence was the ultimate goal. While attending day schools, children were expected to return

home and pass on the information that they had learned to their family members. This was

designed in a way to slowly encroach on tribal identity and ease with assimilation.64 At the time,

adult family members were expected to begin farming the plots of land that they were given

under the Dawes Act, and the cultural education that their children brought home from day

school would aid in that shift.

While there are clear examples to compare experiences and circumstances between day

schools and boarding schools, the effect that each had on one another is also worth mentioning.

K. Tsiania Lomawaima contends that the two experiences were not necessarily mutually

exclusive. She notes that by the 1920s and 1930s, OIA policy prohibited children under the age

of 12 from being enrolled in boarding schools, with the exception for those who had special

family circumstances. These children that would be admitted under special circumstances usually

came from broken homes or had other difficulties. When queried, those who enrolled in the

62Burich, “’No Place to Go,’” 105. 63 Jacobs, “Indian Boarding Schools in Comparative Perspective,” 211. 64 Meriam, The Problem of the Indian Administration, 412.

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Chilocco boarding school from a young age were considered to have a much more negative

reaction to the boarding school experience. In Lomawaima’s extensive interviews with those

who attended these boarding schools, former students seemed somewhat split on whether their

experience at the boarding school was better or worse than what they would have had if they had

stayed on the reservation.65

Tribes often had no clear consensus of whether children should be kept on the reservation

among disease and poor living conditions, or to send the children to boarding schools. Oft cited

historian Brenda Child notes numerous familial problems which made attending a boarding

school seem much better in comparison – parental deaths, illness (often tuberculosis), and

unemployment were all factors. She also notes that even if Indian children wanted to attend a

local school, there were often obstacles that prevented them being able to do so. In Midwestern

states, children lacked proper winter clothing, often causing them to miss out on school during

the winter. While some parents understood the burden that went along with sending their

children to government run boarding schools and acted with the appropriate trepidation, other

parents (and some children) found that being sent to a boarding school would ensure that they

had a better quality of life and experiences than what they would have on the reservation.66

Magazine articles published at the time provided a picturesque view of both boarding

schools and to a lesser degree, day schools. However, such articles should not be taken at face

value. Speaking in large, sweeping platitudes about education providing practical solutions and

results to the Indian problem, an article found in a 1914 publication of The Red Man, a magazine

published ostensibly by Indians at the Carlisle Indian School, lauds boarding schools because

they are able to teach Indians how to assimilate to American ways and take their place amongst

65 K. Tsianina Lomawaima, “Hm! Hey White Boy! You Got No Business Here!” in American Indians, ed.

by Nancy Shoemaker (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 228-35. 66 Child, Boarding School Seasons, 18-21.

Handy 20

the white man. The magazine argued that the boarding schools were immensely important

because they taught students farming, which they could in turn put to use when they returned

home to their reservations.67 The only mention of the day school is how beautiful the facilities

were, and how docile and eager the children were to learn.68 Given the general tone of this

article, and what we now know about the educational system, it is easy to see this was

propaganda, rather than factual literature. The outing system, which had Indian children work on

local farms, was heavily praised as well, primarily due to what was considered the work

experience that Indian children would receive.69

CONCLUSION

With the expansive scholarship already completed on the boarding school experience and

associated conditions, the day school experience largely remains a mystery. Various factors have

caused this disconnect, such as lack of adequate personnel files and correspondence,

underreporting in government documents, and the overarching belief at the time that boarding

schools should be the primary vehicle of Indian education. It was not until the Meriam Report

called attention to the deplorable conditions in the boarding schools that a case was made for a

shift to educating at government-run day schools. But due to the overwhelming focus on

boarding schools until that point, scant attention was paid to the existing day schools. If day

schools were mentioned at all in reports, they were typically folded into the overall conversation

of education. Any mentions were prompted by specific activities or conditions that were

significantly below standards.

67 The irony is not lost that by this point in time, it was well known that farming was a difficult undertaking

for Indians. Success in assimilation and farming had faltered for many years – Indians had operated on a communal farming basis, which is what the Dawes Act attempted to supplant with individualism based on the nuclear family. Many could not make a living out of farming for various reasons.

68 M. Friedman, “How Education is Solving the Indian Problem; Some Practical Results,” The Red Man, February 1912, 232-35.

69 Ibid., 240.

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A working idea of how day schools operated starts to take form from mentions in the

litany of sources that deal almost exclusively with boarding schools. There appear to be two

obvious reasons why day schools are often excluded from scholarship. First, OIA instituted

many of its educational policies across the board, intended for all types of schools. The

educational curriculum was set for both boarding and day schools with the expectation that they

work in tandem with each other. Education policies were set to assimilate Indian students to the

American lifestyle, by teaching agricultural and domestic tasks in an attempt to remove as much

tribal influence as possible. Although the exact methods may have differed slightly, the ultimate

goal was the same at both types of schools.

Secondly, health conditions in both settings were less than adequate. One of, if not the

largest, uproars about boarding schools dealt with the spread of disease and sanitary conditions.

Due to overcrowding, shoddy workmanship, ineptitude, and budget constraints, boarding schools

became breeding grounds for infectious diseases, often causing high mortality rates. But, at the

time, doctors and school administrators also made note that the likelihood of death of a child if

sent back to the reservation was high. Recently, historians have argued that since day schools

were based in reservations, it is probable that that disease and mortality rates were similar. While

no reports of overcrowding stand out, OIA administrators made sure that day schools were at

least filled to capacity, and refused to send children home until they were on death’s doorstep.

By looking at the small pieces of information that are scattered throughout sources from the time

and recent historical scholarship, it is fair to say that the treatment and expectations of children

attending day schools was comparable to those who attended boarding schools. In certain

regards, each had some benefits, but those were typically nullified by the actual burden placed on

the child.

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http://legisworks.org/sal/24/stats/STATUTE-24-Pg387.pdf. Friedman, M. “How Education is Solving the Indian Problem; Some Practical Results.” The Red

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