Education for

Extinction: An

Overview of

Chapters 1 & 2

Presented By: Nick Flynn

CCSU: EDF 525

Chapter 1: Reform

– 1790s: The new national government needed to decide the future status of the

Indians

– Dilemma: Whites needed/wanted land, the Indians owned the land

– Survival of the republic demanded that Indians be dispossessed of the land

– Lockean Theory: Society is built on private property

Assumptions of Policymakers

– Indians must be inferior

– Cultural patterns too different

– Worship of pagan gods

– Dependency on wild game

– Indians were a lower order of human society

– Indians were savages because they lacked civilization

– “By the law of historical progress and the doctrine of social evolution, civilized ways were destined to triumph over savagism (6).”

– Indians faced either civilization or extinction

– If whites instruct Indians in the ways of civilization, then the Indians will cut cultural ties

– “Put into the hands of their children the primer and the hoe, and

they will naturally, in time, take hold of the plough; and, as

their minds become enlightened and expand, the Bible will be

their book, and they will grow up in habits of morality and

industry, leave the chase to those whose minds are less

cultivated, and become useful members of society.”

- House Committee of Indian Affairs, 1818

Removal

– Indians were moved beyond the Mississippi, where it was hoped they would

“make more progress” in learning the ways of civilization

– Oregon land fever and the gold rush threatened nomadic tribes of the Central

Plains

– 1851: the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho signed a treaty agreeing to live

within specified boundaries

– Conflict continued with expansion

The Reservation System

– A new phase of Indian policy

– Congress confirmed that Indians were now wards of the government, a colonized people

– Office of Indian Affairs corrupt

– Rise of critics and philanthropic observers

– Peace Policy of 1869 – President Grant

– Increase federal support of education programs

– Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

The New Reformers

– Indian Rights Association

– Primary Purpose: to prepare the way for the two hundred ninety thousand Indians’

absorption into the common life of the American people

– Mold political opinion along philanthropic lines

– Other organizations developed with a different focus: to find a long-term

solution to the Indian question based upon the recognition of Indian treaty

rights and citizenship

– Women’s National Indian Association (1879)

– Indian work was “suited to women’s sphere”

The New Reformers con’t

– Religion

– “Reformers were universally guided by the tenets of evangelical Protestantism, never

doubting for a moment that their effort to uplift Indians was a fulfillment of their

Christian obligation to extend the blessings of Christianity to all peoples of the world”

(11).

– Reformers, however good intentioned, operated within the “mainstream

ideological traditions of American culture”

– Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society achieved widespread publicity

– Formed intellectual framework within which philanthropists operated

The New Reformers con’t

– Indians now relied heavily on the “Great Father” for their earthly needs

– No motivation to upkeep farms that could be taken over by Americans

– Solution: government allotment of Indian land

Discuss

– Dawes Act of 1887

– 160 acres to each family head

– 80 acres to single persons or orphans over 18 years

– 40 acres to single persons under 18

– The actual deed to the allotment remained in the hands of the government for 25 years, during which time the land could not be sold or encumbered.

– All surplus land might be sold to white settlers

– Indians subject to criminal and civil laws of the state or territory where they resided

– Q: What are some of the implications of the Dawes Act on the treatment of Indians

– Q: How does the Dawes Act connect with other themes, events, or time periods in American history?

Education

– Common schools were viewed as having the ability to assimilate

– “If the common school is the glory and boast of our American civilization, why not extend its blessings to the 50,000 benighted children of the red men of our country, that they may share its benefits and speedily emerge from the ignorance of centuries” (18).

Education

– Only hope was to “train the youth” to obey the white man’s law

– Attempt to make Indian attachment to “the old ways” extinct

– Quicken the process of cultural evolution

– Economic benefits

– Relieve government of the responsibility of feeding and clothing Indians

– Prepare Indians for self-sufficiency

– Less expensive to educate Indians ($1,200 for eight years of schooling) than to kill

them (costs nearly a million dollars to kill 1 Indian in warfare)

Discuss

– Policymakers believed that if the problem with Indians

was that they were savages, then what Indian children

needed was a civilized education (21).

– Q: What kind of an education do you believe is a

“civilized education”?

Aims of Education

– Teach Indians to speak and write English

– Introduce Indian children to the civilized branches of knowledge: arithmetic, science, history, etc.

– Facilitate individualism

– Teach Indians how to work

– Teach values and beliefs (i.e. self-reliance: that the accumulation of personal wealth is a moral obligation).

– Christianization

– Citizenship training

– Connection between education and “civilized progress”

Chapter 2: Models

– Reservation Day School

– Language Instruction

– Indian children would return to homes “wiser in the ways of

white civilization”

– Problem: Proximity to the tribal community

– Absenteeism

– Runaways

Boarding Schools

– ½ day devoted to academics

– Other half split:

– Boys went to industrial training

– Girls were systematically trained in every branch of housekeeping

– Greater institutional control over the children’s lives

– Hoped to have an uplifting influence of parents

– Problem: Failure to exert sufficient influence over the children’s minds

– Children relapsed to tribal habits, especially during vacation periods

– Parents attempted to disrupt school day; triggered emotions in children

Further Isolation

– Eradicate all attachment to tribal ways

– Physical walls

– Abolishing vacation

– Policymakers viewed this as fundamentally flawed and could never succeed in

eliminating outside influences

Incarceration

– A large number of Indian warriors were forced to board trains and wagons

– Taken to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas as prisoners

– Some tribes retaliated with violence

– Transported again to Florida

– Many prisoners died

– “Prison school” for older Indians; prisoners were integrated into the social and economic life of St. Augustine

– Indians were later hired out as laborers

– Each prisoner had a savings account to purchase goods

– Learned Christianity

– Lt. Richard Henry Pratt praised for turning “bloodthirsty savage warriors” into “disciplined, Christian men”

Public Relations & Off-

Reservation Boarding Schools

– Photographs to illustrate “before” and “after” enrollment into prison schools

– Sought to increase enrollment

– Poems written by enrolled Indian students in favor of the program were read to the public

– Carlisle

– Off-reservation boarding school

– Pratt fought relentlessly against tribal cohesion and identity

– Rapid and absolute assimilation of Indians

– Immerse Indian children in a totally civilized environment

– Outing process allowed students to eventually attend public schools back in their family communities

– Scatter Indian children throughout the nation

– Off-Reservation schools expanded

Discuss

– Pratt believed that in order to preserve the Indian race, absolute assimilation

was required, which called for complete destruction of Indian communities

– Q: Do you think that the beliefs of Pratt and other

policymakers were grounded in good intention, or do

you believe that the philanthropic mindset of Indian

reform was evolving into something else?

Summary

– Many policymakers viewed a boarding school experience as essential to the

assimilation of Indians

– By the late 19th century, a high percentage of Indian children were destined to

have a boarding school experience

– The belief was that Indian children needed to be removed from their tribal

homes in order for education to promise assimilation

– Attempt to strip Indian youth of tribal heritage

Works Cited

Adams, D. W. (1995). Education for extinction: American Indians and the boarding

school experience 1875-1928. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.