The Evolution of Native American Boarding Schools

 1917: New lares said off-reservation schools can not coerce children to attend. Children were no longer being legally ripped away from their families. 1920: Boarding schools only accept children 14 years or older.  1928: Change in school systems after the Meriam Report. 1978: Congress passes Indian Child Welfare Act, allowing Native Americans to refuse their child's placement in these schools. 1980s and 1990s: Many cases of abuse were reported, causing most of these schools to close. 

The day was divided in two different parts; education and industrial training. The morning started with typical classes and the afternoon was divided, with boys doing physical labor outside and girls doing housework inside. The boys built the cottages that are located on the old property of the Carlisle Indian School.  The girls learned how to cook, clean, sew, care for poultry, and do laundry. The girls did the laundry for the whole boarding school. The boys learned Blacksmithing, shoemaking, and farming. There was such a focus on this industrial training because the staff at the schools wanted the children to be marketable for a job after they finish school. However, this was basically child labor and extremely dangerous. 

 The first, most well-known, and largest off-reservation boarding school is the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Being a boarding school, obviously the children resided in separate boys and girls dormitories. During the summer, the high officials did not want the children to move home. Therefore, they were given the opportunity to reside with a white family during the summer. Those children were practically used as free labor for those families. Boys worked outside and girls worked inside.  At these boarding schools, the children were given white washed first and last names. They were not allowed to wear any Native clothing and their hair was cut almost immediately after arriving. There was no traditional food allowed for the children. All meals were of white culture. Children were also not allowed to speak in their Native tongue and were taught English. However, many of the schools had a very poor education system when it came to speaking English because the teachers

20 Years Later... By 1880, there were 60 reservation schools founded. In total, these schools had 6,200 children in attendance. The schools targeted teaching a counterculture to traditional Native American values. For example, schools focused on possessive individualism instead of the traditional Native American belief of communal ownership.  This looked like teaching the children about the value of money and how important it is to have money to lead a successful life. Money should be made to support oneself. However, traditional Native Americans believe in sharing the land, crops, and food.  High up officials made a big change to the structure of the schools, however. They felt progress in integrating these children into white culture had slowed down due to life at home at night and summers. Therefore, they started to create boarding schools. The famous goal of these boarding schools was to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."  ... implying that these people needed to be rescued

     The first Native American Boarding School was founded in 1860. This was on the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington State. This location was not uncommon. Many of these brainwashing schools were located right on the sacred reservation grounds. These schools, filled with abuse and disease, were meant to "civilize" the Native American people and help them blend into the white world.       Although these schools were sick and twisted, the strategy was slick. By sending the children to schools all day, they were separating them from authority figures who were Native American. As children learn by following others, they were learn to act more according to white culture. Families did not have a choice when it came to sending their children to these schools. There were instances of children being ripped from their families for attendance. Most schools were located out West.