"The Government, unfortunately, thought they knew what was good for the Indians."
- Father Vine Deloria, Sioux tribe
- Father Vine Deloria, Sioux tribe
Varying Viewpoints: Government
At the time of American Indian boarding schools, the belief held by many government representatives was that they were helping children by teaching them to be a part of the "better" society, while simultaneously solving the "Indian Problem."
"[The Boarding School system] was intended to do the damage that it resulted, but it wasn't necessarily done with malice."
- Mary Pavel, Committee on Indian Affairs Staff Director
- Mary Pavel, Committee on Indian Affairs Staff Director
Government Officials
"We can end their existence among us as such separate people by a broad and generous system of English education and training, which will reach all the 50,000 children and in a few years remove all our trouble from them as a separate people and as separate tribes among us, and instead of feeding, clothing and caring for them from year to year, put them in condition to feed clothe and care for themselves. Our experiences in many individual cases in the last few years make it evident that not only may we fit him to go and come and abide in the land where ever he may choose, and so lose his identity." |
"Compulsion through the police is often necessary, and should this be required during the coming year, it will be heroically resorted to, regardless of results."
- John P. Williamson, Dakota Agency |
"When I was about 8 years old the soldiers came and rounded up as many of the Blackfeet children as they could. The government had decided we were to get White Man's education by force."
- Lone Wolf, a Blackfoot boarding school student |
"The parents of these Indian children are ignorant, and know nothing of the value of education, and there are no elevating circumstances in the home circle to arouse the ambition of the children. Parental authority is hardly known or exercised among the Indians in this agency. The agent should be endowed with some kind of authority to enforce attendance. The agent here has found that a threat to depose a captain if he does not make the children attend school has had a good effect."
- John S. Ward, United States Indian Agent, Mission Agency, California
- John S. Ward, United States Indian Agent, Mission Agency, California
"If there is an idol that the American people have, it is the school. . . . It is a remedy for barbarism, we think, and so we give the dose. . . . the school is the slow match. . . . It will blow up the old life, and of its shattered pieces [we] will make good citizens." |
Teachers
Teachers often had no understanding of American Indian culture and came to schools expecting savages. Those who could look past their differences could not deny the American Indians were just as intelligent as white children.
"I left my home in Washington D.C., the 20th of Nov., 1884, for Santee, Nebraska to labor among the Indians.... I must confess I did not expect to find them such bright boys and girls, but with the training they have had here, are quite as advanced as some white girls I know, of their age, who have had many more advantages."
- Unnamed Teacher |
"[Indian children are] just as capable as any white pupil I have ever had."
- Participant at the 1895 annual meeting of the National Education Association
- Participant at the 1895 annual meeting of the National Education Association
"At Cheyenne a member of fine-looking, well dressed young Indian men came up to me and addressed me in English. I did not recognize some of them and they told me they went to school to me in 75, 76, and 77. I remember them as dirty little long haired, blanket Indians. It made my heart strong to take these manly young men by the hand and to hear them say, You were my first teacher." - Miss Collins, teacher |