Indian Boarding School - Forced Cultural Assimilation

The term “Indian boarding school”, is probably something many people have already forgotten or never even knew about. In the late 1800s, Native Americans lost American Indian wars, particularly after the Civil War. With consideration that the Native Americans were sill seen as savages living in the midst of civilized farmers, Indian reform groups became increasingly more powerful. The two choices when considering beginning the reform movement was either execute all of the Indians or assimilate them into white dominant culture through means of education. After the first contact between Native Americans and Europeans, reformers pushed the federal government to begin a strict assimilation policy to educate all of the Native Americans.

A Native American Man, Before and After "Assimilation" into the dominant culture.

At the beginning of the reform, the federal government set day schools near some of the reservations. Indian students were forced to go there, attend school and return home. The reformers hoped that this initial system would help students to educate their parents by sharing what they were learning in the school with them. However, the day school didn’t seem to work as well as initially planned. Once students came home, parents were still teaching their children their native tribal languages, cultures and belief systems, despite the strenuous efforts of the schools. Because of this, the reformers tried a new experiment by setting the boarding school where students were forced outside of their native lands, and separated from their families for great lengths of time.

The students were thrown into a military type setting of classes and activities. They were up at the call of a trumpet at 5:45 a.m. Breakfast was at 6:45. Industrial work began at 8:00 and formal school at 9:00. After lunch there was more industrial work and schooling with lectures lasting well into the evening. There was less than an hour of free time during each day, and the students had to be in bed at 9:00 p.m. Students were prohibited from speaking their native languages and even from showing signs of homesickness. Instead, they were supposed to converse and even expected to think in English. If they were caught "speaking Indian" they were severely beaten with a leather belt. Additionally, they were convinced to believe Christianity is better than their native religion.

Europeans probably never considered how those kids’ and families might be feeling. Students were taught to hate who they were born to be because what they once knew was being ripped from them and told it was wrong. Those students were taught to deny their personal identities and native culture in the boarding school. How did they feel when they were told their status was lower than those who were born in the White people’s families? The dominant white group thought boarding school was the way to civilize the minority Native American group, but actually it was the way to kill their culture and history by killing the unity and diversity of the individual tribes.

The United States was founded based on democracy, which means everyone has the right and everyone should be treated as equal. Native American rarely enjoyed those privileges because they were considered as not part of the dominant society. If we see reviewed the society structure by a hierarchy system, Native Americans probably are at the bottom of the class.