The Experience of Native American Students in Boarding Schools, 19th and 20th Centuries

Length of Unit:

This unit could be given as an independent assignment.  Or, you could take several class periods to discuss the primary sources and then assign the essay to be written as homework.

Learning Objective:

This lesson is designed to provide an overview of the boarding school movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is also meant to promote critical reading and thinking as well as analytical writing skills.

Students will read a variety of primary source documents about the boarding school movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Rationale:

This lesson helps to illustrate the causes, conduct, and consequences of the boarding school program for American Indians.  Using primary sources, students will learn the motivations of those who advocated, devised policies for, and supervised such schools.  A close examination of boarding school and other records will shed light on the nature of these schools and of the difficulties and challenges faced by American Indians who attended them.  Dakota Sioux author Zitkala-Ša’s recollections of being a student in a boarding school will provide a powerful critique of the boarding school system.  Comparing and contrasting the different perspectives on schools will provide students with an opportunity to develop their skills at the critical reading of historical documents.

Standards:

The lesson should assist the students with meeting the following Common Core Standards:

English Language Arts Standards, History/Social Studies, Grade 11-12:

Key Ideas and Details:

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.3
Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Craft and Structure:

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including analyzing how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.5
Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole.

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6
Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.8
Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.

            CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.10
By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend history/social studies texts in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.

 

Entry Question:

What explained the boarding school movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and what were the consequences of this movement?

Students will read the following primary source documents:

A) Letter contained in the 1869 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in which Samuel Ross, Brevet Colonel U.S. Army and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory, advocated compulsory boarding schools.[1]

B) Excerpt from 1887 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in which Commissioner J.D.C. Atkins advocated for an English-only policy in regard to educating American Indian students and asserted that this policy was currently in place. He also expressed concern that day schools allowed students to retain cultural influences from the nearby Native communities.

C) Excerpts from the report of George W. Scott, Superintendent of Fort Stevenson School,[2] contained in 1886 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The report indicated that the school lacked proper sanitation and required a good deal of physical labor from students. The report also alludes to opposition to assimilation in the Native community.

D) Excerpts from conduct records of the Fort Stevenson boarding school, North Dakota, 1883-1886. The excerpts here, transcribed from handwritten records in a ledgerbook at the North Dakota State Archives in Bismarck, provide the view of the administration of the boarding school, shedding light on the overall goals of the school and discipline procedures.

E) Report of U.S. Census Special Agent George B. Cock regarding American Indians on Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota, August 1890. This report provides a sense of how parents and children on the Fort Berthold reservation regarded the Fort Stevenson boarding school.[3]

F) Selections from Zitkala-Ša’s American Indian Stories. Here, Dakota Sioux author Zitkala-Ša described her childhood with her family, her recruitment by missionaries seeking new students for a boarding school, and her experiences at this school. Zitkala-Ša’s story affords students a very different perspective on boarding schools than that provided by the previous documents.

An online edition of American Indian Stories can be found at, “A Celebration of Women Writers,” edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, at the following link: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/stories.html

Students will write a 3–4 page essay answering the following questions: What was the goal of the boarding school movement?  What specific methods did educators implement to try to achieve that goal?  In the long run, what were the apparent consequences for the students who attended these schools, for their families, and for their communities?

 

Introduction

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the federal government pushed for Native Americans to assimilate rapidly into Anglo-American culture as the culmination of its colonization of the western United States.  To this end, the government established and subsidized boarding schools for Native American children.  American Indian students attending these schools lived away from their families in an environment that was designed to replace their native cultures with those of white Americans.  One such boarding school, the Fort Stevenson School in North Dakota, drew students from the Fort Berthold Reservation, home to members of the Arikara, Gros Ventre, Hidatsa, and Mandan tribes.[4]  For this assignment, you will be reading historical documents that shed light on the causes, conduct, and consequences of these boarding schools.

Questions to consider when reading the following documents–

1) What do these documents indicate about the attitudes of government officials toward Native American cultures?  What specific language conveys those attitudes?

2) What policies were put in place in regard to American Indian education?

3) Based on the documents, what do you think life was like for American Indian students at the Fort Stevenson school?  What do you think a typical day might have been like for a student?

4) What effects did these schools have on Native Americans?  How did Native Americans respond to the boarding schools at Fort Stevenson and elsewhere?

A) Letter from Samuel Ross to E.S. Parker, 1869.

Samuel Ross served as superintendent for Indian Affairs for Washington Territory; E.S. Parker was then federal Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

“….If it is really the intention of the governing powers to civilize the Indians—to transfer the bold spirit of the daring savage warrior to the level such an intellect should occupy in civilized life, and save the red man, who has become a part of our national history, from extinction, then it becomes necessary to adopt a new mode for his civilization.

The way to accomplish this is plain, and I think there is but one way, and that is as follows:

All Indian children between the ages of five and twelve should be taken from their parents, either by compulsion or compensation, and removed from the influences of all Indian tribes, and placed in industrial schools.

At first this might appear to be a cruel measure; but it is really an act of humanity.  I am satisfied that many of the Indians would really part with their children for a small compensation in blankets and presents.

These industrial schools should be established on unsettled public lands that could be set apart for the use of the Indians.  From the present State of Texas, a domain equal to that of the State of New York could be set apart for their exclusive use.

These schools should be so conducted that they would learn industrial pursuits and all the arts of civilized domestic life, and at the same time acquire a good common school education by the time they arrive at the age of twenty-one.  On arriving at this age they should be allowed to marry, and furnished with forty acres of land, and the necessary stock and agricultural implements.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SAM’L ROSS

Brevet Colonel United States Army, Superintendent”

B) From the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1887. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1887 was J.D.C. Atkins.

“THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN INDIAN SCHOOLS.

…Every nation is jealous of its own language, and no nation ought to be more so than ours, which approaches nearer than any other nationality to the perfect protection of its people.  True Americans all feel that the Constitution, laws, and institutions of the United States, in their adaptation to the wants and requirements of man, are superior to those of any other country; and they should understand that by the spread of the English language will these laws and institutions be more firmly established and widely disseminated.  Nothing so surely and perfectly stamps upon an individual a national characteristic as language. . . .  As they [American Indians] are in an English-speaking country, they must be taught the language which they must use in transacting business with the people of this country.  No unity or community of feeling can be established among different peoples unless they are brought to speak the same language, and thus become imbued with like ideas of duty.

Deeming it for the very best interest of the Indian, both as an individual and as an embryo citizen, to have this policy strictly enforced among the various schools on Indian reservations, orders have been issued accordingly to Indian agents, and the text of the orders and of some explanations made thereof are given below:

DECEMBER 14, 1886.

In all schools conducted by missionary organizations it is required that all instructions shall be given in the English language.

FEBRUARY 2, 1887.

In reply I have to advise you that the rule applies to all schools on Indian reservations, whether they be Government or mission schools.  The instruction of the Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them but is detrimental to the cause of their education and civilization, and no school will be permitted on the reservation in which the English language is not exclusively taught.

JULY 16, 1887.

Your attention is called to the regulation of this office which forbids instruction in schools in any Indian language.  This rule applies to all schools on an Indian reservation, whether Government or mission schools.  The education of Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them but is detrimental to their education and civilization.

You are instructed to see that this rule is rigidly enforced in all schools upon the reservation under your charge.

No mission school will be allowed upon the reservation which does not comply with the regulation.

The following was sent to representatives of all societies having contracts with this bureau for the conduct of Indian schools:

JULY 16, 1887.

Your attention is called to the provisions of the contracts for educating Indian pupils, which provides that the schools shall “teach the ordinary branches of an English education.”  This provision must be faithfully adhered to, and no books in any Indian language must be used or instruction given in that language to Indian pupils in any school where this office has entered into contract for the education of Indians.  The same rule prevails in all Government Indian schools and will be strictly enforced in all contract and other Indian schools.

The instruction of Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them, but is detrimental to the cause of their education and civilization, and it will not be permitted in any Indian school over which the Government has any control, or in which it has any interest whatever….

It is believed that if any Indian vernacular is allowed to be taught by the missionaries in schools on Indian reservations, it will prejudice the youthful pupil as well as his untutored and uncivilized or semicivilized parent against the English language, and, to some extent at least, against Government schools in which the English language exclusively has always been taught.  To teach Indian school children their native tongue is practically to exclude English, and to prevent them from acquiring it.  This language, which is good enough for a white man and a black man, ought to be good enough for the red man.  It is also believed that teaching an Indian youth in his own barbarous dialect is a positive detriment to him.  The first step to be taken toward civilization, toward teaching the Indians the mischief and folly in continuing in their barbarous practices, is to teach them the English language. . . .”

 

C) Report of George W. Scott, Superintendent of the Fort Stevenson School, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1886.

Fort Stevenson, located in what was then Dakota Territory and what is now the state of North Dakota, served as a military base from the 1860s until 1883, after which time it became a boarding school for American Indian students.  The school closed in 1894.  As a result of the construction of the Garrison Dam on the upper Missouri River in the mid-twentieth century, the entire site became permanently flooded and now lies underwater.[5]  As you read Superintendent Scott’s description of the school, ask yourself the following questions—

1) What was Scott’s attitude towards American Indians?  What was he attempting to achieve?  Do you see any similarities between words of Scott and the language of those Anglo-Americans who had colonized North America?

2) As best as you can tell, what would a typical day and a typical week have been like for a student at the boarding school?  How do you think you would have been responded had you been a student at Fort Stevenson?  (You may consider gender differences in the students’ experiences, if you wish.)

 “FORT STEVENSON INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL

Fort Stevenson, Dak., August 13, 1886.

            SIR: Complying with instructions contained in circular letter of July 1, 1886, I herewith submit annual report of the affairs pertaining to this school….

The Fort Stevenson school is pleasantly located on the north bank of the Missouri River.  The site is the old Fort Stevenson military reservation set apart by Executive order in 1868.  It is 75 miles north of Bismarck.  On the 7th of August, 1883, the buildings and land were transferred by the War Department to the Department of the Interior for school purposes.  The soldiers quickly abandoned the post.  The sound of martial music gave place to the bustle of Indian school life….

During the past winter the older pupils cut and hauled three hundred posts, and in the spring fenced off 20 acres of pasture.  There being no fuel on hand at the beginning of winter, the pupils, under the supervision of the industrial teacher, mined and delivered at the school 150 tons of lignite coal.  A vast amount of hard labor was required in procuring this coal.  About 9 feet of earth had to be removed before the vein was reached.   The mine had to be drained by a ditch nearly a quarter of a mile before the coal could be reached.  Two hundred and thirty cords of cord wood were sawed by the pupils into stove wood with the “buck saw.”  In the month of March, the pupils, aided by the superintendent, stored away 150 tons of ice.  Besides the above work, the care of stock formed a prominent factor in the educational work.  This school, with its poor arrangements for furnishing fuel and the daily supply of water, can furnish more drudgery work than any other institution the writer has ever seen.  The necessary authority for digging wells has been obtained.  Paint has been ordered, and it is intended that the floors of the buildings be painted.  This will do away with a vast amount of drudgery labor, as on Saturdays it has required the entire school to scrub the buildings….

INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS.

            Steady, continuous labor is necessary.  Idleness begets restlessness, and results in some breach of discipline.  It is the devil’s workshop in an Indian school.  The facilities for teaching trades have been enlarged, and the school starts upon the new year with a promising outlook.

Tin-shop.

            A tin-shop was opened May 24, and a competent tinner of several years’ experience was placed in charge.  This department is proving a valuable acquisition to the school.  The boys that are learning the trade manifest a deep interest, and the aptitude they display in mechanical calculations is surprising….

Carpentry.

            June 22 a carpenter was employed, and work begun.  Indian boys delight in handling tools, and under the supervision of the mechanic of that department the buildings will be repaired and necessary work carried on.

Sewing-room.

            The work in this department has been productive of good results.  A class of eight girls have been learning to ply the needle.  In cutting and fitting garments they make rapid progress.  They soon learn to manage the sewing-machine in a skillful manner.  Their work will compare favorably with white children of the same age.  The sewing department is in charge of an expert in that line, assisted by an assistant.  The girls make all their own clothes besides the weekly supply of patching.

The following is a report in detail of the work accomplished since October 28: Sixty-four dresses, 94 pairs mittens, 141 aprons, 25 shirts, 153 towels, 38 drawers, 33 chemises, 11 suits, 216 pillow cases, 15 pairs pants, 57 sheets, 46 window curtains, 28 bonnets, &c.

The work in the kitchen, dining-room, and laundry is done entirely by girls.  It requires employés in these departments that will spare no pains in training those under their charge.  The untrained Indian girl will slight her work on every occasion unless closely watched.  No little trouble has been experienced in securing employés that are interested enough to correctly train pupils.  The making of bread, under the direction of the cook, is done by the girls, while the baking is done by the boys.  Girls are regularly detailed by the matron to the different departments.

THE CLASS WORK.

            The work of the school-room has been in charge of Maggie Talbot and Rosemary Spier.  The former teachers resigning the 1st of November, school did not open until December 24.  The interest manifested by pupils and their rapid progress is marvelous.  They must be taught how to handle books, and all that a white child knows by intuition.  Constant drill is required before the first steps in teaching white children are taken.  In drawing, penmanship, spelling, letter writing, number work, they excel.  To speak the English tongue is their stumbling-block….

…English rudiments will not alone benefit an Indian boy.  He must learn to work and see the value thereof.  It has been the policy of past Indian educators to transfer the machinery of the modern graded school to the wilds of the West.  A more lamentable mistake was never made.  The theory of cramming the Indian youth with text-book knowledge alone has been and always will be a failure.  The best education for the aborigines of our country is that which inspires them to become producers instead of remaining consumers.  A knowledge of the rudiments of the common school will suffice, but the danger is of neglecting the manual-labor training….A string of text-books piled up in the storehouses high enough to surround a reservation if laid side by side will never educate a being with centuries of laziness instilled in his race.  The sound of the “buck saw” or the “noise of the axe” is sweeter to the ear than the conning of the meaningless jargon of text-book makers.  Combine the two, and you have the antidote that will make the rising generation to a great extent producers.

SANITARY CONDITION.

            No arrangements for sewerage have ever been made.  The slops from the kitchen found a receptacle in a hole a couple of rods[6] from the kitchen.  The well presented a spectacle when cleaned that was repulsive.  The impurities of the water brought about a spell of sickness among employés and pupils. . . .  A system of sewerage and water supply has been presented to the Indian Office for action, and it is hoped that it will be favorably received.  It will not only be a sanitary improvement, but a protection against fire.

ATTENDANCE.

            The highest enrollment at any one time has been 78. The average attendance for the year has been 71.  Much irregularity has been caused in the attendance on account of the pernicious habit of running away.  Five pupils were sent to Genoa, Nebr., in November.

The school was established for the Indians of the Fort Berthold Agency.  The Gros Ventres tribe have been divided on the question of schools.  Wolf Chief, a noted leader, who retains a strong influence over the members of the tribe, has persistently fought the interests of the school.  He urges his followers to oppose the agent and resist the encroachments of the white man’s ways.  His influence has been a serious drawback to building up the school.  He ought to be transferred to someplace where he will not exert his baneful influence.  An example should be made of such characters that will prove a benefit to the tribe.

GENERAL.

            …During the winter I acted as teacher, clerk, industrial teacher, and once in a while was superintendent.  No clerk was sent to my aid during the year.  I persevered as a “hewer of wood and drawer of water,” believing that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”  Employés took sick, children ran away, the inspector cultivated my acquaintance.  A journey over the prairies to Bismarck was made and I was lost in a blizzard, and on my return trip froze both ears and feet.  The time for putting up ice came.  The industrial teacher sickened and resigned.  The superintendent had to “buckle on his armor” and go forth, only to be unlucky enough to fall in the river. . . .  A large force of boys was kept busy several days and succeeded in storing away enough for the summer’s use….

My thanks are tendered to the employés who have stood by me in trying to build up a school here.  For the kind treatment I have received from the Indian Office in my feeble efforts to make this school a credit to the Government and an advantage to the Indians, I return my kindest regards.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

GEORGE W. SCOTT,

Superintendent.”

 

D) Excerpts from student conduct records for the Fort Stevenson school, North Dakota, 1883-1886.

These records were written out in longhand and were contained in a single bound volume—called a ledgerbook–with typically two pages—facing each other–set aside for each student.  At the top of the first, even-numbered page was a student’s name in English and in a Native American language.  At the top of the facing, odd-numbered page was the student’s age and, in both English and a Native American language, a parent’s name.[7]

Missing pages: When examining the ledgerbook at the North Dakota State Archives, I noticed that some printed items, including an article describing the 1904 launch of the steamship Dakota, had been pasted in its pages.  Apparently, at some point after the closure of the school, someone had converted the ledgerbook into a scrapbook.  This probably explains why every other page of the student records had been neatly cut or sliced out.  My guess is that the scrapbooker, wanting to keep the volume from bulging outward as its pages accumulated clippings, is the person who removed every other page.

The nature of the removal means that for half the students, the first page of their record is missing, and that for the other half of the students, the second page of their record (assuming their record was more than a page in length) is missing.   This means that for many students, the page listing their age is missing.[8]

At the end of this lesson, I’ve included some digital scans of pages from the conduct records.  If you look carefully, you can see where, at some point in the past, pages have been cut out and removed.

In reading the following document, ask yourself the following questions—

1) What do the conduct records indicate about the overall goals of the school?

2) What do the conduct records convey about the degree of Indigenous cultural retention at this point, and how students might have had agency in trying to retain their own cultures?  (Notice names, Native language use, preferences for tribal ways, or possible passive resistance to the school’s methods).

3) What do the conduct records indicate about the discipline methods at Fort Stevenson?

4) What do the conduct records indicate about the attitude of the school administration towards the students?  Imagine what circumstances possibly lay behind (and what future consequences might have lain ahead) for those students who did or did not please the administrators with their “learning.”

5) What do these conduct records—as well as superintendent Scott’s report—indicate about the health of the students?  What might we deduce about the causes of health problems?

6) Imagine that you were a student at the Fort Stevenson boarding school.  How do you think you would have responded to your situation?

 

E) Report of U.S. Census Special Agent George B. Cock regarding American Indians on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota, August 1890.

As you read this report, think about what it says in the light of what you have learned from previous documents. 

“….As a rule these Indians are kind to each other, honest and truthful in their transactions with the whites, remarkably temperate, abstaining entirely from the use of intoxicants, very orderly, and yield ready obedience to the regulations of the agent, only remonstrating in a few instances against having their children sent away to school, which may be accounted for by the fact that a number of their children have died while away or soon after their return with consumption.[18]  This forms their great objection to sending the children away.  They manifest great affection for their children.  Both the children and the parents weep immoderately when the former leave the reservation for a few months’ absence at school at Fort Stevenson, a few miles away….”

 

F) Zitkala-Ša, American Indian Stories.

Here, Zitkala-Ša (1876-1938), a Dakota Sioux, recounts the story of her early life, from her childhood on a reservation to her experience at a boarding school in Indiana.

Read the following passages:

From “Impressions of an Indian Childhood”—

“My Mother,”

“The Legends,”

“The Big Red Apples.”

From “The School Days of an Indian Girl”—

“The Land of Red Apples,”

“The Cutting of My Long Hair.”

As you read Zitkala-Ša’s account, ask yourself the following questions—

1) What kind of life did she have on the reservation?

2) Why did she agree to attend a boarding school?

3) Did her mother have any doubts about the wisdom of her daughter going to such a school?  Why did her mother consent to allow her to go?

4) How did Zitkala-Ša respond to her trip east and to her experience at the boarding school?  What did she find disconcerting?

5) How did her life at the boarding school differ from life at home with her mother?

 

[1] I am indebted to fellow Institute participant Aisling Roche for discovering this passage and pointing it out to me.  The yearly reports of the Indian Affairs Commissioner are available online from the Digital Collections of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=browse&scope=HISTORY.COMMREP

Libraries: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=browse&scope=HISTORY.COMMREP

[2] Government documents refer to the school by different names, such as the Fort Stevenson School or the Fort Stevenson Industrial School.

[3] This report comes from the Report on Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed in the United States (Except Alaska) at the Eleventh Census, 1890.  An online copy is available at the following link: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-10/1890a_v10-22.pdf?  The Census Office hired what it called “special agents” who were tasked with describing the state of affairs on American Indian reservations.  See Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office) 1892, xxxi.

[4] Scholar William Willard noted that “[t]he students at the school came from the Fort Berthold Reservation, which held the surviving members of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa tribes,” while the report of George B. Cook in 1890 stated that members of the Gros Ventre tribe lived on the reservation.  See Willard, “Montezuma on the Missouri: A Centennial of Sorts,” Wicazo Sa Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn, 1989), 34–38.

[5] G. Hubert Smith, “Archaeological Investigations at the Site of Fort Stevenson, (32ML1), Garrison Reservoir, North Dakota,” contained in Smithsonian Institute, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 176, River Basin Surveys Papers, Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., Editor, Inter-Agency Archaeology Salvage Program, Numbers 15-20, United States, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1960.

[6] A rod is a unit of measure 5.5 yards long.

[7] In copying excerpts, I’ve made some effort to standardize the orthography.

[8] The index of names at the front of the volume remained intact, so it remained possible to surmise the names of students even when the page in their record containing their name had been sliced out.

[9] Red strikethrough on “High-Back-Bone” and overwritten with “Coffee” in red ink.

[10] Red strikethrough on “Cayotte”; “standing Cayotte” written in red ink.

[11] The strikethroughs indicated above were done in red ink.

[12] Red strikethrough on “Hon-ah-ni-ka”: replaced in red by “Heoo-na-na”.

[13] Red strikethrough on “Cha.”

[14] Red strikethrough on “Blossom.”

[15] Stacia White’s report had been removed almost entirely, but it appears that she was listed as being 14 years of age on page 202.

[16] Strikethrough on 2nd “i” in the name.

[17] “Shut-ke” and “White Woman” both have strikethroughs in red, and “White Girl” is written in red ink.

[18] Consumption generally meant tuberculosis, a disease of the lungs.

 

Download the curriculum: Native American Students in Boarding Schools