We Cannot Ignore Indigenous Residential Schools Any Longer

Throughout the last month, there has been news of mass graves of children being uncovered in Canada. These children were at resident schools where they were taught to lose their identity and all sense of self, just so they could take on the Christian way of life, which was seen as more "civilized" and "correct". Not only did these schools exist in Canada, but they also existed in the United States. 

I had never heard of the residential schools until I got to my sophomore year history class in high school. We had a section in which we learned about Native Americans and things that happened to them. For the first time in my life, I learned something new that was not focused on the Trail of Tears. 

Quick Facts

1. Oklahoma, Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico, and South Dakota had the most schools open
2. About 64 residential schools remain open as of 2020, though they are quite different today than they were back in the 1900s. 
3. The first boarding school off of a Native American reservation was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 
4. A lot of religious groups ran the residential schools. Children would be forced to forget their own religion. 
5. The first school opened in Yakima, Washington on their own reservation. 

The beginning was always the same. Officials would come into a reservation or community and promise the children that they would get an education and have comfort. Soon after they would arrive at the boarding school, they would realize that they were lied to, and the intentions of the White European settlers were anything but pure. If they found the children hiding or trying to get away, they would drag them back into a room, tie them up, and leave them there for hours. The settlers were rarely nice about anything they did seeing as though they thought their way of life was the better way, the right way, and that the Native Americans did not know how to live. Imagine being a child and being ripped from your family and sent to a boarding school. Once you are there you are told you cannot wear the clothes you are used to, you must cut your hair, you can no longer have your name, you cannot practice your religion, and you must speak a different language. This was an all too common practice with these places. 

Let's start with the basics of how this was all allowed to happen. Congress in the States passed the Indian Civilization Act of 1819. Through this act, Congress was hoping to assimilate the Native Americans and teach them, the children, in particular, a "better" way of life. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. This act was in short, a way for the government to get land in the East that was home to some tribes' ancestors' land. Although the government made treaties with the Natives and agreed to peacefulness, they had an ulterior motive and pushed the Natives out from their own land and into small reservations (government-owned and assigned).  

While learning the "better" way of life, the children would also learn basic math, reading, and writing, but all of it was along with the English language. If the children continued in school, they would then learn sciences, arts, and humanities in order to expand their minds a bit more. By doing this, they encouraged "free thought" (though it was to what the settlers wanted), and it pushed them to question what they learned before they were ripped away from their parents, home, and usual traditions and customs. 

There were some schools where it was just a day school. These schools were not as expensive as traditional residential schools, and parents were less likely to cause any type of retaliation with this. The kids would spend half the day learning academics and the other half would be life fundamentals and training. This was a bit different from the traditional residential schools where the kids were taught industrial fundamentals and how to be financially and economically smart. During the day of school, children would constantly march back and forth between classes, the area where they eat, and their dorms. 

The kids did learn about basic life skills and career training. The girls were taught cooking, cleaning, and ways to care for a family and the community, while the boys were taught how to farm, shoemaking, or blacksmithing. As time went on, this curriculum was more widely embraced rather than focusing on academics. 

When the Carlisle Indian School opened in 1879, the man behind it, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, had the motto of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man". He was actually the headmaster of this school for 25 years and had a huge impact on the education and practices that occurred at the school. He would have the children cut off their braids, use typical silverware when eating, use white names, and he would also get them to live with white families in the area, so they could become more immersed in the European culture. The more children did not go back to their traditions and normal ways, the more they were rewarded. 

12 years after the Carlisle Indian School opened, the government made it mandatory that children had to attend, no longer was it optional. If families refused to send their kids, The Bureau of Indian Affairs would not provide them with food and other goods, and oftentimes they forcefully took the child away. After seeing everything Richard Henry Pratt was able to do, the government and other officials used his schooling as the blueprint for more than 300 other schools in the United States. The government loved his idea of taking children off the reservation and into a European setting, seeing as though the children will be watched at all times and be unable to interact with their true background in any type of way. 

3 years (1894) after it was made mandatory for children to attend residential schools, a group of Hopi men from Arizona protested sending their children away to become brainwashed. Once this happened, the government took 19 of the Hopi men and sent them to Alcatraz Island in California, around a thousand miles from their families. The men were held there for a year before being released. 

In 1900, there were about 20,000 Native American kids in these government or church ran residential schools. In nearly 25 years, that number tripled. There were about 360 of these "boarding schools" in the United States, and the trauma from them is never talked about. A lot of kids never returned home to see their family once they left either. These poor children died in a place unfamiliar to them, and the last moments of their life were probably filled with horror and dread. They never knew what was going to happen to them, and they were always afraid to practice their culture or beliefs. 

In 1928, the government created the Meriam report which talked about all the issues that occurred in these residential schools. Once the conditions were made light of, a lot of schools rushed to change how things were operated and what went on in daily life. The kids got more food, they suffered less abuse, and they got better clothes to wear. In 1975, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was basically what killed the residential schools. As of today, 4 schools are still open and they are operated by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education. These schools are located in Oregon, Oklahoma, California, and South Dakota. A report from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition states that there are still 73 schools open, 15 of which are boarding schools, and these schools are still federally funded. 

While the settlers were "teaching" the children, in reality, they were forcing the Native Americans to lose their own identity and suppress their own culture, beliefs, language, hairstyle, traditional clothing, and many more. If any child was caught going back to their Native culture, they would be punished (usually beatings). Children were being weakened by the verbal and physical abuse, the small portions of food, and the new diseases that all these kids could think about were running away and going home, to an area that was familiar to them. If one of their classmates died, the children would have to dig their grave and even build their coffin. Imagine the trauma and feelings of despair that stuck with these kids. No child should be subjected to do that. Because of all of this, children became scared, scarred, and developed mental illness disorders, substance abuse disorders, or they ended up taking their own life. 

The trauma these children, and their families, went through is inexcusable. This treatment towards them should have never happened and these children should have never witnessed or faced this type of trauma. These kids had to go through the rest of their lives remembering how cruel another human being was to them just for thinking they did not have a culture. They had to live through building a coffin burying their dead friend. They never knew what was going to be in store for them day in and day out, but they knew it would never be good. 

These residential schools stayed open till about the late 1990s, and the United States government has not recognized its existence, as well as the damage that was caused by it. We owe the relatives of these survivors an apology and acknowledgment of what happened. We can no longer stay silent about the atrocities that were and are continuously committed against the minority population in both the United States and Canada (Canada acknowledged the schools and apologized for it). 

Native Americans matter too, and we cannot forget the harm that was inflicted upon them just because new settlers and the government thought they were savages and uncivilized. Each passing day that we are silent on this topic is another day that more people are hurt from it. It is time to use our voices and show support for our Native American neighbors and talk about the atrocities that were committed against their community.