Schooling American Indians

Political/Economy

• War and disease accelerated Indian change and dissolution. Indians were constantly being encouraged to assimilate into European Christian culture.
• Treaties agreed upon between the tribes and the Federal govt. Often these included agreements that the federal government would provide food and sometimes clothing and shelter during the transition to the new land which the Indians would get if they agreed to cease hostilities.
• Many differences among tribes-linguistic, cultural, and environmental

Ideology

• The idea of manifest destiny (the notion that domination of North American soil was a manifest, a God given duty) was often used as justification for subduing all native cultures
• Growing nationalism resulted in an inevitable clash of ideological perspectives:

Christianity vs. tribal religions
Capitalism vs. communal property
Representative democracy vs. consensual decision making

• Formal Indian education began as an attempt by Euro-American missionaries and government officials to lessen these differences by training American Indians in the standards and expectations of the dominant culture.
• Americans were deeply influenced by their belief that their culture was the definition of civilization.
• American Indian societies were viewed as savage, for they sought not to master but rather to coexist with the natural environment

Schooling

• Native American families resisted formal education and its assimilative approach
• Boarding schools were used to hasten assimilation
• It was not until 1975 with the Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act that the Native Americans received the right to control their own schools. Even then, they had to satisfy standards of "competence"

---

6 Stages in the Interaction of Native Americans and European Americans

1. Conquest 1492-1886. Number of Indians reduced from 1m to 1/4m by 1890 - war, disease. Indians seen as an impediment to expansion and progress.

2. Civilization - Jefferson wanted to civilize the Indians (Some Indians accepted white man's ways). 1819 Civilization Act - Indian men to stop hunting, move from kinship to individualism/capitalism, women out of the fields.

3. Removal - 1820's, Whites in the South East felt that change wasn't going fast enough. Also some Indians felt that they could maintain their culture by moving. Trail of Tears - relocated to land in the West. "For their own good" (President Jackson)

4. Concentration - concentrate in out of the way places and continue to convert - reservations.

5. Assimilation - 1880's, poverty on the reservations, Indians living in teepees, not assimilating. Sent in Christian missionaries to kidnap the children. Public schooling to socialize

Education: Goal - assimilation, off-reservation boarding schools, and later on reservation schools, and public schools. Children required to have their hair cut, all Indian rituals to be banned, prohibited from speaking in their native language.

Land allotment and boarding school policies contributed to the destitution rather than assimilation.
Indians would receive an education appropriate to their status - vocational -marginal laborers/repetitive hand work.

· Assimilation: Process by which diverse cultures alter their customs, habits and languages so as to allow absorption into a dominant culture.

· Pluralism: Valuing & maintaining cultural & linguistic differences.

6. Self Determination - 1960's. Bureau of Indian Affairs established. Red Power to force the government to uphold its treaties. (Protest dismissed as communist inspired)

---