Native American
Education at
Carlisle Indian
Industrial School
Americans and Natives had a hard time agreeing on what it meant
to have a good education. Natives believed that knowing how to
hunt, fish, and make tools was more useful knowledge. On the
other hand, Europeans and Americans believed that knowing how to
do advanced math, knowing science, and other higher-level
courses was a far superior form of education.
At Carlisle Indian
Industrial School, one of the most well-known Native boarding
schools as well as the first off-reservation Indian school,
Native American children were taught how to play different
instruments, different house hold chores, along with other
core classes. It’s founder, Richard Henry Pratt, wanted to
assimilate Natives into white culture, and to do so, went
around the US recruiting natives so they could learn the ways
of white men.
The links below will take you to sources in which you
can find information relevant to the various efforts of the
Americans to assimilate the Native American children into
their culture through education at Carlisle Indian Industrial
School. This pathfinder will help answer these questions:
Which methods were employed by the Europeans to disassociate
children from their original culture? How many Natives were
assimilated into white culture, never to return to their
families? How many Natives returned home?
Primary Sources
Jones, Louis Thomas. “Amerindian Education.” San Antonio, TX: Naylor Co., 1972. Print.
This source is an account of the experiences
Louis Thomas Jones has in relation to Native American education,
as well as research he did in order to write this book. It was
written a few years after the closing of the school. This is a
reliable source because he does do research on the subject,
making the information given unbiased.
Pratt, Richard H., Brig. Gen. “The Indian Industrial School CARLISLE PENNSYLVANIA Its Origin, Purposes, Progress and the Difficulties Surmounted.” PDF. Denver, Colorado: Hamilton Library Association, February 27, 1908.
This is another essay that was written by
the founder of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, R. H. Pratt.
It is an account of the "Origin, Purposes, Progress, and the
Difficulties" of starting and maintaining the school. This
source is valuable because the founder does not only complement
his own work, but he takes the time to describe the "Origin,
Purposes, Progress, and the Difficulties" of the school, both
positive and negative.
Pratt, R. H., Capt. “The American Missionary. Vol. Xxxvii.” New York, NY: American Missionary Association, 1883.
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=amis;cc=amis;idno=amis0037-4;node=amis0037-4%3A1;view=image;seq=118;size=100;page=root
This is a small history of Carlisle Indian
Industrial School written by its founder, Richard Henry Pratt.
He describes the founding of the school, why he believes the
school was a success, and some of its "industrial features".
This is a great source because it was written by the Founder of
the school himself. The only downside is that he desires to make
himself sound successful and therefore is biased in that aspect.
Pratt, Richard H. , Capt. “Work at Carlisle.” PDF.
This essay was written by the founder of Carlisle himself. He gives a short history of Carlisle School, and a bit of its "industrial features." This is a priceless source, although it is very biased towards the idea that Carlisle was a great school.
Secondary Sources
Booth, Tabatha Toney. "Cheaper Than Bullets: American Indian Boarding Schools and Assimilation Policy, 1890-1930." 46-56.
This paper was written by a Professor at
the University of Central Oklahoma and is therefore credible.
This source talks about how the American Government thought that
it was cheaper to educate the Native Americans than to fight
them and they should, therefore, do that. The author goes on to
explain how little the government actually cared and how little
they helped Carlisle financially and materialistically.
Calloway, Colin G. “First peoples: a documentary survey of American Indian history.” Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, a Macmillan Education imprint, 2016. Print.
This is the textbook used in our class. It is a reliable, scholarly source and provides citations for many different sources for all the facts that are presented. It is full of details about the changes Native American children had to endure while being displaced from their homelands and placed a new culture.
Landis, Barbara. "Carlisle Indian
Industrial School History." Carlisle Indian Industrial
School History. Accessed April 24, 2017. http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html.
This source was a short history of the
starting, maintaining, and closing of Carlisle. It talks about
Pratt's history, recruiting students, the life of a student, the
outing system, and the cemetery. It is clear that the author has
done their research and knows the information. In other sources,
I have found a lot of the same information as this author,
making this source considerable credible.
PBS. Accessed April 24, 2017. http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/boarding.html#.
This is a small article on Indian Boarding
Schools. It briefly talks about the background of Natives and
European contact and how the Europeans did not think that the
Natives were capable of being smart on their own. It goes on to
explain how the Natives got to and felt about their boarding
school experiences. Although there isn't too much information in
this source, what it does have, I believe to be reliable. KLRU
is a very well known TV station and must do a lot of research
and preparation before releasing any material.
Reyhner, Jon. "American Indian Education." American Indian/Alaska Native Education: An Overview. Accessed April 4, 2017. http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/AIE/Ind_Ed.html.
This source goes over the history of
American Indian/Alaska Native Education, the role of the BIA,
Validating Native Culture, and the different subjects the Native
American children learned in school. This source was written by
a Professor at the Northern Arizona University. He's written
many chapters for textbooks, given workshops and presentations.
Satterlee, Anita. “The Carlisle Indian Industrial School.” Report. History, U.S. Army War College. Carlisle, PA, 2002. 1-13.
This was a report done by a student at an
Army college. The references used in her paper seem to all be
official .org, .edu, and .gov sources along with many primary
sources. She talks about Pratt’s mission at Carlisle to “kill
the Indian, save the man,” his methodology in achieving this
goal through several courses, and his totalitarian discipline
style.
Wishart, David J. "Education, geography, and Indian assimilation, 1887-1933." Journal of Geography 81, no. 6 (1982): 204-10. doi:10.1080/00221348208980736.
This source talks about the geography of
boarding schools: where they were located and the attendance of
the schools. The author of this journal goes into depth on how
geography was thought to the natives in comparison to public
schools. He compares and contrasts the different things students
from public schools and Indian schools learn.
Witmer, Linda F. “The Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1879-1918.” Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 2002. Print.
This book gives the complete, in-depth
history of Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It discusses the
revolutionary idea of Carlisle, its' functioning years, the
changes in its philosophy, and its closing. It also has many
pictures of the school, students, teachers, classrooms, and
activities.