The Carlisle School is representative of a time at which many believed that assimilation was the way to unify a community of people. The mission of this school was focused on the concept of civilizing Native Americans so that they would fit into the constraints presented by Western society in the late 1800s. This process of Americanization resulted in the presence of over 150 boarding schools for indiginous people spanning across the United States, the Carlisle School being the most infamous of them. The founder of the school, a man named Capt. Richard H. Pratt, acted to reform these Native Americans by enacting practices that disassociated them from their heritage such as forcing them to speak only in English and to present and dress themselves as Western white people would. Pratt sought to humanize Native people through his mission to “Kill the Indian … and save the man;” however, what he actually performed is a culture of dehumanization by stripping native people of their culture (Pratt 1).
During their time at the Carlisle School, Native American people were expected to learn and adopt American culture as well as the common values of the protestant-driven society of the time. Students of the Carlisle school were “taught the importance of private property, material wealth and monogamous nuclear families” (American Indian Relief Council). In teaching these principles, it was the hope that these students would see the error in their own culture and abandon their beliefs in favor of the “right” way of life. However, much of the school functioned in a similar way to that of a regular American school. Classes would be taught in science, history, English, mathematics, and the arts. In a way, the school was delivering on its promise of giving the Native people an American education. In fact, the intent of this process was to “individualize” the indigenous students and provide them with an ability to think democratically and freely. It becomes apparent, however, that this message becomes muddled when one explores the ways in which Native people were also forced to religious indoctrination through Christian teachings (American Indian Relief Council). What the school failed to realize was that through their attempt to educate their students in economic independence and democratic thinking, they actually undermined the very values of reciprocity and communal sharing that Native communities are built upon.
As founder and head of the Carlisle school for over 25 years, Richard Henry Pratt became the voice of influence that shaped the way Native American students were educated. As presented in his famous speech, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” Pratt’s mission was to make Native American people a part of the white community. He employed this message by separating Native American children from their families and placing them with white families so that they could become immersed in the white man’s lifestyle. Through these methods, Pratt believed that he was doing justice to the “Indian” man. In his speech, he suggests to his fellow white citizens that they “‘Put [themselves] in his place’” (Pratt 5). He then relates the experience of the Native people he is attempting to civilize to the oppression of African American people through slavery. Pratt here argues that slavery actually served to humanize African American people because “[they] came from the lowest savagery into intelligent manhood and freedom” through the influence of white American culture (Pratt 5). He believes that he can do the same for the Native Americans by removing the “savagery” from their beings. Not only does he excuse the white man’s imposition on these other cultures as being a way of saving them, he also uses the example of Native tribes to justify the practices of the institution he puts in place. Pratt claims that “The five civilized tribes of the Indian Territory—Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles—have had tribal schools until it is asserted that they are civilized” (Pratt 14). In making this comparison to the Native schools in practice, Pratt convinces his audience that the school he proposes is in line with those same values presented by the Native American tribes, and therefore, the school is acting in the best interest of Native people. In fact, Pratt disguises his ideas of indoctrination when he says, “Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have” (Pratt 21). He represents his ideology as a way to liberate and nationalize Native people in the name of equality.
Though Pratt argues that he is working to bring civility to Native people, Zitkala-sa, a Native American woman who was raised in the Carlisle school and later became a teacher of the school, proves through her narrative that the Carlisle school actually acted to take agency and individualization away from the Native American people. One of the most poignant examples of the assimilative practices performed by the Carlisle school was demonstrated in the chapter of Zitkala-sa’s account called The Cutting of My Long Hair. Zitkala-sa illustrates the act of violence taken out on her, as she was “dragged out” from underneath a table “kicking and scratching wildly” in protest. She then says that she “cried out loud” and shook her head when the white woman put scissors to her neck and cut off her braid (Zitkala-sa). Zitkala-sa reflects on how this was perceived when she said, “Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people, short hair was worn by mourners, and shingled hair by cowards!” (Zitkala-sa). To Zitkala-sa, this was the worst insult one could give her. This ritual of cutting hair was something that brought shame upon the people of her culture, and therefore, to have her own hair cut unjustly felt like the most dehumanizing act of all. She was not able to prove her bravery or cowardice; that choice was taken from her. In this way, instead of associating the education and “civilization” she was receiving from the Carlisle school with being made more human or more learned, she could only associate the experience with embarrassment and degradation. Through this example, Zitkala-sa proves that Pratt’s attempt to humanize Native people resulted instead in their further harm by severing them from their cultural values.
While Pratt’s rhetoric undermines the identities of Native people, he demonstrates a mindset that was not uncommon among American society of his time, and might even be considered progressive by comparison. In fact, this rhetoric appears persuasive because it seems almost as if he is arguing for equal treatment of Native Americans when he says, “The Indians under our care remained savage, because forced back upon themselves and away from association with English-speaking and civilized people, and because of our savage example and treatment of them” (Pratt 8). He argues that by treating Native people like “savages,” white people saw them as other and therefore could not connect to them. However, this is not all he is saying. In the same breath, he is still otherizing Native people by conveying that by default Native Americans are “savages.” Zitkala-sa instead aims to reclaim her identity and subvert the idea that she is less civilized as a Native person who embraces her culture by taking back her Native American name and expressing the traumas she was put through as a student of the Carlisle school. In publishing her own words and speaking out for other Native people, she takes back her agency, proving that she does not need to be reformed.
It is made clear that what was done to the Native American people in assimilation schools such as the Carlisle school was not just an injustice, but a violence. Though the school claimed benefits and an education for young Native American children, what it truly delivered was a system that instead of promoting free thought, promoted brainwashing and shamed an entire culture of people for their identities. Through the actions of separating children from their families, cutting off their use of their native language, and conditioning them to value the popular religious ideologies of Western society, the school failed at the precedent on which it was built: making each Native person an individual. In fact, through assimilation, the exact opposite effect was achieved. As Zitkala-sa proved, physical violence was taken against many young Native American, but the more lasting impression by far, was the psychological violence. Pratt claimed that through these schools, his mission was to “Kill the Indian, [and] save the man,” but in killing the Indian, he is killing the very thing that makes the Indian a man.
“Native American History and Culture: Boarding Schools.” American Indian Relief Council Is Now Northern Plains Reservation Aid, http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_boardingschools.
Pratt, Richard Henry. “‘Kill the Indian, and Save the Man’: Capt. Richard H. Pratt on the Education of Native Americans.” HISTORY MATTERS – The U.S. Survey Course on the Web, historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929.
Zitkala-sa. “American Indian Stories.” American Indian Stories., digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/stories.html.
Writing Against Power 