The first chapter is titled beginnings. It talks about how white or Caucasian people wanted to educate the Natives in their own way. One part stated they want to “kill the Indian and save the man”. This chapter also talks about how the boarding schools were conducted. Children were taking away from their families at a very young age. When they attended school the girls were taught how to be house wives. They would learn how to clean, sew and cook. The boys were taught how to be carpenters and farmers. Then the chapter got into Haskell the school. Haskell was the forth boarding school opened in the U.S. The name came from a man named Dudley Haskell. Haskell opened its doors on September 1, 1884, students consisted of twelve Ponca boys, and they were joined by two Chillocco boys. Five girls and three boys from Ottawa reservation also joined. By the end of that school year, there were over four hundred students attending Haskell Institute. Like Chillocco hard discipline and hard labor were part of the system. To me it seems like all boarding schools had the same agenda. No matter what school you went too, they all had the same set of rules. No wonder why a lot of tribes lost there ways and language, because the majority of the children went to boarding school where they were forbidden to speak their language and practice their ways.
Hello Wylee,
ReplyDeleteLike Billi Jo and her first personal post for this week, you brought up the statement, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” The manner in which tribal identity was taken away was demanding that children not speak in their Native language. It is apparent that this strategy was somewhat successful as we see some Native languages being completely or nearly lost today. With the lost of language – there is a loss of one’s culture. It would be very hard for me to imagine how well I would fair if I was sent to school and I was punished for speaking English rather than, let’s say Spanish. Take that idea and let’s go back to Haskell in the 1880s, students at that time representing a number of tribes were forced to speak English and clung to their culture by holding secretly talking to each other in their Native tongue. These students did whatever they could to keep their language alive – to hold on to their culture.
Hello Wylee,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your chapter I thought it was quite interesting that the boarding schools would go by such a motto, "kill the indian, save the man" created by Captain Pratt. Especially, because Captain Pratt was held of such high esteem because of his formation of the buffalo soldiers. The government really had true intentions to "assimilate" the Native American community into the dominant (white) society.
Hey Wylee,
ReplyDeleteI read your post and the more I hear the saying "kill the Indian, Save the man." it bugs me because if you think about it, they are basically killing who we are as people and taking away what is ours spiritually to be. I just think what if when they set foot here we did the same to them. Then we would earn the name savages, yet we were peaceful and easily taken advantage of and still we earn the name savage.
Its interesting to see how Haskell came to be. The cover of my book has a picture of children that look like they are between the ages of 3-6 and one of them is holding a sign that says Haskell Babies. I am curious as to what that photo is about.
ReplyDeleteIt also interests me because Haskell is still a place that schools indians and I wonder if it is required to learn the history of that place, as a student, because these boarding schools are such a big part of our history and pretty much paved the way of how things are today.