What names come to mind when you think of boarding schools? You would probably think of high school boarding schools, such as Exeter, Thatcher,  Andover, etc. But few people know about the history of Native American federal reserve boarding schools. The United States ran federal boarding schools from the early 19th century to the mid 20th century, with the mission to ‘civilize’ Native American children (Wikipedia). Though it seemed the United States government's intention with creating these boarding schools was to support Native American communities, the schools had a devastating impact on them.

The History Behind the Native American Boarding Schools

Federal boarding schools used many assimilation tactics to erase the culture of the Native Americans. On March 3, 1819, the United States passed the Civilization Fund Act, allowing the President (In 1819 it was James Monroe) “In every case where he shall judge improvement in the habits and condition of such Indians practicable” and to “employ capable persons of good moral character” introducing any tribe building a settlement to the “arts of civilization”. There were 408 boarding schools that lasted until 1969, at the peak of the boarding schools in 1925, there were 60,000 kids who went to these boarding schools, the boarding schools taught Native American children using western education. The United States government thought the Native American people needed to be “civilized” because they looked down on them. The Declaration of Independence, the document that declared our freedom, declares “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” but The Declaration of Independence then contradicts that statement by calling the indigenous people of Turtle Island, which is what some Native Americans call North America, “merciless Indian savages”. 

In a Vox video about these Native American boarding schools, they interview people who went to these schools, especially those who went to the infamous Carlisle boarding school. They also interviewed experts in the field who had ancestors who went to these boarding schools. The video explains “The Carlisle Indian Industrial school was nothing short of cultural genocide, disguised as American education.” These boarding schools  Native American culture by not allowing Native Americans to speak their native language, wear traditional clothing, and have their native hairstyles. These schools also forced Native Americans to change to more Western names. Óta Kté, for example, was changed to Luther Standing Bear. 

The Vox video then states how other countries like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia tried to erase Native Cultures by establishing these boarding schools, and they have “Acknowledged, apologized or reconciled, except for the United States.” It demonstrates how the government is embarrassed about these actions and their desire to cover their tracks, but instead is hurting the government even more, because more and more information is being revealed, and is exposing the government’s secrets. 

Intentions Behind the Creation of Native American Boarding Schools

Though the United States government stated and thought they were doing Native Americans a favor, the actions that followed their words didn’t match up with their statements. Colonel Richard Pratt, who founded  the Carlisle school in 1879, believed Native American people were equal to white people, but Native Americans would have to make changes to their ways of life. For example, turning their ways of life to be more Westernized. This is where the phrase “Kill the Indian, Save the man” started. Though Colonel Pratt thought that he was “saving” Native Americans, he was only worsening the problem by, (as I mentioned before) committing cultural genocide, which has contributed to the eradication of many different Native American tribes and communities. 

Colonel Pratt also reflected when talking about the 14th amendment in his book, Battlefield & Classroom: Decades with the American Indian, “Under this amendment…the Indian could not be continued imprisoned on separate tribal reservations. The rights of citizenship included fraternity and equal privilege for development. None of our people were held under as serve ‘jurisdiction’ by the United States as our Indian” (Pratt, 8). Pratt believed that Native American people were being imprisoned on their reservations because he had a conception that these reservations were holding back the Native American children; he believed the ways of life for Native American communities were wrong and needed Western education in order to “save” them. He portrayed them as helpless people. This clearly displays and demonstrates his flawed ideas and his true thought process behind creating these boarding schools.

The people running the Native American boarding schools had much more violent and racist intentions that continued the contradiction of so many statements made by the leaders of the boarding schools. The Indigenous Foundation, a website that raises awareness for Indigenous subjects wrote about the Native American Boarding Schools: “Male students were taught to perform manual labor such as blacksmithing, shoemaking, and farming amongst other trades. On the other hand, female students were taught to cook, clean, sew, do laundry, and care for farm animals…Native students were neglected and faced many forms of abuse including physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual.” It gets into the cruelty and how they treated their students. 

The article depicts how the boarding schools specifically used cruel punishment like beating children to “discipline” them.iIn reality, this harsh treatment weakened Native American children physically and mentally, leading them to be more susceptible to illnesses such as tuberculosis, flu, measles, and trachoma. What is even more saddening about this situation is that the leaders of these boarding schools had racist and outdated stereotypes ingrained in their minds. 

The United States Department of the Interior, published a report in 2021, uncovering the abuse that happened during the decades of the Native American boarding schools, stating “Rampant physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; disease; malnourishment; overcrowding; and lack of health care in Indian boarding schools are well-documented” (Pg. 60). This shows the lack of support from the United States government and how they treated the Native Americans as their inferior. The report also found that “hundreds of Indian children died throughout the Federal Reserve boarding schools system” (Pg. 97). But, Native Americans are real people, just because they might seem different from you doesn’t make them any less human. 

The Trauma the Boarding Schools Created for the Native American Community

In an article in the Atlantic, remembering the bicentennial passing of the Civilization Fund Act, the author, Mary Annette Pember talks about her mother who went to one of the federal reserve boarding schools (which were run by nuns), and explained the trauma she went through during her time at the boarding schools. The article explains “Although [my mom] died in 2011, I can still see her trying to outrun her invisible demons. She would walk across the floor of our house, sometimes for hours, desperately shaking her head from side to side to keep the persistent awful memories from entering. She would flap and wring her hands over and over again, as though to rid them of a clinging presence.” This demonstrates the cruelty these boarding schools used in an effort to “civilize” the Native Americans, but clearly scarred them both mentally and physically, affecting them for decades after they graduated from the boarding schools. 

In addition, there were daily reminders about how “primitive” the Native Americans were, how they will never be more than a servant for a rich white man, demonstrating how there was no freedom in an unfair system. The nuns’ proceeded to call the author's mother a “dirty Indian”, reminded by the memories of hundreds to thousands of hours doing manual labor, practicing those skills for being a servant for a rich white man, reinforcing how unfair the system was. The Native American children had such deep hatred for the nuns, the author's mom explains,“One year during the Christmas season, Sister was marching down the cellar steps to check if we stole any food,” she said. ‘She fell on the bottom step—crash! She hit her head bad! Not after long she died.’ ‘What a silent cheer us kids made!’she continued. ‘Maybe it was terrible, but it was the best Christmas present we ever got.” The situation at the boarding school got so bad that they were happy that someone died. This illustrates how these boarding schools treated their students and the cruelty and hatred these boarding schools had towards Native Americans.

The United States government passed the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 with the intention to help the Native American community, but the Act only hurt and continued the cultural genocide of those communities. To try to prevent this from happening, when facing a problem, someone must think of their intentions and how it might affect one another. If one thinks about their intentions, how it can affect one another; we can truly make the world a better place by thinking about each other, listening to each other, and treating everyone as equals which wasn’t done in the boarding schools. If everyone is cognizant of the world around them, it will truly make the world a better place. The same principles that were used in the Native American boarding schools should not be applied in real life. When listening to friends, or parents, if one doesn’t listen to the values that the other side wants, it’ll create disputes and arguments between both sides and eventually create splits between people. It can be applied in an even broader perspective, if the government is doing something that affects a minority, it can be extremely harmful to them if they don’t listen to the other side's perspective, the government can do great harm, eventually destroying or harming that minority.

Work Cited

“American Indian Boarding Schools.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Nov. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools.

Congress, United States. Statue II, Chapter LXXXV, 3 March 1819, 

govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/3/STATUTE-3-Pg516b.pdf 

“How the US stole thousands of Native American children”, uploaded by Vox, 14 Oct. 2019,

youtube.com/watch?v=UGqWRyBCHhw 

Pratt, Richard. Battlefield & Classroom: Decades with the American Indian. United States, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. 8, books.google.com/books?id=1wTCi7jyXB0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Mejia, Melissa. “The U.S. history of Native American Boarding Schools.” The Indigenous Foundation, 30 May 2021, theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/us-residential-schools.

Annette Pember, Mary. “Death by Civilization.” The Atlantic, 8 March 2019,

theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/traumatic-legacy-indian-boarding-schools/584293/.