The Carlisle Indian School

Carlisle Indian School:

• The first off-reservation boarding school.

• It was one of the main 19th century efforts by the US government to assimilate Native American children from 140 tribes in the area to the majority culture.

• Founded in 1879 by Lt. RichardHenry Pratt.

The Carlisle Indian School

•With increasing European immigration, settlers found it necessary to assimilate Native Americans into the culture.

In the late 18th century:

• Many saw Native Americans as equals but felt that their society was inferior.

• George Washington and Henry Knox supported educating native children, in efforts to "civilize Native Americans into the European- American society.

Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt

Pratt served during the Civil War

• Responsibility was to command Native Americans who were enlisted to fight. During this time, Lt. Pratt made an effort to: • Better conditions for the Native Americans

• Culturally assimilate them into European culture

• Educate them

Why?

Pratt convinced the tribal leaders that the reason they were able to take Indian land was because they were uneducated.

Many of the first students were sent voluntarily.

Students were taught:

Math

English

Art

Music

And eventually, they were taught about their own cultures

Not everything was all Gravy…

Soon, death tolls began to rise in the school.

Students were:

Getting sick (tuberculosis)

Trying to escape

Beaten for-

Mourning, Speaking their native

languages or Violating the harsh, military rules.

“The boys and girls at Carlisle Indian School were trained to …

serve as domestics and farm hands and to leave off all ideas

or beliefs that came to them from their Native communities,

including and particularly, their belief that they were entitled

to land, life, liberty, and dignity.... separated from all that is

familiar; stripped, shorn, robbed of their very self; and

ultimately renamed.”

-Ann Rinaldi,

Historical fiction author on her research of the Carlisle Indian School.

The Carlisle Closes.1904:

Pratt was forced to step down

He and government officials came to conflict over Pratt’s outspoken need to assimilate Native Americans

Very few graduated from the full programand more than double had attempted to run away.

By the time the school had closed,

12,000 students had passed through the doors of the Carlisle Indian School.

PURITANS!Puritans:

• Originally from England

• Grew upset with the Church of England and were extremists

• English Protestants in the 16th

and 17th centuries

• Called Puritans because they wanted to ‘purify’ the

church and their own lives.

PURITANS!Puritans:

• Mostly settled in the New England area

• Lived in small, successful communities for over

100 years.

• Experienced a self imposed isolation when they moved to the United States.

• But their communities started to face trouble when their strict beliefs

became cumbersome.

PURITANS!Puritan Beliefs:

• The belief was that they had nothing to do with their destiny.

• Predestination: They believed that God would decide if they were ‘saved’ or not.

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

• Considered by many to be the first American Poet

• The wife of Governor Simon Bradstreet

• A religious woman who loved her family and husband

• Wrote much of her poetry out of loneliness while her husband was out on business.

• Broke the Puritan boundaries by writing the first love poems

To My Dear and Loving Husband If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.My love is such that Rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.Thy love is such I can no way repay. The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let's so persever That when we live no more, we may live ever.