Chapter 6

Objective: We will examine the life of Native Americans after the conquering of the west and

determine the new role they served in American society.

HW: Read pages 383-390

“Kill the Indian Save the Man” -Capt. Pratt

• A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man....

• The Indians under our care remained savage, because forced back upon themselves and away from association with English-speaking and civilized people [as a result of segregation on isolated reservations], and because of our savage example and treatment of them. . . . We have never made any attempt to civilize them with the idea of taking them into the nation, and all of our policies have been against citizenizing and absorbing them. Although some of the policies now prominent are advertised to carry them into citizenship and consequent association and competition with other masses of the nation, they are not, in reality, calculated to do this....

• We make our greatest mistake in feeding our civilization to the Indians instead of feeding the Indians to our civilization. America has different customs and civilizations from Germany. What would be the result of an attempt to plant American customs and civilization among the Germans in Germany, demanding that they shall become thoroughly American before we admit them to the

• country? Now, what we have all along attempted to do for and with the Indians is just exactly that, and nothing else. We invite the Germans to come into our country and communities, and share our customs, our civilization, to be of it; and the result is immediate success. Why not try it on the Indians? Why not invite them into experiences in our communities? Why always invite and compel them to remain a people unto themselves?

New Policies

• “We just lived.” 2 Leggings• Indian Rights Assoc.

indicative of new ideas • Gov’t. policy: Save the Man

– Bureaucratic programs created. Issues?

– Fort Marion experiment– Reservations and Agents laid

out plans, Indians were to implement them to the chagrin of tribes

– Agent corruption delved tribes deeper into poverty

Corrupt Agents

Fort Marion

“Killing the Indian”

• Despite attempts policies were not killing Indian culture. Ex: Dances, religious ceremonies survived

• Dawes Act 1887: Result of reservation failures– “The organization of the Indian tribes is, and has been

one of the most serious hindrances to the advancement of the Indian toward civilization”-Indian Rights Assoc.

– Policy of breaking up tribes to forcibly integrate Indians into American society

– Aimed to break up reservations and land into individual private property. Resembled?

Dawes Act Particulars

• Take land from tribes and break into plots.

• Aimed to make communalism end, “excess” land would be sold

• Allotments later undermined– Allowing plots to be sold led

to break up of peoples, lands by rich industries/settlers.

“Indian Territory”

• Dawes Act specifically did not include “5 civilized” but “Cherokee Commission” negotiated allotment.

• By 1890’s Ok. Territory and Indian territory starting to blur.

1885

1891

Legacy of Allotment • The purpose of the Dawes Act and the subsequent acts that extended

its initial provisions was purportedly to protect Indian property rights, particularly during the land rushes of the 1890s, but in many instances the results were vastly different. The land allotted to the Indians included desert or near-desert lands unsuitable for farming. In addition, the techniques of self-sufficient farming were much different from their tribal way of life. 1). Many Indians did not want to take up agriculture, and those who did want to farm could not afford the tools, animals, seed, and other supplies necessary to get started. 2). There were also problems with inheritance. Often young children inherited allotments that they could not farm because they had been sent away to boarding schools. Multiple heirs also caused a problem; when several people inherited an allotment, the size of the holdings became too small for efficient farming. (Numbering added by Mr. Swiech) http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/fed-indian-policy/

• Led to increased poverty and selling of lands to white settlers, breaking up tribal lands/heritage.

Kill The Indian Child

• “As a savage we cannot tolerate him any more than as a half-civilized parasite, wanderer or vagabond. The only alternative left is to fit him by education for civilized life. The Indian, though a simple child of nature with mental facilities dwarfed and shriveled, while groping his way for generations in the darkness of barbarism, already sees the importance of education…” Merrill Gates Board of Indian Commisioners

Education

• Objective was to isolate children from the tribal culture of the rez by taking them to boarding schools. – By 1893 attendance was mandatory, parents were

punished for not sending their children away, agents could take children of age.

• Daily Regimen part of the “training” process

More Pratt

• I believe that the system of removing them from their tribes and placing them under continuous training in the midst of civilization is far better than any other method... I am sure that if we could bring to bear such training as this upon all our Indian children for only three years, that savagery among the Indians in this country would be at an end... The end to be gained...is the complete civilization of the Indian and his absorption into our national life, [for] the Indian to lose his identity as such, to give up his tribal relations and to be made to feel that he is an American citizen....The sooner all tribal relations are broken up, the sooner the Indian loses all his Indian ways, even his language, the better it will be for him and for the government and the greater will be the economy to both. (Pratt, founder of Carlisle)

Carlisle School Model

• Started by Pratt. “Success” led to many more. • Anglo Culture Forced:– Clothes, language, food, DISCIPLINE, distance from

family, loneliness, disease, abuses, self/tribal views.

• Impact of the enculturation both killed many aspects of society, and untold offenses.

Geronimo’s Reaction at Carlisle• "My friends: I am going to talk to you a few minutes, listen well

to what I say.• You are all just the same as my children to me, just the same as if

my children are going to school when I look at you all here. You are here to study, to learn the ways of white men, do it well. You have a father here and a mother also. Your father is here, do as he tells you. Obey him as you would your own father. Although he is not your father he is a father to you now. The Lord made my heart good, I feel good wherever I go, I feel very good now as I stand before you. Obey all orders, do as you are told all the time and you won't get hungry. He who owns you holds you in His hands like that and He carries you around like a baby. That is all I have to say to you."

Within the first several years after Carlisle opened in 1879, the school was hailed by most American reformers as an outstanding success. Consequently, the Indian Office opened similar non-reservation boarding schools in Genoa, Nebraska; Chilocco, Indian Territory; Lawrence, Kansas; and New Mexico. By the mid-1890s, the federal government looked to create more boarding schools in the Western United States. Under the leadership of a new Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William A. Jones (1897-1904), these schools were shaped by a different philosophy than that of Carlisle. Commissioner Jones and his colleagues doubted that Indians could fully assimilate into white society or that they could compete with whites in commercial and mechanical skills. Instead, they believed Indians were better suited for a life of manual labor. Thus, in western non-reservation boarding schools:

Indian children were not taught jobs that would help them assimilate into white society but rather, were assigned menial labor tasks which gave them very little reason to expect economic or social advancement or equality. The Indian Office was clear that "...an Indian boy or girl will have to make their living by the sweat of their brow, and not their brains." (As quoted in Trennert, 1988:47.)

Religious assimilation and education became de-emphasized at the same time that vocational education received greater emphasis. All religious instruction that remained was to be strictly non-denominational.

Indian education increasingly was characterized by strong vocational training and a weak academic program. The situation at Phoenix Indian Industrial School was typical: the school had up-to-date machinery, but no library; vocational programs were well-funded and much-praised, while academic programs received little money and even less interest; boys from the first graduating class were praised by Superintendent McCowan when they had "ambition enough to become more than an ordinary breadwinner," while an academically bright young man was degraded for having the "indolence peculiar to his tribe" and told he would probably become "a degenerate blanket Indian." (As quoted in Trennert, 1988:70.)

Changing Societies • As lands were taken, lost,

etc. Indians across the US had to adapt to new economic systems.– Worked as manual labor,

usually with immigrants away from reservations.

• Children from schools began to work into US society.

• Wild West Shows were opportunities for many to recapture their heritage.

• Wild West Show

Sitting Bull and William Cody Recreation of Custer’s Last Stand

Involvement in WWI

• Why would 12,000 enlist?– Warrior culture,

Indian schools, chance to prove themselves, loyalty to land/country (Iroquois).

– Many didn’t serve out of principle. Arguments made?

• Many believed that assimilation was complete because of enlistment Indian Citizen Act 1924.

Moving Forward

• Reform of 1910’s (page 411) and prosperity of 20’s led to investigations of Indian affairs Merriam Report 1928.– Move forward, not back and

attempt to reform.

• Great Depression will further set back the cause of the American Indian.

• Coolidge and Osage