away from home: american indian boarding school stories

Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories

Heard Museum Guild Walk Through

Feb. 21, 2019Presented by Janet Cantley, curator

Exhibition Entrance

• U.S. government aimed to assimilate American Indian children by placing them in far-away boarding schools

• Boarding school experiences continues to impact American Indian communities today

• Heard opened Remembering Our Indian School Days in 2000

• On-going commitment to share powerful stories

Class portrait of Chemawa School students. Copy of a hand-tinted photograph. Salem, OR: 1905. Photograph no. 8617. Pacific University Archives, Forest Grove, Oregon.

© 2019 - Heard Museum | 2301 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004 | heard.org

Introductory Hall

• What is Education?

• Why Boarding Schools?

• Words are Important

• Boarding School experiences are complex, nuanced and personal stories


Homelands

• Who benefited from American Indian boarding schools?

• Who attended American Indian boarding schools?

• Removal, Relocation and Displacement

Kaibab Paiute, Cedar Ridge Thunder Mountain, looking northwest. Owen Seumptewa(Photographer), 1999. Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives, RC308(31):12


Journey of Separation

• How did students go to American Indian boarding schools?

• How did parents respond to forced removals of children?

• Resistance

• Pratt’s Experiment

Train arriving at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, c. 1900. Chalcraft Papers, National Archives and Records Administration, Northwest Region, Seattle, WA


Richard Henry Pratt

• Founder of Carlisle Indian School, 1879-1904

• Put in charge of prisoners of war at Fort Marion, Saint Augustine, Florida

• “Experiment” in education, started at Fort Marion, continued at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Richard Henry Pratt, c. 1900-1909. Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, CIS-P-0020.


Resistance

• American Indians resisted the forced enrollment of their children

• In 1895 19 Hopi leaders arrested by US cavalry and sent to Alcatraz

• Many other forms of covert attempts to keep children at home

Hopi Prisoners at Alcatraz, January 3, 1895. : Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles, California.


Arrival

• Erase and Replace

• Interrupted Lives

• Public relations/Marketing boarding schools

• Before-and-After photographs

• Souvenir books

• Panoramic images

Angel DeCora, Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), 1871-1919Untitled, 1900, Oil on canvas. Collection of J. Andrew Darling


Processing

• Stripping of identity

• Separation from siblings

• Interrupted lives

• Bathing in lye soap

• Fine-tooth combing for lice

• Punishment for speaking Native language

New students bathing in tubs at Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia, C. 1880-1890. National Anthropological Archives, National museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.


Before-and-After Photographs

• Public relations campaign to continue funding and garner support

• Photographers, such as John Choate and Frances Benjamin Johnston

• Photographs worthy of analysis

Above: Portrait of Annie Dawson, Carrie Anderson and Sarah Walker, 1878. Hampton University Archives, Hampton, Virginia.

Right: Portrait of Annie Dawson, Carrie Anderson and Sarah Walker (after arrival), c. 1878-1879. Hampton University Archives, Hampton, Virginia.


Panoramic images

• U.S. Indian Schools photographed to show imposing buildings and park-like campuses

• Students photographed in formation

Fort Totten campus, 1878. State Historical Society of North Dakota B-37


Panorama of U.S. Indian School, Phoenix, Arizona, 1908. Library of Congress


Health & Homesickness

• How did children and families deal with separation, stripping of identity and regimentation?

• Running away was a common occurrance; local population near schools hired to return students

Judith Lowry, Mountain Maidu/Hamawi Pit River, b. 1948Going Home, 1992. Acrylic on canvas, 64” H x 52” wGift of Kathleen L. and William G. Howard, Heard Museum 4933-1


Health

• Health conditions at Indian schools in late 1800s were deadly

• Tuberculosis rate for Native population 4 to 10 times higher than mainstream population

• Physical & emotional trauma

• Tuberculosis, trachoma, influenza

Phoenix Indian School Hospital, 1896, AZ Historical Foundation, Univ. Archives, ASU, Tempe, AZ, N-2809


Hall of Schools

• Carlisle Indian School—the model

• Panoramas of schools west of Mississippi

• Phoenix Indian School, AZ

• Chamberlain, S.D.

• Flandreau, S.D.

• Haskell Institute, KS

Carlisle Indian School student body, March 1892. J.N. Choate (Photographer), Cumberland County Historical Society.


1930s Map and Film—Phoenix Indian School campus and students


Classroom

• Who is a citizen?

• Who benefited from labor of boarding school students?

• Academics and Vocational Training

• Work Detail

• Outing Program

Baking class at Flandreau Indian School, Flandreau, South Dakota, c. 1900. South Dakota State Historical Society--State Archives.


Outing program

• Children sent to work as domestics or laborers in rural areas near schools

• Pratt described it as a way to keep children separated from home communities

Grand Junction Indian School chicken farm, c. 1900. Shades of L.A.: Native American Community Collection, Los Angeles Public Library.


Estelle Reel

• Superintendent of Indian Schools, 1898-1910

• Author of Uniform Course of Study (1901)

• Curriculum focused on vocational training and manual labor

• Used by all federal schools

Estelle Reel, n. d. Wyoming State Archives.


Institutional Life

• What was dorm life like?

• Punishment

• Military connections

• Choose a church

• Dorm life & student resistance

• Changing diet

Children praying before bedtime at Phoenix Indian School, June 1900. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC 75-EXP-2B.


Change of diet

• Early schools had vegetable gardens, dairy and chickens

• Maintained by student labor

• Students suffered from dietary deficiencies

• Depression era families sent children to school so they had 3 meals a day

Turnip harvest, Phoenix Indian School, 1904. Clarence Miller Collection


Choose a church

• Students were indoctrinated in Christianity

• Students were expected to attend Sunday church services and weekly religious study

• Students prayed before meals and at bedtime

Children praying before bedtime at Phoenix Indian School, June 1900. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC 75-EXP-2B.


Art

• Angel DeCora—art program at Carlisle

• Resistance and resilience through art

• Santa Fe, The Studio, started 1932

• Native Industries curriculum:• 1898 – 1910

• 1930s – 1940s

Weaving Class at Carlisle Indian School, c. 1904-1914. : Albert A. Line (Photographer). Carlisle Indian School, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.


Angel DeCora

• Daughter of Ho-Chunk chief and Métis

• Graduated from Hampton

• Graduated from Smith College

• Started career as illustrator

• 1906-1915 DeCora taught at Carlisle Indian School

Portrait of Angel Decora Dietz, c. 1900. Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013.


Santa Fe Indian School Art Program

• 1918-1922 wife of superintendent at Santa Fe Indian School encouraged cultural expressions---Fred Kabotie, Otis Polelonema

• Supertintendent DeHuff was fired

• 1932 Dorothy Dunn hired at Santa Fe Indian School; she encouraged cultural expressions

Fred Kabotie


Native Industries

Native Industries curriculum

• 1898 – 1910—E. Reel

• 1930s – 1940s—Indian New Deal

Pottery making at Indian School. Pine Ridge, South Dakota, n. d. Library of Congress


Minnie Dixon, Pine Ridge Indian School, S.D., late 1930s


The Studio, SFIS

• Dorothy Dunn directed the Studio, 1932 – 1937

• Mabel Morrow directed traditional arts (weaving, pottery, basketry)

• Geronima Montoya 1937-1961

• 1962 the Studio replaced by Institute of American Indian Art

Pablita and Rosita Velarde and other students at SFIS, 1932


Student art, SFIS

Richard Chino, Acoma Pueblo

Irrigation Work, 1945

Tempera on paper. Gift of James T. Bialac, 4456-3


Music & Drama

• Assimilation through music and pageants

• Indianization of American Indian Boarding Schools

Patriotic pageant at Sherman Institute, n.d. Sherman Indian High School Museum, Riverside, California.


Assimilation through Music & Drama

• Tribal stories replaced by “American” history—plays and dramatizations

• Christian hymns sung before meals, at bedtime—daily

Hampton students in a pageant on Indian Citizenship Day, 1892. Hampton University Archives, Hampton, Virginia.


Indianization at American Indian Boarding Schools

• Intercultural exchanges

• New alliances formed

• Recognition and identification as Indian

Students Performing “Hiawatha,” at Haskell Institute, Lawrence Kansas, c. 1922. National Archives Record Administration, Washington D.C. #75-L-12-G.


Marching band

Bands a point of pride for Indian Schools

• Based on military drum & bugle corps

• Played at civic events

• Played for VIP guests

• Toured to World’s Fairs

• Recruitment tool

Genoa Indian School Band, 1911. Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation and the Genoa Historical Museum


Sports & Princesses

Teaching American values through sports & princesses competition.

Sports programs a way to build community—support from locals and tribal communities.

Princess pageants transitioned from “beauty contests” to recognition of tribal heritage and pride.

Chilocco Track and Field Sports Competition Team and faculty, c. 1913. Archives & Manuscripts Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.


A New Era

Reforms and Changes

• Meriam Report, 1928

• Indian Reorganization, 1934

• 1960s Activism

• 1970s Self-Determination

• 1990s Language revitalization


Unexpected outcomes

New leadership.

Alliances.

Pan-Indianism.

Boarding School marriages.

Above: Zitkala Sa, Yankton Sioux, taught at Carlisle, activistRight: Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Lakota, alumni of Carlisle; activist


Meriam Report

• Investigative report conducted in late 1920s

• General study of living conditions for American Indians

• Very critical of conditions in federal boarding schools

• Led to reforms in American Indian policy

Haskell Institute Girls' Dormitory Sleeping Porch, 1918. Haskell Archives, Haskell Cultural Center and Museum, Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, KS.


Indian New Deal

• 1934 policy that reversed cultural assimilation of Native Americans

• Movement toward self-government

• Ended allotment of tribal land

John Collier Appointed Indian Affairs Commissioner, 1933. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C


Moving Forward

• Santa Fe Indian School—an example of self-determination; first school under Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act to be operated by tribal entity—All Indian Pueblo Council

• 130 (+ or–) schools have tribal control today

Santa Fe Indian School, 2004. Photography: Michael Barley. Architectural Design: Van H. Gilbert, Architect, PC. Programming: Anne Taylor, Ph.D. Owner: Nineteen Northern New Mexico Pueblos.


Reflections on the legacy of AIBS

Felice Lucero-Giaccardo, San Felipe Pueblo, b. 1946

Boarding School Series, 1981

Pastel on paper, IAC1541

Artist attended boarding school in Santa Fe, NM.


Reflections on the legacy of AIBS

Jane Ash Poitras, Cree, b. 1951

Family Blackboard, 1989

Mixed media collage


Shan Goshorn, Eastern Band Cherokee, 1957-201810 Little Indians, 2013


Susan Hudson, Navajo, b. 1958The Beginning of the End, 2019


away from home: american indian boarding school stories

Documents