“Killing Cultures”: Native Americans, Racism, and the West, 1865-1900

I. Prelude to Conflict • A. Civil War and after

– 1. Homestead Act, 1862 encouraged settlement by promising land to those who settled and improved it

– 2. Expansion helped by completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869– 3. From 1865-1890, white population of trans-Mississippi West grew 5x

faster than population as a whole: these people and their desires, collided with some 360,000-400,000 Native Americans

• B. The “color line” in the West– 1. “Color line” woven into the history of the West just as it was in the South– 2. Whites convinced of their own cultural superiority saw nothing wrong with

appropriating Native American land while simultaneously “civilizing” them– 3. Just as the South used power of gov’t to subjugate its citizens, so too gov’t

helped subjugate Native Americans in the West

II. “Kill the Indian and Save the Man”• A. The Assimilationist Impulse

– 1. Spurred by evangelical Christian reformers, Congress in 1869 establishes Board of Indian Commissioners to mold reservation life along white lines

– 2. Until 1880s, the Board appointed the agents who administered the reservations and their key belief was to “kill the Indian and save the man” or as another put it, Indians must be taught to be more “mercenary”

• B. Three basic components– 1. Suppressing Indian culture—i.e. family life, religion, mores– 2. Education—day schools, boarding schools, off-reservation

industrial schools, all tried to obliterate Indian culture– 3. Land reform and the ideal of the yeoman farmer

III. Attacking the Spirit World• A. Reservation life undermined Native American spiritual life

– 1. Vision quest for young boys had historically occurred within context of war and the hunt

– 2. With their decline, ritual became detached from meaningful roots

• B. 1883, gov’t issues “List of Indian Offences”– 1. Attacked Sioux spirituality– 2. Medicine men could be hauled before the Court of Indian

Offences for providing spiritual guidance or for practicing traditional healing rituals

– 3. Sun Dance of the Sioux banned—a blow to Sioux interpretation of life

– 4. Polygamy banned – 5. Laws enforced by withholding rations or by imprisonment

IV. Schooling• A. Richard Henry Pratt and the Carlisle Indian

School (founded 1879)– 1. Template for future schools– 2. Isolated children from their tribe, forced children to speak English, compelled

them to adopt white customs– 3. Removed children from control of parents, in order (as one reformer put it) to

keep them from growing up like their parents, “a race of barbarians and semi-savages.”

• B. Rules for Indian Schools, 1890– 1. Schools were monuments to regimentation– 2. Children organized into companies; wore uniforms, had short hair, and were

force fed a diet emphasizing patriotism, obedience, courtesy, and punctuality– 3. Sabbath must be observed, only English could be spoken, parents had limited

visiting rights, clothing must be uniform, the flag must be honored, industrial training must be provided, white recreation should be encouraged

V. Educating Females• A. Female boarding schools

– 1. 3,000 female students enrolled in 25 schools– 2. Trained girls to become good housewives

• B. The domestic curriculum– 1. Steady emphasis on obedience– 2. Heart of curriculum focused on housewifery

• A. In 1904, Superintendent ofr Indian schools issued a three-page memo on how to make a bed

• B. Taught to prepare proper Victorian meals• C. Girls also worked to support the under-funded schools—cleaned the school,

cared for own rooms, did own cooking, worked in the school laundry

– 3. Students sometimes placed in white homes for further acculturation – 4. Successes limited: girls had few job opportunities but their training

estranged them from their own tribes

Cherokee Female Seminary, Oklahoma, 1875

Pine Ridge Indian School, 1891

Indian boys in uniform, n.d.

Indian boy at organ, 1903

Colorado football team, ca. 1910

Indian children and farm labor, n.d.

Spokane Girls in Pinafores, n.d.

Sewing Class, n.d.

VI. The Dawes Act, 1887• A. The “humanitarian” design

– 1. Treat Indians as individuals by breaking up tribal lands and granting land to separate individuals

– 2. Reformers saw Dawes Act as a viable alternative to more brutal warfare – 3. Act provided for the distribution of 160 acres of reservation land for

farming or 320 for grazing, to each head of an Indian family who participated (single adults got 80 acres)—remainder would be sold

– 4. Land would be held in trust for 25 years by government, then become Indians (who would also gain citizenship)

• B. The impact—disaster for Indian land-holding– 1. 1881: Indians held 156 million acres– 2. 1890: Indians held 104 million acres– 3. 1900: Indians held 78 million acres– 4. Total Indian acreage declined by 65%