Carlisle Indian School opened - November 1, 1879

On this day in 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an off-reservation school for the assimilation of Native Americans, opened in Pennsylvania.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello Again. It's Eaves and you're listening to
This Day in History Class, a podcast that truly believes
no day is boring. Today is November one, nineteen. The

(00:23):
day was November one, eighteen seventy nine. The Carlisle Indian
Industrial School opened in Pennsylvania. In eighteen nineteen, U S
Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act, which allocated funds to
schools designed to civilize Native American children by removing them
from their reservations and assimilating them into European American culture.

(00:47):
Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the US had embarked
on a mission of americanizing indigenous peoples by stripping them
of their customs and culture and teaching them US customs
and values. The government banned Native Americans from conducting their
traditional religious ceremonies and allotted them land in exchange for
US citizenship, and missionaries formed schools that taught Native Americans Christianity, citizenship,

(01:13):
and English. This way, white Americans believed indigenous folks would
be acculturated to the US and they would become peaceful
adults who contributed to the U. S economy. Some Native
Americans resisted this forced assimilation, while others accepted it. There
were white Americans who opposed the policies of assimilation, but

(01:35):
many white Americans believed these civilizing efforts were a benevolent
cause and that they were saving Native Americans from their
supposed savagery and rapid decline. Education was one of the
main ways the US attempted to assimilate Native Americans. The
Bureau of Indian Affairs, formed in eighteen twenty four, called
for the education of Native Americans and separate boarding schools.

(01:58):
Civil War veteran Loo Tenant Colonel Richard Henry Pratt established
the first off reservation boarding school funded by the federal government.
Abandoned army barracks in Pennsylvania became a school building. The
Carlisle Indian Industrial School, opened on November one, eight seventy nine.
Pratt's philosophy was that quote, all the Indian there is

(02:21):
in the race should be dead. The school's model was killed,
the Indian saved the man. Students names were changed to
English ones and they were forbidden from using their Indigenous ones.
They were given new clothes and haircuts. The children were
trained in trades and domestic activities. They lived with local
non Native American families over the summer rather than returned

(02:44):
to their families, and worked on farms or in stores.
The school exposed children to infection, disease, and harsh conditions,
and hundreds of children died while there. One hundred and
eighty six are buried on site. Carlisle came a model
for other government funded schools for force assimilation. The government

(03:04):
required them to attend and made it legal for officers
to take children from their homes. Parents who resisted had
to run, hide or face imprisonment. The government still believed
it was saving children from poverty and a wayward life.
Since Native American children were not allowed to attend public
schools with white students, boarding schools were often the only

(03:26):
option for their formal education, but at the schools, students
were given little academic instruction. They were mainly given vocational
training that prepared them to be farmers or manual laborers,
and the children were often subject to physical and sexual abuse.
Pratt retired as Carlile's superintendent in nineteen o four after

(03:47):
budding heads with the Bureau of Indian Affairs over his
views on reservations and assimilation. The school closed in nineteen
eighteen as it had become less relevant over the years
and was needed as a military and still nation. The
Miriam Report, published in nine criticized conditions on reservations and
in Native American boarding schools. It supported the assimilation of

(04:10):
Native American children but opposed isolating them in separate schools,
but attendance at these schools increased despite the protest of
Native American activists and the efforts of people like Commissioner
of Indian Affairs John Collier, who worked to reverse policies
of Native American cultural assimilation. Attendance at Native American boarding

(04:32):
schools peaked in the nineteen seventies, with an estimated sixty
students enrolled in nineteen seventy three. Most Native American boarding
schools have since closed. I'm Eves Jeffcote and hopefully you
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
You can keep up with us on social media on Twitter, Facebook,

(04:52):
and Instagram at t D I h C Podcast, and
you can email us at this day at I heart
media dot com. Thanks for listening. I hope to see
you here again tomorrow. MMM for more podcasts from I

(05:17):
Heart radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.