Native American Boarding Schools

Many American Indian children completely lost contact with their parents and extended family after being placed in one of the boarding schools. This practice had a devastating impact on the children, their families, and the tribes (Goldsmith, 2002). This practice of forcing American Indian children to attend boarding schools was prominent from 1880 to 1930. By 1930, about half of all American Indian children that attended school were attending a mandatory boarding school. These boarding schools were oftentimes hundreds of miles away from their homes and the children that attended were forbidden from speaking their native language or engaging in their own cultural practices (Evans-Campbell, Walters, Pearson & Campbell,

Gas or electric stove? Telephone?” Finally, he asked ‘well lady, what do you have,” Clark Biddle reiterated. Subsequently, to Black Tuesday in 1929 civilians lost everything they had. Given the situation, children as young as five years old wrote letters to Eleanor Roosevelt hoping to be granted with the slightest of necessities. L. H. Gravette wrote, “I am in the seventh grade but I have to stay out of school because I have no books or clothes to ware.

However, Pratt had no intention of the children returning to the tribe. Pratt used to say that an Indian had to die as an Indian to live as a man, which clarifies why Pratt thought, wiping out the culture of Native American children had to be done. One of the first things that were done in the boarding schools is having their names changed. They were asked to choose a new name from a set of names

These schools have been described as an instrument to wage intellectual, psychological, and cultural warfare to turn Native Americans into “Americans”. There are many reports of young Native Americans losing all cultural belonging. According to an interview with NPR, Bill Wright was sent to one of these schools. He lost his hair, his language, and then his Navajo name. When he was able to return home, he was unable to understand or speak to his grandmother.

The Native American Genocide consists of 12 million deaths in 400 years. Whites wanted land and gold so once Columbus got to the America’s they started persecuting them right away. Natives have been forced on a long hard road since being persecuted in the 1500’s. To begin with, Natives came to the America’s way before Columbus did while following food and to escape conflict in their old homes (F, Meridith). Scientists say, “Native Americans came over because they wanted to explore and get away from rival tribes.” The Native Americans came to the America’s almost 14,000 years before Columbus (When did people first come to North America?).

Unfortunately, two hundred Native American men, women, and children were killed in the ambush and their body parts were mutilated and brought back to Denver to be put on display by Chivington’s men. This horrifying example of the white’s superiority becomes known as The1864 Sand Creek Massacre, one of the most catastrophic examples of military advantages and overkill in all of the American Indian Wars

The genocide that Stalin inflicted on the Ukrainians began in 1929 with massive deportations of the most successful farmers of Ukraine. All farmers were forced to give up their land to the government. These farms would then be state owned and factory ran. If farmers and families would refuse to leave their homes, they would be drug out of their houses and forced onto freight trains that would then take them to remote areas. To add on, the Soviet Union sharply increased Ukraine 's’ production quotas, to make it near impossible to fill, which eventually led to the widespread starvation all across Ukraine.

In 1921 the Number of new immigrants shot up to 805,000. Congress started to limit immigration. The Ku Klux Klan started to rise again searching for “Native, White, Protestant, supremacy.” Over time and after a few mishaps by leaders, the KKK’s membership decreased to 50,000. Darwinism was starting become more prevalent. Teaching the study of evolution was outlawed in some states.

The Cherokee, a small tribe of Indians, has been forced to move from their homeland after John Ridge met secretly US official to sign a removal treaty for the selling of Cherokee’s land. Ridge and almost 2000 Cherokee migrated to Oklahoma while the vast majority of the population ignored the illegal treaty and remained on their lands. When the deadline of removal past, the general Winfield Scoot arrived in Georgia with seven thousand soldiers with the orders to remove the Cherokee. And this action was the decline of the Cherokee. After reading the book about writing by John Ehle about the Cherokee nation, we can try to analyze the impact of this removal in the Cherokee’s live.

The troops ask for them to camp on Wounded land and they will be send back the next morning and the Sioux agreed. The next morning the troops confiscated their weapons and took them away some natives were angry and kept some weapons. A soldier ask a deaf Sioux to put his weapon down but he did not understand they started to pulled and a shot was fired the war broke out and they army killed over one hundred fifty three unarmed Sioux. After the massacre the U.S. tried to help and rescue the survivors but a blizzard passed threw and the bodies froze it was too late. The Dawes Act was created for the government’s goal to divide up the tribal land among individual natives.

The first village built by the English was named “James Fort” in honor of their monarch. Within two weeks the Indians, known as the Powhatan’s, found out from the Secotans (North Carolina Native Americans), where most of the recent settlements got “lost”, so they attacked the village. The attack was a failure because the British drew out the Indians with cannons and muskets. After the British drove the Indians away showing more power they also had disadvantages, most of the settlers were trained soldiers and gentries which means they didn’t have enough farmers and farm land to feed all 150 colonists. By the first half of September more than half of the James Fort city (later Jamestown) colonists died, taking the Powhatan’s to pity.