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Native American Boarding School System Essay

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The objective was to get rid of Native American culture, religion, law, legends and language. It was planned to save the man and kill the Indian. The government wanted to teach the children, their ways of living and their language. Pratt told leaders that he wanted their children so that the children may come back and help their tribes with leadership. 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 …show more content…

This school was built for the purpose of only teaching female students. Although, a male boarding school was built a few miles away. The Cherokee Female Seminary was originally built in Park Hill. However, after the building burned to the ground. The second school was rebuilt in a different location than the one that burned down. The new location is in Tahlequah, which is in the Cherokee Nation’s capital (Mihesuah 29). The second school location was a good idea based on the amount of people in the Nation’s capital. The decisions regarding the female seminary came from the Cherokee National Council, which were made up of mixed blood tribesmen (Mihesuah 31). Mixed blood tribesmen meaning that the leaders of the council were white men who married Cherokee women. This created a new dynamic in decision making. The council was able to make decisions that didn’t change or influence the female’s religion or spirituality, but also didn’t influence Cherokee values. The council’s main objective for the Cherokee Female Seminary is the knowledge that the females will be gaining. However, they also were concerned with the improvements that the females should attain, and how the new knowledge would make them responsible wives in the Cherokee Nation (Mihesuah 30). The school was a very social setting, as the school is set in most populous location of the Indian Territory. Therefore, it provided a snapshot of the demographic in the territory. An interesting insight is that no matter how the females identified themselves, in terms of backgrounds, they all saw themselves as Cherokees (Mihesuah 30). They all saw themselves as belonging to the tribe, and even if their views differed from one another, they were still a part of the Cherokee

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