A Critical Study of Native American Education in the Upper Midwest from 1900-1940

7/29/2019 A Critical Study of Native American Education in the Upper Midwest from 1900-1940

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A Critical Study of Native American Education in the Upper Midwest from 1900-1940

Caroline Galluzzi

HIST 4955 Christianity & Native America

Dr. Laura Matthew

December 4, 2012


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In contemporary American culture, the importance of an elementary education is rarely

questioned. This widespread acceptance is due in large part to the oversimplified concept of

education as a process that provides the student with an opportunity to gain valuable knowledge

and increase prosperity and status. This concept of education has been perpetuated socially,

politically and economically by parents, teachers, the federal government and other integral parts

of American society. A student often assumes that by completing his education he will benefit

and increase his prosperity. By association, his family and community members will also be

likely to benefit. In this grand scheme of positive outcomes, the benefits that are incurred by the

educational institution and its sponsors are often overlooked.

Education is an interdependent process. The student depends on the capable instruction of

the institution just as much as the institution depends on the cooperation and diligence of the

student. Both the institution and the student must expend effort, time and perhaps money in order

to produce the product: an educated person. This model is simple enough, so long as the two

parties have the same product in mind. In cases of voluntary education, where students are able

to choose the sponsoring institution, nature and extent of their education, the intended product

is likely to be very similar. The term efficientwill be used to describe this relationship because

the efforts of both the institution and the student are directed at the same goal. Ideally, the more

congruent the parties goals, the more quickly and fully those goals will be achieved.

Alternatively, an education can be inefficientif the goals of the student and the institution

are not aligned and the resultant lack of cooperation causes the goals to be either slowly achieved

or never fully realized. It is important to note that it is equally as possible for an educational

system to be inefficient from the students perspective (scholarly inefficiency, wherein the

institutions methods are counterproductive to the students goals) as it is from that of an


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institution (institutional inefficiency, wherein the students behavior counteracts the institutions

methods and the desired effect is not achieved).

This model is admittedly simple, yet by representing both sides of the educational

relationship it is more complex than the model perpetuated by contemporary American society.

At one end of the efficiency model there exists a perfectly efficient relationship, in which the

intentions and accepted methods of the student and their chosen institution align perfectly. On

the other hand, there exists a completely stagnant relationship in which the students intentions

and accepted methods completely contradict those of the institution. In this case, absolutely no

progress is made towards the goals of either group. It is difficult to find historical examples of

educational relationships that are entirely efficient or inefficient, but the long history of

education provides examples of educational relationships at practically every degree of

efficiency.

One such example is found in the educational relationships of Native Americans, which

are widely documented as experiences of cultural annihilation, humiliation and subjugation since

the mid-nineteenth century. In hindsight, the U.S. governments educational mandate for Native

American children is widely recognized as forced assimilation in the attempt to pacify the native

culture and demonstrate the superiority of white culture. Needless to say, this educational

relationship was not perfectly efficient. However, by combining all Native American experiences

with all educational institutions into one sordid affair, the opportunity to examine the varying

efficiencies, goals and complexities of individual educational relationships during this era is lost.

It must be acknowledged that there exists a wide range of efficiency in respect to the

historical educational relationships of Native Americans in the United States. Upon these

grounds, this paper will investigate the nature of the educational relationships between Native


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American students and their educational institutions in the Upper Midwest from 1900-1940. The

efficiency model will be used to determine the congruence of the goals of varying tribes with the

educational institutions (i.e. secular off-reservation boarding schools, secular reservation

boarding schools, reservation day schools, Catholic Mission day schools and Catholic boarding

schools). The intentions of these institutions involved in Native American education can be

extracted from the written policy, correspondence and actions of their individual agents. By the

same token, words and actions of the tribal leadership, parents and children provide historical

evidence that indicates the variedintentions of different tribal groups and families. This variety

in intentions produced various degrees of efficiency in the educational relationships and serves to

illustrate the diverse nature of Native Americans educational experiences.

First, the federal governments intentions will be explored. These relationships have been

the subject of the bulk of modern academic study on Native American education. In historian

David Wallace Adams widely quoted work,Education for Extinction, he describes the

education of Native Americans during this period as a process of, the eradication of all traces of

tribal identity and culture, replacing them with the common-place knowledge and values of white

civilization.1

A statement from sponsors/reformers of Native American education, found in the

Supplemental Report of Indian Education2, implies intentions of this nature, although veiled by

euphemistic language:

When we speak of the education of the Indians, we mean that comprehensive system of

training and instruction which will convert them into American citizens, put within theirreach the blessings which the rest of us enjoy, and enable them to compete successfully

with the white man on his own ground and with his own methods. Education is to be the

medium through which the rising generation of Indians are to be brought into fraternal

and a harmonious relationship with their white fellow citizensEducation, in the broadsense in which it is here used, is the Indians only salvation. With it they will become

1David Adams,Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 20.2Francis Prucha,Documents of United States Indian Policy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 177.


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honorable, useful, happy citizens of a great republic, sharing on equal terms in all its

blessings.

Reformers held this great vision of education as the solution to the Indian Problem.

Secular sanctions made by governmental institutions during this era were attempts at solving the

problem of the Native communities as cultural, economic and social outliers in the country. This

vision of the power of education to solve this issue, however, was flawed in its

oversimplification and failure to consider the reactions of Native Americans. Blinded by their

egotistical view of white culture as unarguably supreme and preferable, the reformers didnt

predict that Indians might react in a manner that did not fully embrace the change. Due to a faith

in the great wealth and power of the American government, as well as an apparent willingness by

the federal institution to use force, there existed little or no doubt that the transformation from

savage to civilized would occur. Basically, the institution anticipated that the educational

relationship would be extremely efficient and the concept that, the acculturation process itself

could involve various forms of selective incorporation, syncretization, and compartmentalization,

was beyond their comprehension.3

They would be made aware soon enough.

The Native subjects of this educational policy were well aware of the insinuated demise

of their own culture. The "tribal elders who had witnessed the catastrophic developments of the

nineteenth century [saw] no end to the cruelties perpetrated by whites [] After all this, the

white man had concluded that the only way to save Indians was to destroy them, that the last

great Indian war should be waged against children.4

The inefficiencies in the educational

process arose more so from the Native American intent to defend and protect their indigenous

culture rather than a refusal to accept any legitimacy or merit of the white culture. It was the

reformers mindset that the two cultures were completely opposite and that the insemination of

3 Adams,Education for Extinction, 21.4 Ibid., 22.


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white culture required the eradication of indigenous culture that created the most extensive

backlash from the Native Americans. That the majority of the secular schools methods were

meant to delete Native American identity was the main cause of inefficiency in the educational

relationship. What follows are examples of gross inefficiency manifested in the conflict between

native families and the federal institutions.

Closer to the turn of the century, when Native Americans had less influence over their

educational institution, their initial intent could be a great cause for inefficiency. While the

educators looked at the students arrival on campus at the beginning ofthe school year as the

beginning of an opportunity to make proper citizens of the students, some Native American

children viewed it as an opportunity to bravely embody their culture and make a stand against the

white man. One such student was Plenty Kill, who considered the journey to school a journey to

death, which he must face bravely, as a warrior. Plenty Kill actually desired to attend the school,

because, in his words:

[T]he warpath for the Lakota was a thing of the past. The hunter had disappeared with the

buffalo, the war scout had lost his calling, and the warrior had taken his shield to themountain-top and given it back to the elementsI could not prove that I was brave and

would fight to protect my home and landWhen I went East to Carlisle School, I

thought I was going there to die; [] I thought here is my chance to prove that I can diebravely. So I went East to show my father and my people that I was brave and willing to

die for them.5

Plenty Kills willingness to become a sort of martyr forhis people, i.e. his culture, is a

great example of an immediate contradiction between the goals of the institution and the goals of

the student. That Plenty Kill was unaware of the exact intentions of the institution before he

attended is also a testimony that Native Americans actively sought ways to perpetuate their

cultural values, rather than simply reacting defensively to the cultural assaults of the institution.

5 Ibid., 23.


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After the students arrived at the school, they were immediately subjected to rules that

attacked them by directing them to behave contrary to their cultural beliefs. The schools

methods, which expected complete obedience and discipline, were intended to force the Native

students to leave behind their savage life and embrace a civilized, American lifestyle. One

such requirement, instituted at the Pine Ridge Boarding School as well as many other Indian

Schools, was the cutting of the childrens hair upon arrival.The students were beyond dismay

once they discovered this, and interpreted the rule as meant to, bring disgrace upon them.6

While some students physically objected to the cutting of the hair, kicking and screaming

until they could be successfully restrained by the nuns, one boy willingly cut his own hair. This

action, however, was not a submission to the institutions agenda. Instead, the student was using

the institutions methods to achieve his own intentions. He was expressing his feelings through

the act of mourning, since, by Sioux tradition the cutting off of hair was always associated with

mourning.7

This act is an excellent example of an institutional inefficiency, wherein the

students behavior denies any progress towards the institutions goal, especially since the student

uses the institutions approved method to do so.

Many early students of the off-reservation boarding schools were forced into hegemonic

schools with no freedom to discern whether or not they would attend, or even which school they

would attend. The situation in the Upper Midwest in the early 20th

century, however, was

relatively less aggressive. In fact, in Plenty Kills case, an interpreter explained to him that if he

wished to enroll at Carlisle Indian School, his father must grant permission for him to do so.8

Francis Leupp, Commissioner of Indian affairs from 1904 to 1909, stated officially in Education-

Administration Circular No. 295 that Indian parents were legally allowed to choose their

6 Ibid., 27.7 Ibid., 27.8 Ibid., 23.


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childrens educational institutions;the only requirement being that they place them in some

good school and keep them there in regular attendance.9

While this did not allow Native

American families to keep their children home to educate them traditionally, it did offer some

freedom of choice.

However, it is important to keep in mind the interests of the federal government in

making such an allowance. Leupp was essentially attempting to make the education of Native

Americans more efficient by allowing parents to choose schools where their intents aligned more

closely, for he, believed [] that allowing Indian parents a modicum of control over their

childrens schooling prompted an increased interest in education among Indians.

10

After all,

from the perspective of the BIA, the imperative thing was that the children were receiving a

white education. The Native Americans also managed to hold onto this ability. In a letter from

the Catholic Sioux Congress at Rosebud Agency to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated

1905, the tribal leaders state their pleasure in that fact that, the President, has decided that our

tribal funds may be used for the education of our children in the Catholic Mission schools

located among us [and] earnestly request [] that the money required for that purpose be

taken from our tribal funds.11

This Native American interest group celebrated the decision of

the President Roosevelt to veto the Indian Appropriation Act that wouldve prevented any tribal

funds from being allocated towards education by religious institutions. The group celebrated this

decision as the protection of their rights to determine how their own money would be spent as

well as to determine which school their children would attend.

9Scott Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 1898-1933 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 25.10 Ibid., 25.11 Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Catholic Sioux Congress at Rosebud Agency, July 03, 1905.


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As a result of this modicum over control, the educational relationships after 1909 were

slightly more efficient than those that preceded them.Another important factor that caused the

schools in the Upper Midwest to be more efficient was that Native Americans were more

familiar with the process of interaction and education within white culture, due in part to having

sustained contact with whites12

. Due to these unique factors, we are able to find efficient as well

as inefficient relationships.

This change in policy that allowed Native Americans to choose which government

schools to attend also caused a change in the intentions of school superintendents. Many of the

school officials, especially those who intended to make a government career out of the Bureau of

Indian Affairs, were focused on their own advancement. In an attempt to please their supervisors,

the superintendents strove tirelessly to meet quotas for school enrollment. Another driving factor

that caused superintendents to focus on increasing their enrollment was that the number of

children enrolled at the school determined the budget of the institution. The result of this intense

focus on increasing the quantity of Indian students attending the school meant that the well-being

of the individual children was not necessarily at the forefront of the superintendents minds.13

Initially the recruiting process for off-reservation boarding schools was essentially a free-

for-all, including methods wherein schools attempted to recruit by giving excessive allowances

for the students travel to the school, essentially paying them to attend.14

However, during the

1920s the process eventually became more regulated.15

The classic recruitment trips, wherein

superintendents visited students on the reservation and presented the advantages of attending

their off-reservation schools, became the most common form of recruitment for schools that

12 Adams,Education for Extinction, 25.13 Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 23.14 Ibid., 26.15 Ibid., 34.


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focused on the education of older children.16

From oral histories of students who attended such

meetings, it becomes apparent that the administration at the schools stressed the importance of

the students choice of school that they would attend. A principal at Rosebud School is

documented as telling one of her students that these meetings were, a good opportunity for her

to select her school for the year, if she had not already decided.17

Additional attempts to gain the preference of the students and their families included the

distribution of literature on the boarding schools, presented in the form of catalogues and

brochures. These catalogues were initially quite formal, however, as the administration of the

institution became better acquainted with the minds of their subjects, some schools like the

Rapid City Indian School, included more direct advertising pitches which noted, among other

features, better class rooms for boys industrial work, a larger school than ever before and a

better band and orchestra.18

These attempts to account for families opinions help indicate what

aspects of white schooling may have attracted Native Americans of this era. In this case, a school

building of nice quality and large size was meant to impress the possible future students. This

indicates that campus size, grandeur, alumni, extracurricular activities offered and featured

curriculum must have played some role in the families decision making process, especially as

families became familiar with a wider variety of schools and the competition increased.

Native Americans increased familiarity with the BIAs schools also led to an increased

familiarity with the BIA as an institution. Unfortunately for the BIA, its attempt to make the

Native families more aware of their schools strengths simultaneously revealed the institutions

weaknesses. The BIA was bereft with division and disagreement and lacked a poor hierarchical

structure. The native population in Cherry Creek, sometimes played an active role in the

16 Ibid., 34.17 Ibid., 35.18 Ibid., 36.


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competition between schools and could be quite adept at manipulating the different jurisdictions

of the BIA [and]exploited divisions within the BIA to make their own educational

choices.19

Here is yet another example of an institutionally inefficient educational relationship,

wherein the individual schools intended to increase their influence over the opinions and actions

of Native Americans. The result was not always as intended, but sometimes directly contrary in

that families were able to work their way around institutional rules by pitting different

administers against each other. The educational relationship was becoming more efficient for the

students at the expense of the institution.

Still, despite this subtle move towards recruitment regulation and a focus on Native

Americans opinions, inefficiencies in educational relationships of the early 20th

century still

remained, the greatest of which was the parental concern for the safety and health of their

children. In the case of off-reservation boarding schools, many students truly believed they were

being sent off to die because large numbers of children never returned home.

In the case of government schools run by superintendents who worked for the BIA, there

was an apparent lack of concern for the health of the children. The poor, crowded conditions at

many schools combined with the diversity of children coming from different parts of the states

created the perfect breeding ground for contagion. The magnitude of child deaths was so great

that parents refused to send their children away to any schools. Additionally, the location of the

schools itself was often such that there was no advanced medical care in the surrounding areas,

and often a complete lack thereof on site.20

Most commonly, the parents would refuse to send

their children to schools where they had personal experience or knowledge of a death or deaths

occurring. This was the case for Native Americans from the Tongue River Agency, who refused

19 Ibid., 35.20 Ibid., 29.


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to let their children return to the Rapid City Indian School in 1911, after two of the children from

the tribe died there.21

The Native Americans concern with death and illness was intimately tied to a concern

about the separation of families. This separation was manifested in two ways: the separation of

the children from their parents and community and the separation of siblings from one another.

The separation of Native American children from their parents and respective tribes is illustrative

of the superlative difference between the intentions of the students and the institutions. The

removal of a Native American child from their community was instrumental to the indoctrination

of white culture in Native populations.

By preventing the Native people from influencing the childrens cultural perspective on a

daily basis, which is the normal mode of cultural transference in the majority of communities,

the educational institutions strengthened their grasp on controlling the content of the childrens

cultural perspective. Brenda Childsstudy of Ojibwe families experiences with boarding schools

found that, administrators discourage[d] visits home [and] also intercepted letters from children

documenting homesickness and health problems to prevent parental requests for visits.22 The

motivation for this policy was the administrators were aware of, the conscious efforts of tribal

elders to undermine the schools teachings during vacation periods by enculturating youth in the

curriculum of traditional culture [which] was one of the major reasons for policymakers

preference for off-reservation schools.23

Child also notes, however, that Native American

parents learned how to usurp these methods and learned the arguments which most effectively

convinced the superintendents that some visit was necessary. This struggle for visiting rights

21 Ibid., 29.22Julie Davis, "American Indian Boarding School Experiences: Recent Studies from Native Perspectives,"Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 15, no. 2 (2001): 20-22, accessed September 21, 2012,

www.jstor.org23 Adams,Education for Extinction, 49.


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indicates another aspect of inefficiency because the families struggled, and sometimes

succeeded, to act in a manner which the institution considered counterproductive to their

educational program.

There was also an effort made by the parents to keep siblings together in attendance at the

same schools. This effort was more of a result to ensure the safety and health of the younger

children, whose older siblings would look after them, than to provide any emotional comfort that

the children might feel as a result of sharing the educational experience with their siblings. In

contrast, many schools during this era only admitted children of specific age groups and

corresponding skill sets (i.e. elementary or secondary) in order to tailor the methods of

instruction more closely and educate the children more effectively. The Rapid City Indian School

wished to phase out its lower grades altogether. However, in order to satisfy parents and avoid

decreased enrollment that would accompany the withdrawal of entire families of students who

intended to keep their children together, the administration continued to allow enrollment of the

lower grades.24

Here, yet again, the educational relationship proves institutionally inefficient as

the Native American families find ways to maintain their familial bonds.

Sometimes the bonds that families valued were more social in nature than consanguine.

Since the Native Americans in the Upper Midwest region of the United States had been

interacting with white settlers and inhabitants they were familiar with town and city structures,

and therefore familiar with their social and economic benefits. Too often, the reservation is

assumed to be the center of the Native American communities. It is necessary to remember that

reservation lands were determined by the government and not by the Native Americans. Some

families were attracted to the schools located in towns and cities, such as Rapid City, South

Dakota, because they, could meet their friends and relatives from other reservation and enjoy

24 Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 26.


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contact with a wider world than that available to them at the agency.25

Upon sending their

children to these off-reservation schools, the entire family would often move to the site and make

a life for themselves there. Once again, this educational choice promoted the unity of a group

which was culturally Native American and contradicted the intentions of the boarding school to

remove the children from their cultural base. Thus, the educational relationship was made more

inefficient from the institutions standpoint.

However, the common institutional goal of destroying Native culture was not solely

overwhelmed by a Native American intent to retain their cultural base. The greatest response to

this attempted destruction was the unification of the Native American identity, which was

intended by neither Native Americans nor the educational institution, and therefore

unacknowledged by the efficiency model. The Pan-Indian identity resulted from the

metaphorical blanket that the U.S. governments assimilationist policy formed over all

indigenous bands and tribes, making the issue of response common discussion among all native

peoples. Unlike their culturally exclusive teachers, these Indians sprang from culturally

inclusive tribes, and many succeeded in achieving personally satisfying blends of tribal and

white cultural traditions.26

Students were schooled alongside indigenous children from different

tribes and had the newfound opportunity to interact and explore the differences and similarities

between their beliefs and practices. These conditions, which called upon the Native Americans to

define as well as protect their culture, created the Pan-Indian identity which would become

instrumental in aiding the perpetuation of native culture for decades.27

25 Ibid., 34.26 Michael Coleman,American Indian Children at School, 1850-1930 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,

1993), 121.27 Adams,Education for Extinction, 21.


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Another familial factor that influenced the familys choice of school was whether or not

the childrens parents had attended school. If the parents had attended a school, which was the

majority of parents in the Upper Midwest, the parents might send their children to that school.

This, of course, depended on the parents experience at that school. However, if the experience

was acceptable, the parents would prefer to send their children to a school where they knew from

first-hand experience that the children would be safe and well-educated. This was often the case

at Catholic Mission schools, as in the case of Ojibwa student Elizabeth Bresette, who attended

St. Francis School in 1938. Elizabeth wrote to the travelling priest in the region that, Sister

Victoria [] has been here for 47 years [] she was my fathers teacher when he was a boy.

28

A parents choice to send their children to a school which they had attended acknowledges that

the educational relationship between the family and the institution was relatively efficient.

On the other hand, due to environmental circumstances, the parents could not always

choose the situation in which their family or social community would be best preserved. Life on

a reservation was often accompanied by hardship, which meant that the Native American

families had to be practical. In keeping with the idea that families might simply prefer to live

outside of the reservation, it is also notable that the most practical educational choice was not

always the school which was closest in distance. Typically it was most practical for students to

attend day schools which were near their homes. This was true in the case of Josephine Blaine, a

student at St. Annes Mission in Lodge Grass, Montana. In 1926, she wrote to a sponsor Rev.

Hughes: We live not far from the school so we like our Catholic school where we are taught

well, I am glad the school and church are close to our homeI thank you for the good ofwhat

28Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Elizabeth Bresette, April 21, 1938.


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comes out of your favor.29

Most likely, Blaine was instructed by her teachers to write this letter

to the influential man in order to encourage more donations and favor. Nevertheless, Blaines

gratitude for the proximity of the school to her home seems to be a genuine, personal touch.

In some other cases, due the size and geography of the reservations, the reservations day

school was a significant distance from the childs home, so that it made more sense for the child

to be sent to a boarding school in order to avoid making a journey several miles long, back and

forth from school. The map of South Dakota Indian Reservations in 192030

, below, is useful in

illustrating this possibility, as well as the possibility that, depending on the families location on

the reservation, a boarding school could be closer.

29 Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Josephine Blaine, February 1926.30 Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 27.


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By the same token, some families made the choice to remain on the reservation because

they were acutely aware of the problems that could be associated with moving themselves or

their children into communities which were composed of a mostly white population. Another

result of the long history of experience with interaction with whites in the Upper Midwest was

that Native Americans were aware of the racist attitudes towards Native Americans by which

they had received negative treatment. In a letter31

from a Mrs. Bonnin, a Yankton Sioux mother,

to Fr. Ketcham, Directors of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions from 1901-1921, we find

that her careful consideration of schools includes this awareness that racism was inherent in

many white communities:

Many thanks for telling me of the white schools, but under the present circumstances I

believe I must place my boy in an Indians school. A Catholic School or Missionout

here we lack the Church training and he must go now. We are not able to pay a hightuition and perhaps the fact of his Indian blood would probe a subtle hindrance to him in

a white school. So perhaps the Indian School (Catholic) is the bestI feel this is a very

important matter and I know of no other who could help me decide upon the school andmake arrangements.

Additionally, this letter demonstrates the variety of factors that went into the decision making

process. The first factor we will explore is the financial factor.

One obvious fact we can draw from this letter is that some Native Americans had the

perception that white schools had high tuition costs and that this led them to choose other

schools. While it is unlikely that in every case the white school was more expensive than a

school intended specifically for Native American students, it was often the case. Another great

contributing factor to the Native American tendency to attend schools that were exclusively

Native American was that many Native American adults were employed at these schools. In fact,

Mrs. Bonnin herself was employed by the local day school as a Sunday School teacher. If a


Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Gertrude Bonnin, March 19, 1913.


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student had other relatives working at a boarding school the parents would often choose that

school expressly because they would receive better treatment and have a guardian. Additionally,

if the parents themselves worked at the school, their childrens tuitions were often discounted.32

If a student had a relative at the school that they attended, this eased the burden of education,

both financially and emotionally.

It is important to note that these practical aspects of the educational experience may

appear to exist entirely apart from the educational goals of a student. For many Native

American families, the desire to learn a certain curriculum or to attend a specific institution was

hampered by the parameters of distance or cost. A Catholic parent may have desired that their

child learn the Catechism, however, due to the parameters of distance or cost could only afford to

send the child to a secular school.Nevertheless, the educational goals of a Native American

student during this era include the practical aspects of distance and cost because the poor

financial situation of many families meant that those aspects took absolute precedence. It is

appropriate to include the practical and emotional factorsbecause a familys choice of school

affected these aspects of their life. The inclusion of these factors in the term educational goals

therefore increases the validity of the efficiency model and allows the conclusion that Native

Americans increased the efficiency of their educational relationship by choosing schools that

would result in the best financial and emotional situations.

During the Great Depression, the already difficult financial situation of many Native

Americans became catastrophic. The poverty made many families desperate in that they didnt

have the money to clothe, house and feed their children. For this reason, Native Americans

would send their children to boarding schools for the express purpose of ensuring that their basic

32 Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 36.


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needs were met.33

Off-reservation boarding schools were typically chosen because the students

were generally better provided for because they were, showcases for the governments Indian

policy.34

This is an example of a mutually efficient educational relationship. The schools were

meeting their quotas; in fact they were filled to capacity or overflowing, providing them with a

wealth of students to indoctrinate. The students were at least being provided with the basics

necessary to live, which needless to say is a positive outcome when the pressing difficulty is

survival.

There also existed interesting examples of efficient educational relationships between

Native Americans and their chosen institutions, those in which both parties valued the

curriculum being taught. These educational relationships are often overlooked because they are

examples of a successful relationship between the federal government and the Native Americans,

which does nothing to support pleas for greater Native American rights or reimbursement for

past wrongs. Nevertheless, these relationships are important to explore because they illustrate

examples wherein two very different groups were able to strive towards a similar goal, together.

In some cases, Native Americans were genuinely interested in learning the white mans

ways. This interest, however, did not stem from intent to adhere to white ways in order to

become civilized and rise from barbarism. Rather, many Native Americans, feeling stifled and

overwhelmed by the massive force of white American government and its culture, saw the

wisdom in learning about its cultural expectations. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, chiefs

and tribal elders began sending children to the boarding schools. Omaha chief Joseph La Flesche

told one student to continue his schooling so that he, might profit by the teachings of your own

[native] people and that of the white race, and that you might avoid the misery which

33 Ibid., 38.34 Adams,Education for Extinction, 28.


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accompanies ignorance,35

La Flesche felt so strongly on this issue that he instructed tribal police

to return any runaway students that were found to the schools from whence they came.This mode of thought persisted for decades and is well demonstrated in the case of a

Sioux father who withdrew his children from the Catholic, on-reservation Rosebud Boarding

School because he thought the education was inferior. He claimed, I put them there to learn

white man way instead of that they learn how to talk Indian.36

The efficient educational

relationship that parents sought in these cases was one that was superficially cooperative, but

possibly institutionally inefficient in the end since the students did not necessarily intend to use

the information they learned in these cases for the purpose of being civilized or blending in

with the white population.

The final example of efficient educational relationships is that which is between Catholic

Native Americans and Catholic Mission or Boarding schools. Due to the consistent presence of

Catholic missionaries in the Upper Midwest prior to the 20th

century, many Native American

tribes had partially, or even wholly, converted to Catholicism. As a result, there existed a

significant population of Native Americans who desired that their children be educated according

to Catholic doctrine in order to learn the faith. A Crow parent, Annie Big Day, calls Catechism

lessons, the best thing that these children can do, and pleads with a Father Hughes for the

school to be kept open.37

This generational appreciation for the Catholic faith can also be seen in

pupil Catherine Bright Wings statement: We pupils enjoy it very much and also our parents,

when the third Sunday of every month comes as the Priest comes here [] we all at the church

35Coleman,American Indian Children at School, 64.

36 Riney, The Rapid City Indian School, 30.37 Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Annie Big Day, February 2, 1926.


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to receive the Holy Eucharist, the Old Indians also like to hear the priest tell them the Good

Word of God.38

This adoption of the Catholic faith by Native American peoples is often attributed to the

more accommodating nature of the Catholic institutions. The Catholic institutions, generally,

allowed for congruencies between Native American culture and Catholic culture, and therefore

did not make a direct attempt to completely exterminate the indigenous way of life.

Already, this allows for the educational relationship to be more efficient because the two

parties are not at odds. The relationship was sometimes positive to the extent that Native

Americans expressed an admiration for administration and teachers at the Catholic institutions.

One such figure was found in a Father Aubert, who visited Catholic schools in the state of

Michigan. Fr. Aubert is described by tribal representative Ben East, as having, lived among the

Indians of his far-flung parish, learn[ed] their language, their mode of life [by] eating with them,

sleeping in their homes, [and] bringing to their problems a sympathetic and intelligent

understanding as well as the comfort of a religious consolation [and] tireless zeal in behalf of

higher education for as many of the Indian boys and girlshe has protected these children.39

Often, in Catholic Native American communities, Catholic schools were seen as the only

appropriate education for the children. Parents regularly went so far as to send petitions to the

BIA in Washington D.C. in order to gain approval for children to be allowed to attend the local

Catholic School.40

These schools are some of the most efficient examples of an educational

relationship that will be found between Native Americans and the educational institution because


Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Catherine Bright Wing, February 1926. 39 Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Ben East, July 31, 1936.40 Raynor Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions

Records, Correspondence Series 1-1, Letter from Floyd H. Phillips, Dec 28, 1939.


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both Catholic parents and the Catholic Parishes wished for the children to become good, well-

educated Catholics.

If anything is to be gleaned from this discourse on the Native American experience in the

Upper Midwest, it is the resilient quality of the Native culture. But more so than that, a new

appreciation should be formed for the diversity of the resilient actions and reactions of the Native

Americans. It is true that the general resilience of the Native population can be attributed to a

strong cultural identity and a desire to preserve that identity; however this identity was not

singular and was not static. The convictions and priorities of the individual and their community

were reflected in their educational experience. Catholic Native Americans were driven to attend

Catholic mission schools wherein their children would be educated according to the Catechism

and approach a pious life. To those whom family tradition was important, they enrolled at the

schools their parents went to. Safety and health is a common denominator between all these

groups. Each choice reflects an attempt at increasing the efficiency of the educational

relationship.

The willingness of a Native American to attend a white-run school did not mark them as

passive orany less Indian, rather it reflected an awareness of their potential to affect the

educational experience as an equal partner. This is the nature of the relationship between the

institution and the student. The stronger the will of the student and the greater effort that he

exerts, the more his intentions will win out over those of the institution.

Where the intentions were not congruent, Natives resisted. When Natives had the option,

natives chose the school that was most congruent with their needs. When freedom was not

directly given to them, they found ways to choose. With greater incongruences, comes the need

for a greater investment in order to overcome the inefficiency of the educational system. While


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Galluzzi 22

the magnitude of the effort expended in order to overcome these great incongruences in the

extremely inefficient cases of Native American education is inspiring and admirable, the

instances where Native Americans overcame more subtle difficulties are just as impressive. The

Native American experience is proof that, in cases of mandated education, the disenfranchised

group that appears weak holds the great ability to affect the efficiency of the educational

relationship and promote their own agenda.


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A Critical Study of Native American Education in the Upper Midwest from 1900-1940

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