Native American Education

Children were taken away from their homes and told everything they knew was wrong. They were sent to boarding schools to change their culture. These boarding schools were run by the United States government. The government's goal was to civilize Native Americans. They sent children to these schools against their will. Native American children were educated like Americans and they had to change their native ways to be more like whites (Cayton 266). Teachers abused their students and beat their native ways out of them. They were not allowed to see their families so they would try to escape, but their attempts were unsuccessful. The United States government’s Boarding Schools of the mid-late 1800s irreparably changed Native American culture. In an effort to assimilate Native American children, the government violated the rights of the tribes to educate their own children and acted irresponsibly in the schools contributing to a loss of identity that has had enduring impact to this day.
During the late 1800s, many important events happened in the United States. In 1864, the Sand Creek Massacre started when Colonel John Chivington brought 700 men to the Cheyenne land in the Central Plains in order to kill Native Americans (Cayton 263). The Cheyenne tried to surrender, but Chivington and his men kept fighting, killing 150 to 500 men, women, and children (Cayton 263). After the Sand Creek Massacre, many Cheyenne people moved to reservations because of their fear (Cayton 263). In 1865, the Civil War ended and in 1868, Grant took office as the President (Taylor). In the 1870s, the government offered to buy the Black Hills in the Fort Laramie Treaty (“Battle”). Two of the Sioux chiefs, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, refused to sign the trea...

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...of Washington, n.d. Web. 08 Sep. 2013. .
This website is a secondary source. It gave me information about what was happening in the 1800s. It helped know why the boarding schools happened at this time. I used this information in my paper to describe what events occurred at the same time as the boarding schools.

Through Indian Eyes: The Untold Story of Native American Peoples. Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest Association, 1995. Print.
This book contained both primary and secondary sources, but I only used the secondary sources. This book contained information about the boarding schools and what was going on inside of them. I used facts from this book to describe life in the schools, what the schools were like, and how they helped assimilate Native Americans.