Native American Boarding Schools Essay

In an effort to Christianize and Americanize Native Americans boarding schools were created. Reformist hoped that by sending Native American children to these schools they would turn them into citizens that society would accept. The schools were intended to teach children to speak English, dress and wear their hair like Americans, convert them into Christian and to think like Americans. However, children that were sent away for many years would come home to only be complete strangers around their families (Townsend, 375). There were several critics during this time that made an impact on society regarding their views about boarding schools. Henry Ward Beecher and Sitting Bull both believed that there was no need to send children away from

Reformers were forcefully removing children from their parents and taking them to these schools to surround them with nothing but the American Culture to turn them from Indians into Americans. They were strip from their native clothing, boys’ hairs were cut short and they even changed their names to American names. The curriculum was centered on skills that would prepare children to live as Americans. They purposely included in their instruction a message that native culture possessed no value. Children were forced to assimilate no matter what the consequences were (Townsend, 376). Henry Ward Beecher quoted “The common schools are the stomachs of the country in which all people that come to us are assimilated within a generation. When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox, but the ox becomes the lion” (Beecher). In this quote, Beecher was stating that there was not need to have separate schools for Native American as they would learn the American culture by just simply attending a common school and without having to change the student. Sitting Bull also believed that everyone was meant to be different. He wrote, “If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary that eagles should be crows”