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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello Again. It's Eaves and you're listening to

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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class, a podcast that truly believes

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Speaker 1: no day is boring. Today is November one, nineteen. The

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Speaker 1: day was November one, eighteen seventy nine. The Carlisle Indian

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Speaker 1: Industrial School opened in Pennsylvania. In eighteen nineteen, U S

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Speaker 1: Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act, which allocated funds to

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Speaker 1: schools designed to civilize Native American children by removing them

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Speaker 1: from their reservations and assimilating them into European American culture.

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Speaker 1: Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the US had embarked

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Speaker 1: on a mission of americanizing indigenous peoples by stripping them

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Speaker 1: of their customs and culture and teaching them US customs

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Speaker 1: and values. The government banned Native Americans from conducting their

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Speaker 1: traditional religious ceremonies and allotted them land in exchange for

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Speaker 1: US citizenship, and missionaries formed schools that taught Native Americans Christianity, citizenship,

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Speaker 1: and English. This way, white Americans believed indigenous folks would

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Speaker 1: be acculturated to the US and they would become peaceful

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Speaker 1: adults who contributed to the U. S economy. Some Native

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Speaker 1: Americans resisted this forced assimilation, while others accepted it. There

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Speaker 1: were white Americans who opposed the policies of assimilation, but

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Speaker 1: many white Americans believed these civilizing efforts were a benevolent

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Speaker 1: cause and that they were saving Native Americans from their

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Speaker 1: supposed savagery and rapid decline. Education was one of the

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Speaker 1: main ways the US attempted to assimilate Native Americans. The

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Speaker 1: Bureau of Indian Affairs, formed in eighteen twenty four, called

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Speaker 1: for the education of Native Americans and separate boarding schools.

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Speaker 1: Civil War veteran Loo Tenant Colonel Richard Henry Pratt established

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Speaker 1: the first off reservation boarding school funded by the federal government.

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Speaker 1: Abandoned army barracks in Pennsylvania became a school building. The

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Speaker 1: Carlisle Indian Industrial School, opened on November one, eight seventy nine.

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Speaker 1: Pratt's philosophy was that quote, all the Indian there is

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Speaker 1: in the race should be dead. The school's model was killed,

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Speaker 1: the Indian saved the man. Students names were changed to

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Speaker 1: English ones and they were forbidden from using their Indigenous ones.

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Speaker 1: They were given new clothes and haircuts. The children were

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Speaker 1: trained in trades and domestic activities. They lived with local

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Speaker 1: non Native American families over the summer rather than returned

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Speaker 1: to their families, and worked on farms or in stores.

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Speaker 1: The school exposed children to infection, disease, and harsh conditions,

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of children died while there. One hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty six are buried on site. Carlisle came a model

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Speaker 1: for other government funded schools for force assimilation. The government

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Speaker 1: required them to attend and made it legal for officers

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Speaker 1: to take children from their homes. Parents who resisted had

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Speaker 1: to run, hide or face imprisonment. The government still believed

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Speaker 1: it was saving children from poverty and a wayward life.

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Speaker 1: Since Native American children were not allowed to attend public

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Speaker 1: schools with white students, boarding schools were often the only

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Speaker 1: option for their formal education, but at the schools, students

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Speaker 1: were given little academic instruction. They were mainly given vocational

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Speaker 1: training that prepared them to be farmers or manual laborers,

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Speaker 1: and the children were often subject to physical and sexual abuse.

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Speaker 1: Pratt retired as Carlile's superintendent in nineteen o four after

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Speaker 1: budding heads with the Bureau of Indian Affairs over his

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Speaker 1: views on reservations and assimilation. The school closed in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighteen as it had become less relevant over the years

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Speaker 1: and was needed as a military and still nation. The

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Speaker 1: Miriam Report, published in nine criticized conditions on reservations and

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Speaker 1: in Native American boarding schools. It supported the assimilation of

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Speaker 1: Native American children but opposed isolating them in separate schools,

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Speaker 1: but attendance at these schools increased despite the protest of

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Speaker 1: Native American activists and the efforts of people like Commissioner

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Speaker 1: of Indian Affairs John Collier, who worked to reverse policies

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Speaker 1: of Native American cultural assimilation. Attendance at Native American boarding

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Speaker 1: schools peaked in the nineteen seventies, with an estimated sixty

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Speaker 1: students enrolled in nineteen seventy three. Most Native American boarding

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Speaker 1: schools have since closed. I'm Eves Jeffcote and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can keep up with us on social media on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t D I h C Podcast, and

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Speaker 1: you can email us at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thanks for listening. I hope to see

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Speaker 1: you here again tomorrow. MMM for more podcasts from I

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