"Kill the Indian and save the man". These famous words of Capt. Richard Pratt, founder of the
Carlisle Indian Industrial School set the stage for decades of systematic attempts at destroying Native American/First Nations cultures in the US and Canada.
Kill the Indian
The idea for the Carlisle School came to Capt. Pratt in 1875 when he was placed in charge of American Indian prisoners at
Ft. Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. His experiment with issuing the inmates military uniforms and teaching them drills, arranging for their education in reading and writing, and eventually dismissing the military guard so that they could police themselves, led to many of the Indians being released into the community and securing jobs a laborers. He even convinced some of them to enroll in the
Hampton Institute of Virginia.
Save the Man
Pratt's experiment appealed to social reformers--predominantly
Quakers and other religious groups--as the perfect way to solve the
"Indian problem" Instead of exterminating them through warfare or starving them to death on reservations, they would teach the boys farming and industrial skills; the girls cooking, sewing and other domestic skills, and turn them into white men and women who could then assimilate into the dominant society. There was a good deal of religious education included as well.
Carlisle
Thus the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was begun in a vacated barracks in central Pennsylvania. It would serve as the prototype for hundreds of boarding schools as they were known in the US or residential schools as they were known in Canada.
The notion of "educating" and Christianizing natives was hardly a new one. The Spanish and French, in particular, had been proselytizing the Indians since their earliest contact. What was new about Pratt's notion was the total immersion aspect whereby Aboriginal youths were removed (in many cases more literally abducted) from their environment and immersed in an alien culture, the most important aspect of which was punishment for speaking their own language.
Unfortunately, while the goals may have been noble, boarding/residential schools in the US and Canada may well be one of the major factors behind social ills like alcoholism, drug addiction, and physical abuse that plague so many Native Americans/First Nations to this day.
