Laura Conaway

Throughout history, people of all races have viewed themselves as superior to another

group and in the process, try to convince the minority that their lives will be better if they

conform. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Americans were tired of how culturally different the

Native Americans were living. Negotiations were failing because of the two different cultures,

and Americans decided to start assimilating Indian children. The education that the American

Indian children received at the Carlisle Indian School proved to be significantly more harmful

than beneficial. In the process, the children lost the pride they had for their nationality and the

assimilation caused hurt and confusion among many.

The Indian culture was very different than that of the whites and because of this, the

whites felt like there was need for Native Americans to become more like them. There were

“hundreds of marriages among Indians on the reservations without legal or church procedure,

and a number of cases continue to be reported each year of polygamy” (Friedman). This was the

lifestyle that they were used to and because it made the whites uncomfortable, they wanted to

change it. This started with them educating children at the Carlisle Indian school so that they

grew accustom to American ways of life. They felt there was a “great need for interpreting the

laws of nature” (Friedman). Even though the whites thought it was their responsibility to

“inform” the Native Americans of the best way of living, they were stripping their heritage from

them, starting with the children.

One of the girls, Charlotte, who went to the Carlisle Indian school, was interviewed after

her graduation about the things she learned and applied to her life. She was asked if she’d done

anything “for the betterment of [her] people.” She replied, “I came back to Indians and talk it

seems to me its so far the Indians talks and dress. Well I know myself where I was a little girl. I

wear the Indian dress but when I go school and wear the white people dress. I keep on dress like
Laura Conaway

white people and keep my self like white people do. Oh I had a nice home and land.” Charlotte

was taught the ways of the whites at the school and when she gets back home, it feels different.

She stills remembers the days she wore her Indian dress and talked in her native tongue.

However, even though she remembers, her heritage has been taken from her because now she

makes sure to wear the white people dress and uphold herself in a manner like white citizens.

This directly reveals the negative impact the school has on her because Charlotte does what she’s

been taught and isn’t given the opportunity to think for herself and decide what kind of life she

wants to live.

Finally, when the students arrived at the school, they were immediately whisked away

where they would receive an entire new wardrobe and physical appearance. Zitkala Sa was one

girl who was sent to the school and one day she “overheard [a] paleface woman talk about

cutting our long, heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were

captured had their hair shingled by the enemy” (School Days 187). This was another indication

that the whites did not care about the customs of the Indians and by cutting the girls hair, they

had intentionally stripped them of their confidence and made them feel like prisoners in their

own land.

Not only did the Native Americans experience a disgrace in their nationality, but it also

caused hurt and confusion. Many children missed their parents and their home when they were at

the school because they weren’t allowed to participate in anything relating to their Native

American culture. Most children had never been in close proximity to whites for an extended

period and this new interaction caused their bodies to pick up diseases they were not immune to

and many get ill or died. Not only were these children put in a culture and told to adapt, but they

were seeing destruction and death, literally and figuratively, without their families to support
Laura Conaway

them. Zitkala Sa described how she felt saying, “Since the day I was taken away from my mother

I had suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at me. I had been tossed about in the air like

a wooden puppet.” The way she felt reveals how much pain these children went through while at

the school and after. They didn’t understand what was supposedly wrong with them and why

they were being told what to do and how to do it. This is also the case with Maggie, a Sioux girl,

who went to Carlisle and wrote a letter to her family. She said, “You’ve got a white man’s house

to live in now and I am anxious to learn all that I can, so that I can come home by and by and

live with you.” Maggie was excited for the “adventure” and thought everything would work out.

However, what she didn’t realize was how different it would be to go home after being

assimilated into the white culture and she would be expected to live among other Americans.

The confusion and pain that came with being assimilated into American society proved a

greater hardship for the Native Americans. Their identity, culture, and ways of life were stripped

from them and as Zitkala Sa said, they were tossed around like puppets. These children grew up

believing what they were told and thinking there was something wrong with their heritage. They

lived at the school for years, without the support of their families, and experienced many kinds of

illness. What Americans thought to be helpful and beneficial, only took away the very essence of

the Native Americans life, forcing them to conform and causing more harm in the children’s

lives than good.

Sources Used:

Carlisle Indian Industrial School History

School Days of an Indian Girl by Zitkala Sa

(http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-
idx?c=atla;cc=atla;rgn=full%20text;idno=atla0085-2;didno=atla0085-
2;view=image;seq=193;node=atla0085-2%3A1;page=root;size=100 )
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The School News (Maggie a Sioux girls told this letter to an interpreter and a teacher wrote it
down: Carlisle Barracks, PA Jan. 24, ’81).

Record of Graduates and Returned Students

Name: Charlotte Foud Horns

From: M. Friedman, Superintendent, Annual report: United States Indian School, Carlisle,
Pennsylvania for the Year Ending June 30, 1912 (Carlisle, PA: The Carlisle Indian Press, 1913).
Pg. 14-15