“Civilizing” Native American Children
Additional Hidden American History
On March 3, 1819, President James Monroe signed the Civilization Fund Act into U.S. law. The act was an annuity paid out to various religious bodies. Missionaries, clergy, and other church leaders were tasked with guiding Native American children through a Westernized, overwhelmingly Christian education in exchange for grant money.
One of the early goals of the fund was to provide this instruction on established American Indian lands, villages, and territories. Operation of the missionary schools was led by Protestant and Catholic organizations. They were to teach Native children productive ways to replace their tribal practices and ideologies with ones that blended seamlessly with Christianity — and the dominant norms of an expanding United States.
After the Bureau of Indian Affairs was created to control and monitor the finances of the fund in 1824, the program reimagined its aim. It ceased directing the schools to arm these children with a beneficial education centered around English reading, writing, and speech, in order to prepare them for a changing world ruled by whites. The program had a directive to “civilize” the Native American children in their schools under their care.
Civilize.
This process of assimilation was inspired by President Thomas Jefferson’s secret message to Congress in 1803.
The United States government would systematically remove tribes from their ancient homelands. The only home many of the tribes had ever known, going back generations through brazen theft, also as a byproduct of several wars. The underlying mission of this endeavor was to capture land—acres of it. The U.S. took over 90 million acres of tribal land from 1887 to 1934, which amounts to nearly two-thirds of all tribal lands. Parcels of land were divided and sold to non-Native settlers. The profits gained funded the U.S. government.
Since Native land was garnered, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established Native American boarding schools for children of these misplaced tribes nationwide. The goal, ultimately, was to kill Native American culture absolutely. Native religion, culture, and even speech were to be evaporated from the child. Their birth names weren’t recognized. Immediately they were given English and Christian names. They were trained to perform and execute military drills. Every child had their hair shorn. Tribal clothing was trashed in favor of military uniforms and or “civilized” garments for boys and girls.
This wasn’t a scholarship program. Native Americans were strictly opposed to handing over their offspring. Children, more often than not, went against their will. Some were abducted. Many were taken by force and at the end of a gun. Some were allowed to attend by senior leaders of their tribes as a way to win favor with the unimaginable numbers of European aliens entering the country — and redrawing land borders at their whim. With full permission from the federal government. A number of tribal leaders felt that having members fluent in English and familiar with Anglo-American ideals and principles would help them in the near future in negotiations of all kinds. Primarily over land disputes. Mostly over land disputes because Europeans didn’t stop arriving in the United States.
An Interior Department report, made available on Wednesday, May 11th, explains this and much more. The investigation makes clear that 19 of these boarding schools were directly responsible for the deaths of more than 500 American Indian/Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native children. Through ongoing research and investigation, that total number is expected to increase. Children were beaten, slapped, starved, and locked in solitary confinement for misbehavior. Female students were victims of sexual abuse as well.
“The United States doesn’t even know how many Indian students went through these institutions — let alone how many actually died in them,” said Preston S. McBride, an Indian boarding school historian and a Comanche descendent. McBride has uncovered, at minimum, 1,000 student deaths at the four former boarding schools he’s studied and estimates the overall number of deaths could reach 40,000. Illness and abuse of the student body are contributing factors. Several of the schools had cemeteries on their campuses or in close proximity to the educational grounds, marked and unmarked. The report located 53 gravesites across the country. A number expected to increase.
Furthermore, the report reveals from 1819 to 1969; there were 408 federal schools spanning 37 states. Most of the schools were found to be located in what is now recognized as the state of Oklahoma, with 76 boarding schools. The report declares that there were 47 schools in Arizona and 43 in New Mexico.
The second phase of the investigation will identify children who died and return their remains to their communities. The report says it will also work to identify living survivors and descendants of attendees of Indian boarding schools to document their experiences and trauma. On Thursday, May 12, survivors and descendants are invited to submit written testimonies to the House Natural Resource Subcommittee for Indigenous People.
The United States hasn’t issued an official apology.
