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Misunderstood Intentions:

The Contexts of Education Reformers Regarding the American Indian Training School in the Late 1800’s.

 

 

 

 

author: Arie Higgins

Senior Thesis

2000

 

 

Introduction and Historiography

 

In today’s world of political correctness, a discussion of Native Americans or their historical involvement with the U.S. Government is difficult.  In the past twenty years, many Americans have come to interpret the world through a multi-cultural view.    This view has led to the liberation of many ethnic groups, but it also presents an obstacle for those who wish to discus events of the past.  It is natural for individuals to try to interpret historical events through the context of their own experiences and views, but in this practice we often ignore the circumstances that created the framework for historical events.  These practices color our interpretation of historical events since the way we view the world today is very different from how past groups lived it.

Literature of the late twentieth century depicts Native American Boarding Schools as institutions run by deranged nuns, whose sole purpose was to destroy the will of the Native American child. Mary Crow Dog, in her 1991 book, Lakota Women, portrays a boarding school run by nuns who beat and abused her.  From her book, individuals come away with the understanding that all Native American schools were abusive, sinister institutions and it was the purpose of these schools to punish the Native Americans for being who they were.  Mary Crow Dog quotes a report from the Department of the Interior in 1801, stating its intent to force civilization upon the Native American people and destroy their native practices[1]. Crow Dog uses this reference in an attempt to connect the actions of the early government Native American education to the actions that took place in Boarding Schools around the 1920’s.  In doing this, she ignores the reformers intentions’, and their impact in changing the early government’s policy, of complete extermination to one of gentle immersion of Native Americans into mainstream society. The education reformers use the Training School (as opposed to the Boarding School) to combat the government’s policy of extermination. Its goal was to remove the responsibility of education from the hands of religious groups, so that the focus of the education sifted from theological teaching to practical survival skills necessary for success in the Whiteman’s world.  One cannot blame Crow Dog for her anger at the United States government and its repeated betrayal of the Native Americans, unfortunately books such as Crow Dog' create a false view of Native American treatment for the general public.  The intentions and actions of the education reformers were nothing like the actions of later educators. Although Mary Crow Dog’s personal experiences in boarding schools cannot be refuted, we must understand that the Boarding Schools of the 1920s were very different in design and implementation than the Training Schools of the 1870s.

 In order for us to understand the goals and motives of individuals such as the education reformers, we must look at the world in the proper historical context. Organizations such as these surfaced first in the United States just after the Civil War.  The reformers denounced the popular practices of Social Darwinism, which stated that the weaker humans only polluted the gene pool and therefore people should not be helped unless they helped themselves.  Education reformers argued against this practice specially concerning the treatment of, African Americans and Native Americans.

Initially the education reformers had pure and liberal ideas about Native American Education. They did not whish to change the policy for their own gain or in hopes of whiping out a race, like many others. In truth, their desire was to teach Native Americans the ways of the Whiteman in hopes of helping and preserving the “Indian” peoples.  With current stereotypes of Native American educators, which believe they had harmful intentions towards Native Americans, this is hard to understand.  However, based on the words of General Pratt, the founder of the Training School and General Wilkison, who started the Pacific University Training School (in the likeness of Pratt's model), we can see how liberal the views and goals of theses men were.  Their dreams to help acculturate natives were not presented out of malice or hate, but rather out of admiration and belief that Native Americans were not being treated fairly.

The model for Training Schools, as set up by General Pratt, was to prove to the general population that; “Indians were like other people and could be easily educated and develop industry.”[2]   Education reformer hoped to aid the plight of the mistreated Native American population, and the best way they knew to do this was to educate them in the ways of the Whiteman, so they no longer would be mistreated.    Native American, “citizenship, education, and abolition of the reservation system were all identified as solutions for the present . . . injustices.”[3]  Contrary to common stereotypes it was not the intention of these men to create a system that broke the will of the Native American population—their desire was to preserve the population through education.  These individuals were the revolutionists of their time, willing to put their names and lives on the line to prove that  “the Red Man” was an equal and deserved all the rights that were valid to any human being.  There is no proof that these reformers were corrupt or were out to serve their own gain.  Rather, documentation shows that Pratt and Wilkinson created the Training School system in an honest attempt to help a group of peoples who were close to extinction at the hands of the United States Government.  It is true that unjust things occurred in Native American Boarding Schools during the nineteenth century; but we must not confuse Boarding Schools with Training Schools.  The ideology of Training Schools was different: Reformers designed these schools in an attempt to prove that the Native Americans were equal and deserved the same rights as Whitemen including a free public education.

To understand reformers such as Pratt and Wilkinson, and how radical their actions were, we must look at what common prejudices they faced in the middle of the nineteenth century.    General Sherman wrote to this brother, the current Senator of Ohio in a letter which illustrates these prejudices: “the more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians the more convinced I am that all have to be killed. Their attempts at civilization are simply ridiculous.”[4]  General Grant only months before his nomination for the presidency stated, “even if the extermination of every Indian tribe was necessary to secure,”[5] the plains for immigrants, the land would be won for settling.  Furthermore, in a letter President Andrew Johnson spoke of a government that was for the Whiteman, and would only be for the Whiteman, as long as he lived.  Up until at last 1885, The New York Times, the largest and most circulated newspaper in the nineteenth century was still publishing articles asking for Native American scalps in trade for cash up to $350 dollars per scalp.[6]

This was the language of politicians and the general public alike, the language and beliefs that the reformers were fighting against.  They fought, preached, and practiced the equality of Native Americans’ mental and physical capabilities and their actions changed American Policy.  Prior to the reformers’ involvement, the United States was in the process of an ethnic cleansing justifying the complete extermination of Native Americans.  Due in part to the model Pratt created it was proven that “the Red Man” was capable of being ‘civilized’ and becoming a successful and prosperous member of American culture.  Whether individuals today agree with the action of the education reformers or not, we must understand that there were only two choices in the 1880’s: exterminate the Native American population as a whole; or, educate the Native American in the ways of the Whiteman, and make them an integral part of American mainstream society.  The reformers cultivated the second option, thus choosing the lessor of two evils.

At first, the reformers called for simple training and manual labor, so Native Americans could become self-supporting and extinguish their dependence on the fraternal relationship set up by the U.S. Government.  By the mid-1880s, Native American Training Schools had filled to capacity, teaching Native Americans how to survive both financially and physically in the world the Whiteman’s society had created. Far outreaching the initial scope of the education reformer and ensuring the survival of the Native American Peoples.

 

History of the Education Reform Movement

 

            The United States was founded on the understanding that as long as there was land available democracy would thrive. Unfortunately with this the forefathers and settlers ignored that Native Americans had the land and the Whiteman wanted it.  The fundamentals of American politics supported the “need” for the settlement of western lands; Jeffersonism and the Turner thesis demand the use of western land to preserve democrative freedom.  The Louisiana Purchase is just one of example of Jefferson’s dream for white American culture to control all of North America.  During his presidency, the term Jeffersonisam came to express all theories that supports the Whiteman’s “right” to posses western land and cultivates white American Democracy.  Turner’s “frontier thesis” viewed the frontier as the, “westward-moving source of America’s democratic politics, open society, unfettered economy, and rugged individualism, far removed from the corruption of urban life.” [7]  The frontier experience Turner describes exaggerates the homogenizing effects of the frontier environment and virtually ignores the role of women, blacks, immigrants, and Native Americans. Economists, politicians, and historians believed that the fate of the republic was inextricably linked to an almost endless supply of free or cheap land. The American understanding of the world and nature was limited to its needs and uses.   The American understanding of the world was limited to an individual’s needs, and the government gave land to whoever could put the land to the most use and become most productive with it. According to Lockean theory, only a society built on the foundation of private property could guarantee the creation and sustention of a society of moral people who had private property and social stability.[8]  Theories such as the Turner Thesis, Jeffersonian ideals, and Lockean theory left no room or tolerance for individuals who stood in the way of progress and the good of the “civilized man”.  Based on ideas surrounding Manifest Destiny, there was little to no doubt that the vast wildness of the West would one day falls into the hands of whites.

            In 1803, Jefferson observed that the ongoing Western movement was producing problems between the races. Native Americans, having land in abundance, needed civilization; Whites, possessing civilization, needed land.  “Upon this convenient conjoinment of greed and philanthropy an Indian policy slowly emerged.”[9]  In 1818, the House Committee on Indian Affairs urged Congress to, “put into the hands of their children the primer and the hoe, and they will naturally in time, take hold of the plough; and, as their minds become enlightened and expanded, the Bible will be their book, and they will grow up in the habits of morality, and become useful members of society”.[10]  The first attempts to educate Native Americans were done with the intention of controlling the Native American peoples. In 1804, Congress created the Civilization Fund.  The fund appropriated an annul amount of $10,000 to be administrated by Thomas L. McKenny, the nation’s first Superintendent of Indian Affairs towards the education and control of Native American Population.

The first eighty years of the organization were filled with repeated scandals, including embezzlement, misallocation of funding, and often the use of schooling to boost political careers.  Religious groups were primarily responsible for the education of Native Americans on reservations and had little to no luck in molding them into the “upstanding citizens” they desired.  Their methods were erratic and each church and religious group fought over the proper way to teach.   Many people chose to look at these failed attempts as an excuse to claim that the Native Americans were incapable of learning or becoming self-sufficient in “civilized” society.   In “1871, Congress officially confirmed the alter status of Native Americans, they were deemed wards of the government, a colonized people.”[11]  Because of these types of actions by the US Government, many individuals were angered by the incompetence of past educators and begun to form a united front in helping to protect the Native American.  These people became know as education reformers. They believed that the Native Americans not only needed to be saved from themselves, but also from the Whiteman.  It was their hope to bring the Native American into civilized society as an integral part and not as a separate entity.

In 1882 Herbert Welsh and Henry Pancoat, US representatives, visited the Sioux and published an account of their four-week trip. What they said mimicked much of what the new generation of reformers felt: “Indians could never withstand the never-ending onslaught of white settlers.  Furthermore, the tide of progress could not be stopped.  Hence, ‘we must either butcher them or civilize them.”[12]  Both men were horrified by the first idea and used this to represent the past actions of the government.  Welsh went on to say that the Native American was, “not a wild beast whose extermination is necessary to the safety of a higher order of creation, but a man for whom honor, purity, knowledge and love are not only within the range of possibility, but are qualities which already in numberless instances have been attained.”[13] Due to their wealth and status, both of these men had a huge impact on the general knowledge of the American public. What they said was heard by Congress and more and more individuals were mounting to help civilize the Native American and stop the fighting and slaughter of the Native Americans.   Both Welsh and Pancoat were mimicking the actions and belief of General Henry Pratt, who was already developing a new form of education for the Native American.

Pratt, Indian Prison, and the First Training School

 

Henry Pratt was a man of great integrity.  He stood out, in a time that understood prejudice as correct, as a man who was tolerant and accepting of those who were different from himself.  His record in the army is evidence of his tolerance.   In 1861 he voluntarily joined an all-Indian Calvary unit to fight for the union.   In 1867 he joined the Army once again, becoming a latent in the Tenth United States Calvary, an all-Negro unit except for officers.  With this Calvary he spent eight years “keeping peace” with the Native Americans in the West.   During these years Pratt came to the conclusion that if Native Americans were to survive the ever-growing “Progress” of the Whiteman, they would have to be “swallowed up in the rushing tide of American life and institution.”[14]  He spent his time out west becoming close with the Native Americans of the land and learning their ways.

In 1875, at the end of the Indian American Wars, the head chiefs and warriors were rounded up and sent to Kansas for trial for crimes committed during the Red River War of 1874.  Seventy-two Native Americans were arrested for trial: 34 Cheyenne, 2 Arapaho, 27 Kiowa, 9 Comanche, and 1 Caddo.   Most of the group was made up of young warriors in there twenties and mid-thirties and all 72 individuals were from Southern Plains Tribes.[15]  Pratt was assigned to accompany the group to Kansas for trial.  Once the group arrived at the courthouse it was decided that the Native Americans could not be tried in court because they were wards of the state and therefore the US Government could not try them for war crimes.  It was then decided that the group would be exiled to Old Fort Marions in St Augustine, Florida. 

The fort was built in the late 1600s by the Spanish and was unoccupied at the time of the trial.  Pratt was commissioned to run the prison.  Since Pratt was given only a few instructions and no supervision he decided to us the fort as a school to try his theories of education with the prisoners.  He planed to educate and civilize the prisoners.  Upon arrival, Pratt removed all the chains and shackles the army had put on the prisoners, hoping to lift the sprites of the Native Americans.    Next he sent home almost all of the Army guards.  To accomplish this, Pratt had to promise his commanding officer that if even one prisoner escaped, he would step down from his position and resign from the army.[16]  To ensure that no one escaped, Pratt created Indian Guards and thus begun the start of allowing the Native Americans to govern themselves.  Later, he taught the prisoners to hold elections, helping them to create a governing board responsible for individual penalties and enforcement of punishments for fighting and misbehavior.

Pratt began to implement theories that were unheard of in any other prison or school at the time. Pratt felt that one of the best advantages of his school/prison was that it was off the reservation and near a thriving town; he planned to use the town to integrate the Native Americans into white society.  In order to do this; Pratt believed it was essential to increase the involvement between the townspeople and the prisoners.   In his journal, Pratt wrote:

 

I consider it my highest duty to correct the unwarranted prejudices prompted among our people against the Indian through race hatred and false history which tells our side and not theirs, and which has been so successfully nursed by keeping them remote and alleging that they alone have irredeemable qualities.   It was just as important to remove from the Indian’s mind his false notion that the greedy and vicious among our frontier outlaws fairly represented the white race.[17]

 

To cultivate this shift in belief, the utmost freedom between visitors and Native Americans was cultivated.

Pratt's goal to bring the community and the school together slowly began to work.   In time, pairs of Native American men could be seen walking from shop to shop in the streets of St. Augustine.  The students also begun to hold jobs, making their own personal spending money. Pratt considered it vital that his students understand the American work ethic.  The first major source of income presented to the school was in the form of sea beans that could be collected from the local beaches.  A local curio dealer was willing to pay ten cents for each polished bean, which he sold to tourists.  Within a few months the students had polished 16,000 beans. With their first taste of successful sales, the Native Americans began making canes, bows and arrows, and painting scenes of traditional Native American life. They received the full sales amount when the items were sold.  As a result of the Native Americans’ presence in the community, farmers began coming to the prison and asking for individuals who wanted to work on their land for the same salaries as Whitemen.  The Native Americans began to be hired out as laborers—to pick oranges, work as baggage men at the railroad depot, clear land, care for horses, and milk cows for local farmers. To teach the ways of capitalism and economic individualism, Pratt kept savings accounts for each of the students.[18]  With the money they made the students could make withdraws from these accounts and spend their money in the city.

Contrary to modern belief, Pratt continued to allow students to perform some of their cultural practices such as tribal dances. The nesassary paints and the best dances were picked out,  “they carried out their home methods of dress and, stripped to their skins, wearing only the gee string,” dressed in traditional clothing they danced on the beaches until dawn.[19]  Soon Pratt integrated these dances with a shark hunt.  Because they were located on the cost and no other large animals were present for hunting; Pratt hired a local fisherman to take the group out to hunt sharks, which the Native Americans called, “sea buffaloes”.  Often, Pratt would send ailing prisoners in small groups to camp for a week or more at the beach.[20]  This is just one example of how Pratt helped to preserve the stability and culture of the Native American peoples, while at the same time helping them to adjust to expectations of white culture.

As time passed, the 72 prisoners became more familiar with the ways of the Whiteman.   Most had taken up part-time jobs in the town and many had learned trades that they used at the fort.  It was Pratt’s hope, as well as that of the Native Americans’, that the prisoners could soon be rejoined with their families.  At the urging of the prisoners, on June 11^th, 1875, Pratt sent a letter to the US army requesting that the prisoners and their families be rejoined.  The Native Americans stated that they were willing to go anywhere the army saw fit, as long as they were able to be with their families and given land, so they could prosper in the same way as the Whitemen.  Unfortunately, their request was denied because the Army still felt the warriors were enemies of the state.[21]  The same month that the request was denied Pratt asked that some of his students to be transferred to a pentententiary so they could be taught a trade.  This request was also denied.  In March 1876, Pratt proposed that some of the brighter and best-spoken prisoners be sent to agricultural school; again his request was denied for the same reasons.  Although his requests were continually denied, Pratt kept pressing the government.  In 1877 Pratt once again wrote congress and the army and asked this time for the release of the older prisoners.  He stated the prisoners had learned much and being imprisoned no longer served a purpose to anyone.  Besides the freeing of the prisoners, he also continued to advocate further education for the younger students.

 Finally, in the spring of 1878, an answer came.  Pratt received orders that the prisoners were to be released and neither the army nor the Indian Office had any opposition to the younger prisoners receiving further education. Earlier Pratt had asked the prisoners, if released, how many would like to stay in the East and further their education.  Twenty-two had stepped forward.  Now that all of the prisoners were free to go and a large percentage wanted to continue their education two problems remained; first, who would finance these people’s education and second, what schools would accept Native American students.[22] Slowly, one by one, individual donors stepped forward to help pay for the student’s education.  Most of the donors, were locals from the area who had seen the prison and the actions of the prisoners first hand.  Now only the question that remained was where to send the students to school. Pratt was able to contact schools and get most of the Native Americans temporarily placed, but he realized that if the Native American population was going to be successfully accepted into white society, schools that specialized in the education and training of Native Americans needed to be established.  The only way Native Americans were going to be treated fairly was if schools were erected that catered to the needs of this group. These schools needed to be sensitive to the issues that stood between Native Americans and Whites.  Pratt thought that he was well fitted for the role.  Thus, the Native American Training School model was created.

 

           

Carlisle, the First Training School

 

Directly following the release of the prisoners Pratt went to Washington. There he petitioned the White House, the Senate, the House of representatives, and the Bureau of Indian Affaires arguing that all Americans presently in the US had immigrated from somewhere else. He went on to say, that their families would not have been successful in settling if they had not been allowed to participate in mainstream society when they first arrived.   Pratt stated to Mr. Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior:

The Indians need a chance of participation you have had and they will just as easily become citizens.  They can only reach this prosperous condition through living among our people . . . Give me 300 young Indians and a place in one of our best communities and let me prove it is easy to give Indian youth the English language, education, and industries that it is imperative they have in preparation for citizenship.[23]

 

Eventually, with moving arguments such as these, Pratt convinced the government to allow him to create a school that was close to a prosperous town, so that the Native Americans who went to the school could learn the ways of the American lifestyle.

It was his firm belief that the school needed to be in a prospering city as far from the West as possible.  Pratt felt that the wounds of the past Indian Wars were still too fresh and that the East, having not dealt with Native Americans for quite some time, would be more receptive.  Pratt also demanded that the school not be integrated with African Americans. He was convinced that Native Americans would suffer from their association with blacks, not because he had prejudices against African Americans, but because he was afraid that other people’s prejudges would inevitably spill over towards Native Americans.[24] Pratt concluded that Native American students who were being educated with African American students would be, “largely isolated from [the] surrounding white community, thus eliminating one of the factors that had been so critical at St. Augustine”.[25] He felt that Native Americans had enough to overcome on their own without attempting to fight anther races battle.  Based on Pratt’s demands and persuasive speeches, the Carlisle Barracks, located in Pennsylvania, were given to him and his school. The School was set to open November 1^st 1879.

            Before he could open the school, Pratt needed students to fill the classrooms. In 1879, at the government’s deciding, Pratt first asked the Sioux and other Dakota tribes to send their children with him to his new school. Pratt spoke first with Spotted Tail and Red Cloud to ask for volunteers from their tribe to enter the new school.  After several days of long conversations with the two chiefs and their head warriors, the tribes sent their sons and a few daughters with Pratt to be educated in the ways of the Whiteman.  When the students arrived, Pratt insisted on money for new floors and supplies to make beds.   Pratt was well aware that the living conditions, as they stood when the children arrived, would lead to depression and sickness if they were not improved immediately.  During the first year at Carlisle, Pratt made many steps to encouraged interaction between both the students and the community.  Pratt used many of the same ideas and theories in the creation of the Carlisle Training School as he had at the prison in Florida.  

In a few months, Pratt had instilled his past practices of self-discipline, and begun to encourage student interaction with the community.   Within the school Pratt helped the students create a judicial board that represented the court system of the United States.  The students became responsible for enforcing school rules. When an individual broke the rules he had to stand before the officers of the student judicial board and accept the punishment assigned by them. 

Pratt spent much time speaking about the importance of the town’s involvement in the lives of the students, he repeated over and over that the reason the school/prison in St. Augustine was so successful was because of community involvement.  Pratt saw the Carlisle school as no exception.  His brainchild of this school was something called, “Outing Programs”.  It was the intention of the school to envelop the students in American family life, this program encouraged farming families to step forward and take students into their home.  After receiving classes in English and the basics on behavior and tradition the students were sent out to homes.  Eventually, the outing system took on three forms.  Under the basic program, students were sent out for the summer months and placed in middle-class farm households.  A second version of the program placed students for one to two years, allowing the students to attend public schools.  A third version emerged in 1890s, when Pratt began to place students in industrial and urban families.   During Pratt’s tenure at Carlisle the program was carefully administered, and great care was taken in the selection of patrons.[26]  Many of the surrounding peoples of the area were farming Quaker families.  The Quakers had a history of being a positive force in the education of Native American students.  Students were only released to citizens who expressed genuine respect and hope towards the positive involvement of Native Americans in the white culture.

According to reports submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affaires during the winter of 1883, during the winter Pratt had 33 boys and 19 girls living in “Out Families attending public schools.[27]  It was Pratt’s ultimate dream to eventually have his entire student body participating in “outing programs”.  He felt this was the best way to involve students with white society, but he knew very well that the students needed to have a solid academic base in his school before going out.  By the fourth year of the school’s existence a five-year education system had been developed.  In the first-year, the students would be taught an objective study of language, numbers and their use, drawing, singing, gymnastics, molding clay, and arithmetic.   In the second year, students received instruction in reading, language and sentence forming, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, drawing, singing, and gymnastics.  In the third-year students worked on reader work, continuation of mathematics (as in the past year), geometry, drawing and oral teaching.  In the fourth year students were be instructed in; reading, natural sciences, history, and geography, language, arithmetic and fractions.  The fifth-year was an accumulation of all of the prior years, allowing students to work on any areas of difficulty and advancing them further.  At the end of the fifth year Pratt tried to place students in privet homes so they could get a true understanding of American culture.

Although the implementation of these methods took some time, Pratt was quick to start many of the foundations for the outing system and firm education in the first year of the school’s existence.  In less than a year after the first students were admitted (1880), thirty-one Sioux chiefs came to Carlisle to observe the school and its programs.  The head of the Indian Bureau brought the chiefs to the school on their way to Washington D.C.  While at the school they were given full freedom to see their children, except during class times.  At fist Spotted Tail expressed concern about the school, but after visiting and talking with the students, and Pratt, he and the other chiefs left saying, “they were glad to have their children at the school.”[28]  The school was gaining more and more support from both Native American chiefs and Congressmen.

The Founding of the Pacific University Training School

 

By 1879 General Pratt’s model of the Training School had gained much momentum.  The successful placement of children in white homes in white communities was a new accomplishment that many had felt was impossible.  Because of Pratt’s success, other reformers started lobbying for more schools and several institutions volunteered their campuses as new Training School locations.   In 1879, Pacific University wrote to the U.S. government offering the community of Forest Grove as the site for an Indian Training School.[29]  The school in Oregon proposed to draw students from tribes throughout the Pacific Northwest. Around this same time, Captain M. C. Wilkinson volunteered as the superintendent of the same institution.  In 1880 the Pacific University Training School opened. The school was allotted one square block, between C and D Streets and 22^nd and 23^rd Avenues. In the five years that the school remained at Forest Grove a total of 354 students were admitted; 187 students came from the Washington territory; 95 from Oregon; 48 from the Idaho Territory; and 28 from the Alaska Territory.[30]

Fires and water damage have destroyed most of the information from the creation of the school.  There are no remaining journals or documents that give the complete details of the school’s origin.  What remain are the Annual Reports of The Commissioner Of Indian Affairs to the Secretary Of The Interior, parts of the Tualatin and Pacific University Board of Trustees minutes, several letters to the Senate about keeping the school in Forest Grove, old photographs of some of the students and staff, and a few articles from local newspapers.   With these fragments it is possible to know what the school represented, its curriculum, the enrollment and its revenue.  More importantly, it is possible to see the changes in attitudes by the local community towards Native Americans and the Training School.

The school’s first students arrived on February 25, 1880 from Puyallup Reservation, near Tacoma Washington. This group consisted of 18 students, 4 girls and 14 boys.  When Wilkinson first arrived at the school there were no buildings.  The students who arrived that winter had to construct their own living quarters, where their classes were also held.  Wilkinson reported on his arrival that the school was located, “in a community where the hope was expressed that the buildings might burn down before scholars could be gathered to put in them.”[31]  Other sources also reveal tension between the community and the original creation of the school. Although, some town’s people reacted negatively to the school, others made the children feel welcome. Fortunately, many of the negative opinions quickly dissipated much like the reactions of the community members to the Carlisle School.

By October of 1882, the students in the school had built a second building that was two and a half stories high, a wood shed and wash room, made study and dining tables, desks, beds, and bed stands.  The students had also made all their necessary bedding, as well as new uniforms.  A third building had been constructed to house a woodshed, drill-room, and gymnasium.  They had also laid 887 feet of sidewalk, and beautified the grounds.  Both the boys and girls alike had planted four acres of potatoes and one acre of beans, as well as making a garden for the fall vegetables.[32] Because the school was so small, several buildings on Main Street had been rented as shops for the boys to work in.  Land was also rented for farming.  The goods that were produced in the shops and from the land were first used for the school, and the remainders were sold to pay for the cost of renting the shops and land.  Within the first year, the school was almost completely self-supporting.  The school only received $5,000 to start and set-up the school (opposed to the $20,000 Pratt received).  With that money Wilkinson had to furnish transportation for 25 students, and teach, board, and house all of the students and teachers.[33]

In the first two years of the school, articles could be found in local papers about the program.  Often, they appeared in social columns such as the Gamma Sigma Society. Gamma Sigma was (and still is) a fraternal organization at Pacific University.  On September 23, 1882, Gamma Sigma wrote in their column that the Collage Baseball Team had, “a match game with the Indian boys this PM at 2.”[34]  It was not just the Forest Grove community that was changing its opinions about native Americans and Training Schools, but the entire United States.   In 1882, Harper’s Weekly visited the school and wrote the following about Captain Wilkinson:

 

Captain Wilkinson has devoted much reflection to what is called the Indian Question. He believes that the real solution of the problem lies in the systematic education of the rising generation.  He is no advocate of that system of bribery and terror which has so long prevailed on the frontier. [He believed] no adult member of any tribe should be kept as a ward of the government.  Captain Wilkinson justly holds that the government can with benefit to all parties expend its money in their education and training.  They ought to be taught various trades and crafts so that when they return to their homes they may be properly fitted for lifer’s struggles. And will infuse new ambitions into future generations.[35]

 

 

In many ways these changes signified a general acceptance of the Native American peoples and the success of the school in breaking down the barriers between the frontier settlers and the Native Americans.

The Native American Students, Trade, Wages, and Pacific University

 

            The first group of children to attend the Training School signed up for a three-year period.  At the beginning of the summer of 1883, the class was sent home, but by the middle of August, fifteen 0f the original eighteen students had requested to return for another two years. According to the Commissioner’s Reports from 1883 of the students were doing well at home.  Three of the boys became carpenters and got jobs working in New Tacoma.  Furthermore, they were making good wages (between $2 to $4 dollars a day).  All indications seemed to show that, “after leaving the school, after having completed the courses of study and learned a trade, [the children]will seek employment among white people.”[36]  Students in the school were also making good wages from outside sources.    Many of the larger boys had been allowed to, “work for the farmers in the vicinity during harvest, and having given good satisfaction and received the same wages as the whites.”[37]  Information from the Bureau of Labor confirms the trend of Native Americans from the school receiving the same wages as whites during harvest.  The Forest Grove News Times published an article citing Cyrus Walker from the Bureau of Labor reporting that he paid his farm workers, “$1 a day and board or $30 dollars a month.  For a man and his team he paid $2.50 a day.  Harvest hands commanded $1.75 to $2.00 a day and worked 14 hours.”[38]

As a result of the good wages earned both while at the Training School and after finishing the programs, by 1883 enrollment at the Pacific University Training School had risen from 18 to 151 pupils and continued to rise to over two hundred by 1885.  On average, attendance the school was higher than the number funded by the appropriation committee.  Based on statistics from 1884, the school was estimating a total of 500 students the following year, and “if [the school] should add to this number [of] children who wished to come but cannot get the consent of their parents, it would be largely increased.”[39]  In order to be admitted into the program both children and their parents had to grant consent. This process hopefully encouraged only admittance by those who were interested in learning.

The structure of the school’s curriculum was unique in that the students were involved in traditional classroom education in the morning and used the second half of the day learning a trade.  The school taught five trades for boys: farming, shoe making, blacksmithing, wagon and carpentry, and laundry.   In 1884 the Farming Department made $3,195.00.  The Shoe Shop made 377 pairs of shoes and 67 pairs of boots, including repairs and products the value of their work was $1,848.25.   The Blacksmithing Shop earned $1,137.20.  The Wagon and Carpentry Shop made $2,845.  The boy’s Laundry was instigated to help the girls with the large amount of washing needed for the school so that the girls still had time for mending and making new clothing.  The boy’s laundry was responsible for all of the boys’ washing except white shirts, it was also in charge of washing and ironing all of the bedding for the school.[40] Amazingly this department consisted of only five boys.

The girls were responsible for all of the domestic choirs.  This was common curriculum taught in all female collages around the United States, not just in Native American Training schools.  The girls were divided into three trades: cooking, laundry, and seamstresses.  The girls in the cooking group were responsible for all the meals at the school and for dining room work. The girls in laundry washed, starched, and ironed all the white shirts.  For the seamstress group, there were three sewing rooms, where all of the uniforms, blankets, table dressings, and other linens were made.  These girls were also in charge of all of the mending needed at the school.[41]

By 1885, half of the teaching staff at the Pacific University Training School was Native Americans who had gone through the school themselves.  Native Americans ran almost all of the departments. These individuals made sure everything ran smoothly, they also had to write to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at the end of each year and give a report on the department.  Starting in 1883, these government reports were written both by Whites and Native Americans alike seeking funds to support their departments and giving reports on the past year’s happenings.

Based on enrollment and the attitudes of students, founders of the school felt comfortable in assuming that the Native American population of the Northwest was happy with the school and the opportunities it was offering.  H.J. Minthorn, the Superintendent of Pacific University, stated; “the school seems to be highly appreciated among the Indians on the reservation from which the children have been sent to the school, and many of the parents of the children have expressed their gratitude to God and the Government for this opportunity of educating their children.”[42] The School continued to increase in popularity.  It was fulfilling the goals of the education reformers, and bridging gapes between Whites and Native Americans, and changing both United States policy and public opinion.

The Pacific University Training School Moves

 

It should come as no surprise that due to continually increasing enrollment the Training School soon outgrew its four buildings and four acres. In 1884, the government started looking for a new location for the school.  The Training School wanted its own land, and more of it.  The prospect of relocation came much to the dismay of the Forest Grove community; the school increased the town’s production and infused a larger circulation of money in the community.  There are several letters still intact of correspondence between A. Hinman, “The Chairman of the Committee Appointed by the Citizens of Forest Grove” (also the President of Pacific University and on the Board of Trustees) and Senator J.N. Dolph, the man responsible for the movement of the school.  When Forest Grove initially heard about the proposed move of the Training School, Hinman sent the following letter to J.N. Dolph:

 

. . . I feel warranted in making the following proposition for the consideration of the commissioners.

1^st Tualatin Academy and Pacific University will deed the block of land upon which the school is now located, without charge, if the department wish to continue the school at Forest Grove.

2^nd The people of Forest Grove will purchase not less than twenty acres and not to exceed thirty, and donate the same to government for an additional site, if the department will continue the school here.[43]

 

 

This letter represented interest in the school by both Pacific University and the community.  This illustrates that this community had come a long way from wishing the buildings would burn down so that the school could not exist.  Now it was offering to donate money to buy land to keep the school.  This shows a commitment to the Training Schools well as to the education of Native Americans. 

 Unfortunately for Forest Grove, Salem, Oregon was able to offer a more attractive offer; 171 acres sparsely timbered, and ten acres under cultivation. Pacific University counter-offered with 100 acres of heavily timbered land in Newberg (a good distance from the school) and 23 acres near town that was under cultivation.[44] In the end, the Salem offer was deemed more lucrative.  There is no remaining documentation that references the rivalry between these two cities, other than a letter speaking of the cities desire to have the school.  Based on this bidding war, one has to guess that this desire was based on two major motives: the success of the school and the involvement of Native Americans in the community, and the added boost the school brought to the economy.  Both motives reflect positively on Native American-Anglo relation.  In 1885 the school moved to Salem and was renamed Chemawa, Meaning “Indian town”.  The school flourished and is still functioning in good order in Salem, Oregon.

           

 

The Training School and Politics

 

The philosophy of the Training School that Pratt first developed in the Florida prison spread rapidly.  Individuals and then comminutes, became involved with the schools.  This trend changed the government’s extermination policy and also started to sway public opinion.  The Carlisle School and Pacific University were the first two schools that functioned under Pratt’s model; social institutions that prepared Native Americans to function in mainstream society while at the same time dissipating White American’s prejudges against the “Indian”.  Fortunately, the school had the strong support of Pratt and then Wilkinson, two very smart men. Pratt and Wilkinson worked hard to change the opinion of many individuals in the country, and they were able to play the political game correctly while still implementing their radical change of the status of Native Americans.

Pratt continually wrote letters and made statements to the newspapers about the progress his students were making. It was vital to the existence of the school that the American public support the ideas and continue to allow tax money to fund this school, as well as the others to come.  One of the most persuasive arguments presented by Pratt asked all patriotic Americans to at least look at the words of the Constitution and apply them to Native Americans.  Pratt argued, “when the declaration announced, ‘We hold thee truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ it meant nothing unless it included the Native American even more than the foreign immigrant.”[45]  Pratt continued to argue that the Native Americans needed to be allowed to enter the world of the Whiteman.  Until individuals realized that all American laws equally applied to the “Redman” as well as to anyone who has immigrated or claimed citizenship, Americans would not be living in accordance with the Constitution.   He used Article XVI, Section 1, to support his statement:

 All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subjected to the jurisdiction therefore are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.[46]

 

Based on the laws which made native Americans wards of the state, the Constitution applied to Native Americans in the same way it does to every other American.  Pratt’s argument, based on Article XVI, Section 1, that, “All our Indians were ‘born in the United States,’ and the fact showed that, most imperiously, the Indian, both in his person and property, was under ‘United States jurisdiction,’ which through shrewd manipulation had become a degrading surveillance”[47].  By using the Constitution in his argument, Pratt forced individuals throughout the country to look at the law. According to Pratt, it was illegal to deny Native Americans all the rights that other citizens were receiving.

Pratt and other reformers were also well aware that if the Native American did not look and act like a citizen they would loose public support.  Reformers went to measures that made their cause valid to the majority of society, because if they did not they had no hope at changing American policy or public opinion.  One of Pratt's most successful tactics was using photographs with “before” and “after” prints to show the “American Citizens” his school was making.  Often, the pictures were taken only minuets apart.  Pratt would have incoming student dress in traditional garb, even if they had come in Whiteman’s clothing. Pratt would then cut their hair, have them bathe, dress them in a uniform, and take another photograph.  He distributed the prints to show what “progress” they were making.[48]  Pratt knew that many people’s prejudices were colored by appearance, so he gave them what they wanted, so he could get what he wanted—help for Native Americans.

            This practice became common with other reformers.  The Pacific University School was only slightly different in its practices.  From the photographs that still remain of the Pacific University Training School we find that most of the pictures were taken a few months apart, the shots were taken in groups, (similar to incoming classes photos) and not as individuals.  Isaac Grundy Davidson, a prominent Portland photographer, took almost all the pictures.  Besides functioning as documentation for the school, the photographs were also used as post cards--memorabilia from the west.  In December of 1881, the Oregonian stated: “Davidson’s views of Portland, Indian Training School, Columbia River, Spokane Fall, etc, make the finest of presents to Eastern friends.  Send orders early, as he is already pressed to print fast enough.”[49]  Individuals, such as Davidson, were able to capitalize on the schools’ success and help at the same time.  These photographs infiltrated the homes of people in the East who would not have any contact with the Training Schools or Native Americans otherwise, thus causing greater public awareness.  The photographs acted as free advertisement for the school.

            Large newspapers and magazines were also noticing the School.  Reporting on the success of the schools became popular in eastern newspapers.  In 1883, Harper’s Weekly published a full centerfold article on the Pacific University School.  Artists sketched the school, students, and buildings from Davidson photographs.  The article called for the support of the Pacific University Training School and others like it.  It gave the history of the school reporting the hard work that the students, faculty, and community put into the school.  They promoted the ideas behind the Training School and the graduation of the students:

 Every advantage placed in their way is eagerly seized on by these pupils, and it is worthy of notice by those that talk of the incorrigible character of Indians that the parents, many of them chiefs, willingly and thankfully surrendered their sons and daughters in order that they might be taught the arts and learning of the white man.[50]

           

The paper was willing to publicly back the Training Schools. This was vital for the survival of the school and the Native American peoples.  The author concluded by offering his support to Captain Wilkinson by, saying that, “this is the best solution to the difficulty which confronts us in our dealings with the Indians.”[51] Training Schools were gaining support which their founders recognized as the key to help protecting the Native “Americans”.  The reformers were making Americans, and this was the only way they new in which to save the native American Peoples from the governments policy of extermination.

 

Conclusion

 

            It is incorrect for individuals today to assume that they can summarize all Native American or Anglo attitudes into one viewpoint.  When we look at education reformers of the 1800s we must take into consideration their proper historical viewpoint.  When today’s views are superimposed on them, we will undoubtedly disagree with actions of the past.   But when we look at individual people and movements in history, we can see that the education reformers had the best intentions in helping the plight of Native Americans. Furthermore, these men acted in the best way the times would allow; they educated Native Americans in the customs and actions of the rest of the country.  Much of the literature that has been written about the acculturation of Native American in the late 1800s ignores the importance of the reformers.

            Education reformers changed the United States’ policies towards Native Americans.  They did this by appealing to the general public’s opinions and attitudes about Native Americans.  Reformers such as Pratt and Wilkinson proved to other Americans that, when given fair opportunities, Native Americans could and would adapt to their changing world. Through their actions, reformers were able to change some of the raciest assumptions of the throughout the country.  For this reason, men such as Pratt and Wilkinson were revolutionaries for their time.  The schools they created were unlike those that had existed before them or even the schools that would be created in the 1920’s.  Training Schools of the late 1880’s taught Native Americans hands-on trades that could be used once out of school and, at the same time they were taught to read and write, something rural whites were already receiving from the government.  The schools were completely independent of reservations; they were not run by secular groups that place religion above education, instead men that changed American policy created them. These schools allowed both Native Americans and Anglos to reevaluate their opinions about one and other.

Work Cited

 

 

·      Andrist, Ralph K. The Long Death. Collin Mac Million Publishers, New York. 1964.

 

·      Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928. University Press of Kansas, 1995.

 

·      Buan, Carolyn M. This Far-Off Sunset Land: a pictorial History of Washington County, Oregon. The Ponning Company Publishers, 1999.

 

·      Crow Dog, Mary. Lakota Woman. Harper Perennial, New York. 1991.

 

·      Deloria, Vine. Custer Died For your Sins: An Indian manifesto. Avon, New York. 1969.

 

·      Dippie, Brian W. The Vanishing American. University of Kansas Press 1982.

 

·      George Brown Tindall and David E. Shi. America: A Narrative History. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.

 

·      Hoxie, Fredrick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. University of Nebraska Press 1984.

 

·      Pratt, Henry. Battlefield And Classroom. New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1964.

 

·      Prucha, Francis Paul The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. University Of Nebraska Press, 1984 & 1986.

 

·      Robinson, Thomas. Oregon Photographers; Biographical History and Directory 1852-1917. Second Edition, 1993.

 

 

·      Edited by: Francis Paul Prucha, Writing by the ‘Friends of the Indians” 1880-1900.  Americanizing The American Indians. University of Nebraska Press 1973.

 

·      “”Money For Indian Scalps.” New York Times, 1885.

 

·      “Early Days Of Chemawa At Forest Grove Recalled.” News Times Oregon, October, fifth 1972.

 

·      “Indian School In Oregon.” Harper’s Weekly; a journal of civilization, New York. Vol. XXVI, No. 1327.  May 27, 1882.

 

·      Pcific Univerity Minutes 1880-1885.  Pacific University Arcives.

 

·      Shipley, S. M.  The Aurora Forest Grove Oregon Weekly, V.1. No. 27.  Sept. 23, 1882.  From the Tozier Collection, Washing ton County Historical Society, Hillsboro, Or.

 

·      Annual Reports of the Commissioner Of Indian Affaires to the Secretary Of The Interior for the Year 1881.  Washington: Government Printing Office 1881.

 

·      Annual Reports of the Commissioner Of Indian Affaires to the Secretary Of The Interior for the Year 1883.  Washington: Government Printing Office1883.

 

·       Annual Reports of the Commissioner Of Indian Affaires to the Secretary Of The Interior for the Year 1884.   Government Printing Office1884.

 

·      Annual Reports of the Commissioner Of Indian Affaires to the Secretary Of The Interior for the Year 1885.   Washington: Government Printing Office 1885.

 

·      Letters from Pacific University Archives.  Hinman files:

 

United States Senate, washing ton, D.C., January 30, 1884. From J.N. Dolph to  A. Hinman.

 

United States Senate, washing ton, D.C., Feb. 24, 1884. From J.N. Dolph to  A. Hinman.

 

Forest Grove, March 4^th 1884. From A. Hinman  to J.N. Dolph.

 

Forest Grove, March 10, 1884. From  A. Hinman to J.N. Dolph.

 

United States Senate, washing ton, D.C., March 18, 1884.  From J.N. Dolph to  A. Hinman, 

 

Forest Grove, Nov. 27^th 1884. From; A. Hinman to J.N. Dolph,

 

 

 

·      Bibliography

 

 

·      Kinny, Glenn. “Forest grove’s Adopted Children: A Look At The Indian Industrial Training School At Forest Grove, Oregon, 1880-1885.”  History Department at Pacific University. Senior thesis

 

 

·      Hoxie, Fredric E. Redefining Indian Education: Thomas j. Morgan’s Program in Disarray. Arizona and the West, 1889-93.

 

 

·      June 14^th, 1881. ‘Washington County Independent”  (Hillsboro). Washing ton County Historical Society, Hillsboro, Or.

 

 

·       “Twenty-First Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners. 1880.” Washington: Government Printing Office 1890.

 

 

·      United States Senate, washing ton, D.C., March 18, 1884: to:  A. Hinman,  from: J.N. Dolph

 

·      Forest Grove, Nov. 27^th 1884: To J.N. Dolph, From; A. Hinman