Education for All
A few months ago on these pages, we told a story of children who grew up on the Harbor Islands going to school. While there were some hardships, most of the stories engendered fond memories of one room schoolhouses, nature walks and the adventures of getting to and from the mainland in bad weather for the older students. These stories may sound familiar to many as the “I had to walk 5 miles thru the snow barefoot to get to school” stories told by a grandfather to a complaining grandchild.
Schools are an integral part of the makeup of a country and in this country and many others, children are mandated by law to attend a school, at least until a certain age. Throughout the history of the United States, schools and education have played a critical role. The first public school in the British colonies was established in Boston in 1632, two years after the colony was founded and a college (which would later become Harvard) was established three years later. As the country expanded westward, schools followed. The “school marm” in the little red schoolhouse is an idealized portrait of early childhood education. Here and in similar edifices, immigrant children would learn not only the language, but also the culture of being an American.
As with many other public institutions, schools and education mirrored the culture and politics of the time. In the late 18th and 19th Century, especially in the Southern states, teaching an enslaved person to read and write was illegal. Even after the end of slavery, schools would become divided in the Southern states under the “separate by equal” policy in which schools for black children were decidedly inferior to their white counterparts. In Boston, where slavery was outlawed in the late 18th century, schools for whites and blacks were segregated, resulting in black children having to walk well outside of their neighborhoods to attend classes. Activists such as William Cooper Nell let the fight to desegregate the Boston schools and won his case in 1855 when the Massachusetts legislature formally desegregated schools for white and blacks.
While many African Americans fought hard for small victories which culminated in the landmark Supreme Court decision; Brown v Board of Education in 1954, which struck down the “separate but equal” facilities established in another court decision in 1896; Plessy v Ferguson; for Indigenous Americans, the struggle for education is much darker
From the beginning of European settlement, the indigenous people who occupied the land that would become the United States were treated as obstacles. Between disease (starting in the early 1600’s) and war (from 1630’s Pequot War to the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1891), literally millions of native people died. Those that remained were, for the most part, forced onto reservations on smaller pieces of land that once theirs. Theirs was a unique status in the eyes of the Federal Government- they were sovereign nations (albeit it with limited powers) , at the same time, wards of the state.
Following a tradition begun with Christian missionaries such as John Eliot, who translated the Bible into Algonquin (the language group of most New England Native people) and using this, converted hundreds and established separate towns for the converted, which he called “Praying Towns”. Here taught reading and writing– with the Bible as the center piece–and endeavored to make these converts more English, and thus less threatening to the local white settlers. For the men, they’re wearing English style clothes, and growing crops (traditionally a woman’s role). This form of education was designed to separate the native people from the other, mostly white settlers. Opportunities were limited for native people in the white world and as converted Christians, their tribal identities were stripped from them.
After the American Civil War and a series of conflicts known as the “Indian Wars; most Native people were confined to reservations and the question arose as to what to do with the children and how to education them. An idea that gained traction following Eliot’s model came from a man named Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt, a former army officer who had fought in the western wars against native people, had the idea of starting a boarding school that would teach native children from tribes all over the United States to learn a trade and become westernized. His succinct motto was: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”
The Carlisle School in Carlisle, PA became a model school for boarding Native children who were often forcibly removed from their families; many as young as 5 or 6. When they arrived, the boy’s hair was cut, anything brought from home was disposed of, and they were forced to dress in western style clothing. They were also forced to speak English and would be punished for speaking their native language.
Imagine the fear of these children, torn from their families, placed on trains, some traveling across the country. All around them were children from other tribes whose language and/or dialect were different. These experiences were repeated thousands of times in more than 500 such schools in the United States. Overall, these schools operated for over 100 years, from the late 19th century to the eve of the 21st century.
While most Americans have never heard of these “schools”, those in the Native community have known and spoken out about them for decades. Their effect on generations indigenous people is finally coming out, thanks to videos such as https://dawnland.org/, documenting experiences of Native people from Maine. A bit closer to home, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts relates the story of her uncles who in the 1880’s were forced to go to Carlisle. The two younger ones stayed and the oldest escaped the confines of the institution. He was detained and returned. He fled again and this time signed on as a crewman on a whaling ship, a common occupation of Native men at that time. His family had to petition the government to allow him to remain on board the ship, but still were afraid they would be punished by the government.
These stories may have remained within the confines of the Native community had it not been for the discovery in 2021 of more than 150 unmarked graves at a boarding school in western Canada. The outcry and today’s media access has opened a dialog worldwide, including Australia, which had similar schools for their Aboriginal people. Both Canada and Australia have officially apologized to their Native people for this history. In the United States, Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, herself a member of the Pueblo in New Mexico and who, as Sec of the Interior is responsible for oversight of Native people on Reservations in Bureau of Indian Affairs, has ordered a full investigation of all burials at the former boarding schools in Carlisle.
These are hard stories. The telling of these stories is not to assign blame, but rather, knowing what happened, to allow healing. The people who attended these institutions and their descendants are now remembering, forming support groups, honoring those who endured, no longer in silence. Let us bring this into the light. Let us turn toward the morning.
References:
William Cooper Nell: National Park Service: www.nps.gov/boaf/people/williamcoopernell
Brown v Board of Education: https://www.nps.gov/articles/brown-v-board-of-education.htm
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pequot-War
https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/e-f/eliot-john-1604-1690/
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/american-indian-wars
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/pratt-richard-henry
https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/
https://boardingschoolhealing.org/education/us-indian-boarding-school-history/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/world/canada/indigenous-children-graves-saskatchewan-canada.html