Reservation Boarding Schools: Justification and Rationalization

The Reservation Boarding School System was a war in disguise. It was a war between the United States government and the children of the First People of this land. Its intention was that of any war, elimination of the enemy. The reason this war is difficult to recognize is because it was covered by the attractive patina of a concept called "Manifest Destiny." Manifest Destiny was a philosophy by which the white european invader imagined themselves as having a divine right to take possession of all land and its fruits.

The reason that the Concept of Manifest Destiny was so effective was because, as it steam rolled across the land, it dragged the masses with it. The hooks that dragged these masses were many and were forged by Christianity and the Christian imprimatur. Although the fuel that energized Manifest Destiny was economic, the inspiration was in its alignment with divine will. This quote from the essay "God and the Land" illustrates this alignment:

"Although many natural historians and most natural theologians saw a specific signs of God in nature, few of them, however, would interpret the evidences of divine design as specifically as did John Archdale in his 1707 "Description of Carolina" in which he wrote, "And courteous Readers, I shall give you some farther Eminent Remark hereupon, and especially in the first Settlement of Carolina, where the Hand of God was eminently seen in thinning the Indians, to make room for the English....it at other times pleased Almighty God to send unusual Sicknesses amongst them, as the Smallpox, etc., to lessen their Numbers..."

The reservation school movement was "invented" by the descendants of those who rode the Manifest Destiny band wagon. Educating Indians was the refinement of the times, a continuation of the process, its effort was to confine Indians to sedentary life and open more land for use by whites. The "reformers" of the 1890's were just another group of torchbearers...doing their part in this ongoing process of cultural genocide and providing additional strands to strengthen the rope that forms the noose of genocide around the neck of Native people.


To the white pioneer and his government, education of Indians was a convenient, and at the time, attractive adjunct to the efforts to "settle" this land. To these white Christian people and the ersatz Indian educators, to "kill the Indian, save the man" was an appealing as well as justified idea.

In any encounter with mainstream historical accounts, it is obvious that Native People were very little more than a "problem" to be solved by the colonizers. To white society, they were heathens and behaved like savages. They had no written language, their children were unschooled, and for the most part they didn't know how to stay in one place, many moved their villages according to the seasons. If these people, these Natives, were ever going to amount to anything in this United States of America, they had to be taught the proper and acceptable way to live. All aspects of Native culture or way of life were unacceptable to the white european mind.

As this country's use of land increased and as "civilization" moved west, the Indians remained a problem. The developing white society felt that it was obvious, to anyone with eyes to see, that these people with such a primitive lifestyle needed to become civilized in order to survive in American society. Additionally, in order for this American society to have the land to expand, the Indians had to be moved out of the way.

The european settlers, mostly Christians, were convinced that "Christian" civilization was for this land and it inhabitants, the ideal, the goal to be achieved. And it was their belief that it was in keeping with Divine intent that society move forward toward ever more desirable stages of cultural development.

In comparison to white christian culture, Indians lived a savage, subsistence way of life. The Tribal organization and the adherence to "paganism" were a reflection of a lesser, a lower form of society. Many reformers believed that Indians were in fact not intellectually inferior but lived and organized their lives in an inferior manner. Because of this way of thinking, it was deemed that indeed Indians were worth "saving."

Contact between whites and Indians became more prevalent as the century wore on and it became clear to the white settlers that something would have to be done so that Indians might become productive members of this new American society.

Government Indian Policy was coming increasingly under fire from Congress as well as many well meaning voices from the Christian pulpits. The "Indian Rights Association" group with its roots in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sought to reform the government's relationship with the Indian Nations. Philadelphia provided the venue for another group, the "Women's National Indian Association," while in Massachusetts the "Boston Indian Citizenship Association was formed.

These so called "reform" or "support" organizations recognized that Indians had been handed only lies, trickery, disappointment, and in some cases, death in exchange for the land that was taken from them. It is obvious, at least to me, that these people thought of themselves as obligated to "do" something to remedy a situation that was going from bad to worse. The organizations vowed to make amends by seeing to it that Indians would receive the education that would ultimately make them productive members of American society. I find it difficult to understand why the concept of respect for Native people never seemed to develop itself in these philanthropic reformers. Absolute assimilation of was the goal of white society and nothing short of the complete elimination of Native culture would satisfy them. So clouded by their sense of their own superiority these "civilized whites" were unable to see the value of another culture.

"Indians must be taught the knowledge, values, mores and habits of Christian civilization...Since the days of the common school movement, the schoolhouse had come to achieve almost mythological status. Reformers viewed it as a seedbed of republican virtues and democratic freedoms, a promulgator of individual opportunity and national prosperity, and an instrument for social progress and harmony. Moreover, because of the common schools alleged ability to assimilate, it was looked upon as an ideal instrument for absorbing those peoples and ideologies that stood in the path of the republic's millennial destiny." (Adams, p.18)

Many whites saw the "social evolution" of the Indian as a progressive process that could be accelerated by education. Education also promised to relieve the government of the cost of feeding and clothing Native people by encouraging and providing the tools for economic self-sufficiency. Waging war on Indians and protecting frontier communities was also costly and it was thought that in this area too, education could save money. Then again there was the question of land:

" A wild Indian requires a thousand acres to roam over, while an intelligent man will find a comfortable support for his family on a very small tract...Barbarism is costly, wasteful and extravagant. Intelligence promotes thrift and increases prosperity." (Adams, p.20)