Running head: NATIVE AMERICAN

Learning as Unlearning: Native American Education and the Forced

Abandonment of Cultural Traditions

Harley Walden

Marshall University

EDF 615: History of Education in the United States

Dr. Elizabeth Campbell

March 7, 2014

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Learning as Unlearning: Native American Education and the Forced

Abandonment of Cultural Traditions
The American Old West brings to mind romantic and idyllic images of heroic
cowboys, wild Native Americans, and dangerous saloons scattered across desert plains,
but these images are the creations of fantasy and Hollywood. The cultures of various
Native American nations often became stereotyped and homogenized in public thought,
but the truth is that they are as diverse and dynamic as any other cultures found around
the world. Throughout the history of America, there have been numerous examples of
cultural assimilation aimed towards non-white cultures in an attempt to Americanize
them, often by force or forced legislation. The erosion of Native American traditions
began as an attempt to recreate Anglo-Saxon, white culture within the Native American
population of the United States. The desired effect would be a mirror-image reflection of
mainstream white culture that would replace the cultural traditions of the many Native
American nations that existed during the greatest period of cultural assimilation, 17901920. This is not to say that these attempts at cultural assimilation did not happen before
or after this time period, but instead to create a framework for explaining historic events
that impacted these efforts that were most visible and began in the curriculum of Native
American education in boarding schools (both on and off reservation).
The assimilation procedures were centered in the notion that if indigenous Native
Americans acquired certain United States customs and values, they might then be able to
combine their own traditional Indian values with the mainstream American culture and
more peacefully join the civilized society (Reyhner, 2004). After the end of the Indian
Wars (1622-1924) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the federal government

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outlawed the practice of traditional Indian religious ceremonies, especially the

controversial hysteria associated with the ghost dance, which was thought to have been
a covert coded message of rebellion and a rallying cry between tribes against the white
majority (Reyhner, 2004, p. 119). As a result of the paranoia and widespread prejudice
against Native American cultures, the federal government established Native American
boarding schools that children were required to attend. Some were located on the Indian
reservations, whereas others were located within the city limits of larger white
settlements (Reyhner, 2004). In the boarding schools Native American students were
forced to speak English, study standardized subjects designed for white children, dress
like white students, attend Christian church, and leave all resemblances of tribal traditions
behind.
The Americanization or assimilation process became an ideological battle
between what was considered primitive and heathen by white Americans versus what
they viewed as civilized, which was their own belief system in action (Lomawaima,
2006, p. 16). Native American cultures and values were obviously different than the
culture that many white Americans possessed and sometimes these conflicting beliefs or
opinions on matters such as religion and education caused disagreements that were settled
in courts of law, where Native Americans had little to no legal representation. Many
white Americans assumed that Native American societies lacked or possessed only
rudimentary forms of the building blocks of a civilized society, such as government
bodies, codes of law, or organized religion (Lomawaima, 2006, p. 16). As a result of
these incorrect assumptions, American educators viewed Native American societies as
lacking formalized educational learning systems. Native American students were also

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viewed negatively, as their communities were thought to be deficient in pedagogical

methods and were assumed to lack the verbal, cognitive, even motor skills necessary to
succeed in skills (Lomawaima, 2006, p. 16). However this is a contradictory opinion, as
many of the same people who held these racist opinions also believed in and supported
land dispossession, political and social subjugation, and the forced assimilationist
schooling that eroded Native Americans traditional cultural values and practices. All of
these beliefs helped create the curricula of Native American schools and further entrench
racial stereotypes that persist to this day (Lomawaima, 2006). The curriculum of most
Native American schools concentrated their efforts at emphasizing mainstream Americas
value systems and portrayed the students long-held beliefs as false, heathen notions that
needed to be erased in order to become a full-fledged American citizen and a member of
the modern, progressive society.
The experiences at the Native American schools were not isolated to one region of
the country, or even the country itself, as evidenced in the accounts of the Rainy
Mountain Boarding School (Ellis, 2009), federal Indian education policies in western
Canada (Enns, 2009), and Native American schools in rural Mexico (Acevedo-Rodrigo,
2008). These accounts will capture different, yet similar aspects of the Native American
curriculum and schooling procedures, as mandated by the majority white population
surrounding the schools. The divergent perspectives demonstrate how similar rules and
limitations were placed on Native American students and the ways in which they coped
with not being able to hold onto their cultural traditions. These accounts from different
geographic locations also highlight the fact that the assimilation by force policies of the
American Southwest were also applied elsewhere in locations where Native American

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populations were in conflict with their white neighbors, although to varying degrees of
racial insensitivity.
The experiences of the Kiowa Indians at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School in
southwestern Oklahoma provide an interesting perspective on the assimilation policies
enacted by the federal government (Ellis, 2009). This narrative considers the policies
ramifications especially for young students who resisted and simultaneously attempted to
adopt some efforts from the schools employees at changing their traditional lifestyles
(Ellis, 2009). The Rainy Mountain Boarding School was in operation between 1893 until
1920 when it closed its doors to the last group of Kiowa students. The schools mission
was to transform the Kiowa students into a culturally indistinguishable race from the
whites who surrounded them (Ellis, 2009, p. xi). These students were expected to
graduate from the school culturally changed, as administrators wanted to prevent them
from going back to the blanket, a term of derision applied to backsliders who could not
resist the temptation of returning to native ways (Ellis, 2009, p. xii). This was a
reoccurring problem with the reservation boarding schools, such as Rainy Mountain.
As students were enrolled in the boarding school, white policy makers who were
far-removed from Kiowa cultural traditions shaped their future and destinies with their
assimilation laws. The curriculum was centered in the Christian faith, habits of industry
and Anglo-American agriculture, and to the discipline and self-discovery of the
schoolroom (Ellis, 2009, p. xiii). Although these assimilation laws were envisioned as
transformative agents of cultural change, the truth of the matter was that they were
theoretically flawed from the beginning. These boarding schools were not able to achieve
their goals because of a lack of financial and logistic support (insufficient numbers of

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schools and educators) (Ellis, 2009). As a result, many Kiowa students did not feel the
need to regularly attend the schools and eventually a disconnect began between their
cultural traditions and the values that were being taught to them via their boarding school
curriculum. This critical flaw in the design of the schools can be attributed to the program
foundering on the shoals of politics and expedience (Ellis, 2009, p. xiv).
With these failures in mind, school policies were a direct result of the policys
poor design. Kiowa students were forbidden from speaking their native language, forced
to dress in European-style clothes, adopt English names, and were segregated by sex on
the schools grounds (Ellis, 2009). The students often came to the school full of
apprehension, as they were presented with a new culture by force. Male students were
forced to get a haircut in order to appear more Anglo-European. One such instance was
recounted by Guy Quoetone, a former Rainy Mountain student: while I was talking to
the ladythis barberhe come from behind and cut one side of my braid off (Ellis,
2009, p. 101). This image still resonates with the Rainy Mountain Schools students who
are still living, as it viscerally places the assimilation policies within the human context
of pain, struggle, and the desire to preserve who you are and where you came from.
The federal Indian education policies in western Canada during the late 1800s
were similar in most respects to those echoed at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School in
Oklahoma. Within the last several decades of the nineteenth century, the Canadian House
of Commons had a battle between Conservatives and the Liberals regarding Indian
education policies and industrial schools (focusing on religion and rapid assimilation
tactics) (Enns, 2009). The Conservatives favored the industrial schools, while the
Liberals supported boarding schools that were not denominational. The Liberals thought

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that the industrial schools were too costly and that they were not successful at rapidly
assimilating the Native American students, as the Conservatives claimed (Enns, 2009).
This ideological difference of opinions was settled when the Liberals gained power in the
House and ended the construction of industrial schools and replaced them with boarding
schools that were very similar in both appearance and practice to their American
counterparts. However these boarding schools maintained the denominational influence
of their predecessors, while replacing the Conservative focus of rapid assimilation with
reservation-based segregation as earlier hops of rapid assimilation diminished (Enns,
2009, p. 101). However, neither approach to Native American education was able to solve
the larger issue regarding the issue of how students would be able to transition culturally
back to their communities after graduating from the schools.
The industrial schools had a policy of forcefully removing Native American
children from their families in order to put as much physical and emotional distance
between the children and their native culture as possible (Enns, 2009). After the Liberals
acquired the majority position in the House of Commons, the boarding schools
maintained this practice as a means to eradicate the presence of all Aboriginal/native
languages, as it was considered essential for the assimilation of Aboriginal students
(Enns, 2009, p. 109). Native students were subjected to a new and foreign curriculum
during a time when they experienced a cultural crisis. Although the Liberals replaced the
Conservative focus on religious indoctrination with tribal segregation, the end result was
the same. The Liberals policy had revised the curriculum to focus on agricultural and
domestic skills to help students establish subsistence farms and household on their home
reservations, which simultaneously segregated students via tribal differences (Enns,

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2009, p. 116). This policy was just as flawed as its American counterpart and not
surprisingly had similar rates of failure. The quality of the schools was poor and there
was also a high mortality rate for students after they left the schools. These mortality
rates indicated that 404 of the 1,221 students discharged from both industrial and
boarding schools up to 1899 had perished (Enns, 2009, p. 119). So the Indian education
policies of western Canada were constructed similarly to the American assimilationist
manifestations and resulted in eerily similar results.
Spanish colonizers enacted similar assimilationist policies toward native
populations in rural Mexico between 1870-1930 in an effort to eradicate native languages
and replace them with the official language of Spanish. These tactics can be traced back
to the sixteenth century Spanish Conquest of the Sierra Norte de Puebla region of Mexico
where a majority of the population were monolingual speakers of one of the native
languages of nahuatl, totonaca, or maya (Acevedo-Rodrigo, 2008). The native societies
of the Sierra Norte de Puebla region of Mexico were indoctrinated to the Spanish
language by force via Catholic missionary schools. There have been many political
changes in Mexican history that should indicate educational policy change, but they have
remained mostly stagnant between a regime that was ideologically liberal and positivist
but authoritarian in practice (1876-1911) to a revolutionary regime (1920-1930) that
retained much of the liberalism and positivism of the past, but were more elitist in nature
that favored urban education over investing in the rural masses (Acevedo-Rodrigo,
2008, p. 50). These changes in political regimes did not differ in educational practice, as
native populations were subjected to the same Spanish-only curriculum that their
ancestors faced under the colonial Spanish rule.

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The Catholic missionary schools consisted of a curriculum mostly based in

religious ritual symbolism, as native languages were slowly removed from official
government documentation. The school administrators eventually viewed ritual as the
only realistic way of educating natives through Christianity to a significant number of
people (Acevedo-Rodrigo, 2008, p. 50). After Mexican independence in 1821, Native
languages were outlawed in most Mexican territories and as a result literacy rates
dropped significantly due to the expansion in school building that neglected to account
for the large popularity of native languages in use by populations that were not offered a
bilingual curriculum (Acevedo-Rodrigo, 2008). Most education administrators thought
that having only a few literate people in rural towns was sufficient for the daily
functioning of native populations. Similar problems persisted into the 1930s when
educators taught Spanish as a second language to native populations that could not read,
decipher textbooks, and merely recited or memorized a text without understanding their
meaning (Acevedo-Rodrigo, 2008, p. 49). The pedagogical changes in curriculum did
nothing to actively engage the native populations in rural Mexico, as they were merely a
superficial attempt at civilizing the societies through strict religious doctrines that did
not account for native linguistic preferences.
As discussed previously, the assimilation tactics enacted by different countries
subjugated Native American students and forced them to abandon their long-held cultural
traditions. These policies also created stereotypes of native populations that persist to this
day. Unfortunately, these stereotypes are present in public education curricula and Social
Studies textbooks around the world. For instance, the public education system in British
Columbia utilizes negative and inaccurate portrayals of Native Americans in many school

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texts (Carleton, 2011). These images were most rampant in the years between 1920-1970
within the school curriculum. During a public celebration in 1967 recognizing 100 years
of Canadian Confederation in Vancouver, Chief Dan George of the Tseil-Waututh First
Nation tribe issued a damning speech entitled, Lament for Confederation in which he
said, the white mans strange customs which I could not understand pressed down upon
me until I could no longer breathe (Carleton, 2011, p. 101). Sentiments similar to the
ones expressed by George are commonly expressed in contemporary forums when issues
of post-colonialism and race are discussed. The legacy of the Native American
assimilationist policies still impact current school curricula, as evidenced through the
inaccurate and racist textbook Indian depictions of Native Americans in historical oversimplifications that describe native populations as either passive, unintelligent heathens
or as violent aggressors that ravaged European missionaries trying to civilize them with
religious salvation (Carleton, 2011). No matter which depiction is presented in textbooks,
both are extremely unfair and inaccurate leftovers from colonial periods of Native
American subjugation.
The cultural assimilation attempts aimed at eroding Native American cultures
have an enduring, negative impact on the development and history of American
education. Although cultural assimilation has been abandoned as an official federal and
state government policy since the years leading up to the Civil Right Movement of the
1960s, its legacy still haunts the American public education system. Recent legislation
has been created as a result of such policies in an attempt to protect, advocate, and
preserve the cultural traditions of Native Americans and other minorities that have been
persecuted by similar measures. In 1990 the Native American Graves Protection and

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Repatriation Act (Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048) was enacted as
an official measure to ensure that museums and similar institutions treat Native American
historical artifacts and human remains with care and are preserved and passed down to
family members, if still existent (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act). Legislation, such as this also serves as an official recognition from the federal
government that Native American cultures are an integral component of American history
and should be preserved for future generations.
Recently measures by some states (Hawaii and Montana) serve as examples that
others should follow in an attempt to integrate native cultures and histories into the
existing curriculum in a meaningful manner, so students in the modern classroom can
learn to appreciate and understand the sophisticated cultures that existed in America prior
to the arrival of European settlers. In fact, Montana is the only state that has a state
constitutional requirement to teach Native American history, culture, and heritage to
preschool students through college because of the Indian Education for All Act in 2013
(Native American Center Facts). This curriculum was created by the Montana Office of
Public Instruction and lesson plans are currently available online for both primary and
secondary school integration (Juneau, 2013). Hawaii has a charter school, Halau Ku
Mana, from 1996-present that emphasized a sovereign pedagogy, consisting of native
Hawaiian culture, literature, history, and song (Goodyear-Kaopua, 2013). This charter
school was aimed at combatting years of colonial schooling in favor of a curriculum that
consisted primarily of native teachings. Efforts similar to these are necessary in order to
preserve Native American cultures for future generations of students and place them in
the position that they deserve within the existing public education curriculum.

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References
Acevedo-Rdrigo, A. (2008). Ritual literacy: The simulation of reading in rural Indian
Mexico, 1870-1930. Paedagogica Historica 44(102), 49-65.
Carleton, S. (2011). Colonizing minds: Public education. The textbook Indian and
settler colonialism in British Columbia, 1920-1970. BC Studies 169, 101-128.
Ellis, C. (2008). To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain
Boarding School, 1893-1920. Norman: OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Enns, R.A. (2009). But hat is the object of educating these children, if it costs their lives
to educate them?: Federal Indian education policy in western Canada in the late
1800s. Journal of Canadian Studies 43(3), 101-123.
Goodyear-Kaopua, N. (2013). The seeds we planted: Portraits of a native Hawaiian
charter school. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Juneau, D. (2013). IEFA Curriculum Resources. In Montana Office of Public Instruction.
Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://www.opi.mt.gov/Programs/IndianEd/curricsearch.html
Lomawaima, K. T.M, & McCarty, T. L. (2006). To Remain an Indian: Lessons in
Democracy from a Century of Native American Education. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Native American Center Facts (2013). In University of Montana. Retrieved March 16,
2014, from http://life.umt.edu/aiss/nativeamericancenter/facts.php

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Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (n.d.). In National Park
Service U. S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/MANDATES/25USC3001etseq.htm
Reyhner, J., & Eder, J. (2006). American Indian Education: A History. Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press.

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