During the nineteenth century, the federal government forced many natives to move from their ancestral homes to remote territories in the central and western United States. Also during that century, the United States opened off reservation boarding schools for native youth. The first of those institutes was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School,…

This study addressed Native American students' perceptions of their educational experiences, 142 years after the first federally-run, off-reservation Indian Boarding School opened, and their perceptions of how university staff, faculty, and administrators could better serve Native students. Qualitative interviews were conducted with five Native…

Extracurricular activities such as sports and music offer a means to glimpse the complexity of students' experiences in federally-run boarding schools for Native children in the United States. Studies of music in residential schools typically include a mix of quantitative and qualitative sources, including "unexpected archives" such as…

Through his many works calling for the evolution of indigenous theory, Duane Champagne has emphasized the importance of recovering indigenous voices such as Chilocco Indian Industrial School graduate Mack Setima's and documenting forms of cultural continuity. According to Champagne, case studies such as K. Tsianina Lomawaima's scholarship on…

This paper examines resistance through a Native Feminist lens, employing the boarding school memoirs of Zitkala-Sa. Within a "story" of appropriation in methodology, it considers protest and parody, and presents archival refusal as modes of resistance to colonial education. (Contains 1 figure.)

In this discussion of a set of studies that fits the trope of "Indian Languages in Unexpected Places," I explore the obvious necessity of developing a relevant notion of linguistic "leakage" following a famous image from the writings of the linguistic anthropologist Edward Sapir. Though in its original use, the concept applied more to the order of…

The reality of tribal nationhood and the dual citizenship that Native Americans carry in their tribal nations and the United States significantly expands the definition and parameters of citizen education. Citizenship education means including and understanding the historical and political contexts of all U.S. citizens--especially, those…

Eunice Woodhull Stabler. Eunice Stabler, or Thataweson , meaning "Pale Woman of the Bird Clan," was born in 1885 on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska. During a period of continued transitions and federal assimilation efforts directed at the Omaha people--and Indigenous people throughout the United States--Stabler remained…

At the close of the 19th century, thousands of Indian children were consigned to off-reservation boarding schools as part of the government's assimilation efforts. The youngsters were separated from their homes and families--often for years at a time--and forced to reject their traditional dress, language, and religion. The goal of these schools,…

Since 1891, Phoenix Indian High School has served as a boarding school for Indian students. In February 1987, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) recommended that the school be closed, and that students be transferred to Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California. Congressional hearings in February and July 1987 received testimony on this…

As Superintendent of Indian Schools from 1894 through 1897, William Hailmann incorporated into the curriculum his "New Education," a system based on the philosophy of Friedrich Froebel and similar to modern "open education" and to some current model programs in Indian education. (CM)

Immediately upon its establishment in 1824, the Office of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the Indian nations. As the nation expanded West, the agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War begets tragedy, but the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation…

Provides a case study of reform movement dynamics in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1930. Discusses the use of excessive corporal punishment at the Phoenix Indian School. Describes the way in which John Collier used the issue of brutality in government boarding schools to bring down the Bureau of Indian Affairs administration. (KO)

Assistant Secretary Gover apologizes for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) actions in the ethnic cleansing of American Indian tribes and the destruction of Indian cultures. He asserts the agency's moral responsibility of putting things right and proposes that a healing process begin and that the BIA work to reinvent itself as an instrument of…

Arizona, 71 Hopi pupils left their families and homes to attend Sherman Institute, an off-reservation Indian boarding school in Riverside, California. Accompanied by their Kikmongwi (Village Chief), Tawaquaptewa and other Hopi leaders, the Hopis embarked on an adventure that forever changed their lives. For the majority of Hopi students, the…