Introduction
The Indians and the Europeans who settled in the Western and Southern England wobbled between war and peace (Townsend, 2019). Every group only championed the perspectives of another one depending on their own experiences and cultural values, and this made the two groups buy one another’s ideology. This made neither the Europeans nor Indians to clearly understand the values, norms, cultures, and motives of another, and they also failed to understand the repercussions of every group’s actions. The Europeans who occupied Northern America defied the Naïve America’s structures and fundamental values, and this made the Native Americans do anything possible to retain their unique properties and identities. Therefore, one of the strategies to restrict the Native Americans into reservations and assimilate into the mainstream culture was to introduce Indian Boarding Schools (Gregg, 2018). During 1860, the Indianans had begun attending these schools which were created in Washington .
The schools were established to use education to transform or assimilate the Indianans into cultures of Native Americans and made them transform into American ideologies, cultural values, and norms. Moreover, the schools were also constructed to teach Indian tribe how to dress, speak in English and convert into Christianity. In these boarding schools, the Indian tribes were also taught how to become self-reliant, how to create wealth and how to speak in English (Palmer, 2019). US government knew it was critical to civilize Native Americans and persuade them to conform to the white man’s values and belief systems. Nonetheless, there were several renowned opponents of these schools. Some of the opponents to the concept of boarding schools include Henry Ward Beecher and Sitting Bull who significantly changed the wider perspectives of these boarding schools through their works and experiences. The two authors held different views regarding boarding schools; whereas Henry Beecher held a belief these schools could help the government to fully assimilate the Indians tribe, Sitting Bull opposed this view and saw no need to force the Indian tribes into a foreign culture.
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Indian Boarding Schools –Sitting Bull and Henry Ward Beecher
The government had established several boarding schools by 1800s to bring all Indians together and to Americanize the Indians (Townsend, 2019). However, the establishment of these boarding schools attracted several critics who rose to oppose the ideology behind transforming and assimilating all Indians into the American cultures and value systems. Sitting Bull, a Native Indian Leader was one of the renowned critics of this ideology. Also, Henry Ward Beecher, an American Civil Leader, was another critic who made lots of contributions regarding boarding schools. The two critics held different opinions concerning the issue of assimilating and transforming the Indians into American cultures. However, both Sitting Bull and Henry Ward shared a similar and mutual understanding of the issue and struggled to achieve a mutual stance (Townsend, 2019). These two personalities were against the idea of creating these schools because it was separating children from their parents as they were sent far away to boarding schools (Palmer, 2019). Sitting Bull, a leader of the Lakota community, actively participated in opposed the idea. According to Sitting Bull, the boarding schools could only destroy the Native American culture instead of uniting Americans.
Sitting Bull became famous and earned great prestige due to his stand about creating boarding schools for Indians. Reaching 1857, Sitting Bull had taken an active role in leadership, and during this time, he dealt with Americans in different scenarios such as learning how he could deal with the Americans. As people persuaded the Native Americans to conform to white Americans’ value systems and cultures, Sitting Bull had a different quote to communicate his views about the topic, and his quotes interpreted his ideas concerning Lakota people’s beliefs. “ If the Great Spirit wanted us to white, I would have done that in the first place ,” said Sitting Bull. In the quote, Sitting Bull tells the White Americans that in case they wanted to conform to the ideologies of white men, then they could have done it, but since they were not interested there was no need for the Americans to force them to transform to the white men ideology (Gregg, 2018). Nonetheless, Henry Ward Beecher, who was a Preacher during his earlier years, also held a strong belief in abolishing slavery. According to Henry Ward Beecher, both the concept of Catholic Roman God and slavery needed to be abolished. Henry Ward Beecher held similar opinions like that of Sitting Bull. In his entire life, Henry Ward Beecher was against slavery and that was why he educated people. Beecher was strongly against the thoughts of establishing common schools to provide education to the white American society, and in his quote, he said that the main objective of these common schools was to serve the needs of the American society. “ When a lion eats an ox, the lion does not become an ox, but the ox becomes a lion ,” said Beecher. Beecher’s quote uses an example of an Ox and relating the Ox to students and Lion to of these schools (Palmer, 2019). According to Henry Ward Beecher, the students sent to the established boarding schools will consume whatever knowledge is given to them but choose whatever they wish to learn without being forced. Therefore, in doing this, these schools will help the students to shape their ideas.
Experiences of the children
The students who went to the schools created by the government learned lots of things and gained lots of knowledge (Townsend, 2019). However, these children benefited differently with some gaining more knowledge than others. In this regard, the students who benefited more became self-confident and acquired strong ideas. One of the greatest personalities who attended the boarding schools includes Plenty Kill. This personality was well-known by the name Luther Standing Bear, but he was later apprehended and thrown into the Carlisle. Plenty Kill resisted the change for the first time just like other children who similarly resisted the change but gradually began transforming and assimilating to the cultures and value systems of the white man. Fortunately, the performance of Plenty Kill became better and perfect more than what his teachers anticipated when he was in the Indian Boarding School. Therefore, Plenty Kill’s experience and example was a true manifestation of what Henry Ward Beecher said in his quote, “ Lion does not become an Ox after eating it, but instead, the Lion is the one that becomes an Ox .” In this regard, Plenty Kill consumed all the knowledge he learned while at the Indian Boarding School at Carlisle, and this made him become an exemplary and excellent personality. He also significantly contributed immensely towards the formation of the National League of Justice for Indians (Gregg, 2018). Indeed Plenty Kill displayed excellent personalities and qualities of being a profound Native American. Moreover, Plenty Kill also dropped the pride he has an Oglala identity, and regardless of the changes or Hard times he experienced, he still managed to remain exemplary.
Nonetheless, it was true that the children got immersed into both American and European cultures by being forced to abandon their indigenous values, norms and cultures at the boarding schools ((Townsend, 2019). The children experienced being denied to speak Native languages, being forced to use the American or European hairstyles and being given the American and European names, which were both Christian and Civilize names. Moreover, these children experienced harsh treatments from the American and European teachers who could sometimes force them to separate from their families. Finally, most of the children were forced to leave their homes, parents and families and join the boarding schools. In most times, the cases of corporal punishment, sexual harassment and child abuse were also eminent.
Conclusion
The boarding schools had both negative and positive impacts on Native American children. Nonetheless, the contemporary concept of boarding schools is that of luxurious place as opposed to that of the Native Americans where boarding schools meant more of experience for every one child. Besides, the boarding schools were not sufficient to overshadow the losses the Natives had experienced. Nevertheless, the schools were created to teach the Natives ways, cultures and value systems of the white men, and to help the Natives know how to speak in English. However, the boarding schools made the Native Americans feel isolated, cursed and discriminated after they finished the school and returned home because they could not easily adjust to the values and cultural systems of the people back at home. The life in these boarding schools and the life back at home were different, and harsh for the Indian children to bear. The Indian children were not accepted by the white children because the Indian children were still perceived by their counterpart whites as slaves. Therefore, the quotes of Henry Ward Beecher and Sitting Bull are significant since they explore in details the lessons from these boarding schools, but the irony is that even after all these transformations the Natives underwent, they were still not accepted by their counterpart whites.
References
Gregg, M. T. (2018). The long-term effects of American Indian boarding schools. Journal of Development Economics , 130 , 17-32.
Palmer, P. (2019). The Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing Our History and Ourselves. In Quakers and Native Americans (pp. 293-311). BRILL.
Townsend K W. (2019).First Americans. A History of Native Peoples 2nd edition. Routledge.
