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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

The whole boarding school thing went on in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Now, speaking of a violent nation, you might be interested to know that the
Office of Indian Affairs (later to become the BIA) came into existance in
1824 as an office of . . . drumroll here <g> the United States Department of
War!  Kinda tells you right off the top exactly how the government felt
about the Indians.  And one of their first acts was the Indian Relocation
Act of 1830.  I would think most folks are familiar with the Trail of Tears
(4,000 dead) which is a direct result of the IRA.

So, around the 1850s the head honchos in the BIA decided that there should
be a policy of "Americanization" of Indians (hmmmm, interesting how they
wanted to make the First Americans into Americans).  That plants a seed and
pretty soon the good Christians are out in force with their missionary
schools with the intent of "Christianizing" the "heathens" and "savages."
Grant comes along and wants the Indians to "embrace the only opportunity
which is left them to avoid extermination."

Next step was prison for 30 years for practicing "heathen rituals."  Indians
needed to "assimilate" and folks such as Bob's friend were the result,
"apples" (red on the outside, white on the inside).

When all of this didn't work, they invented the boarding schools.  Carlisle
is the most famous (infamous?).  It was founded by Richard Henry Pratt who
said, and I quote, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a
dead one.  In a sense, I agree with this sentiment, but only in this:  that
all the Indian there is in the race should be dead.  Kill the Indian in him
and save the man."  He believed in "assimilation through total immersion"
and commented that "as slavery has assimilated Africans, removing Indians
entirely from their cultural surroundings will result in their
assimilation."  Did I mention that he was an Army captain and that he
practiced his "techniques" on prisoners before he opened his boarding
schools?

In general, the children were rounded up and forcibly removed from their
homes.  They were not allowed to take any personal items with them.
Generally, families were broken up and children from a family were sent to
different boarding schools.  Family and friends were *discouraged* from
visiting.  Upon arrival at the schools they were issues uniforms and their
hair was cut.  Buster Brown was the hair cut of choice because many tribes
considered "shingled" hair to be a sign of weakness and worn by cowards.
They had their names changed so their "pagan" past could be erased.  A lot
of the schools dressed the girls up in white dresses or white pinafores over
their dresses.  Native languages were not to be spoken.  Punishment ranged
from having their mouths washed out with lye soap to beatings to loss of
food.  Religion classes and church attendance was required daily.  Getting
the white dresses dirty resulted in beatings.  Most of the schools hired out
the boys as day labor.  Girls were required to learn "womanly arts" and put
to work in the local homes as maids.  Some of the schools ran their own
industries and farms.

The usual brainwashing tactics were used -- 
no privacy;
going to bed and rising was done by signal;
they wore uniforms;
they marched to and from activities;
they were arranged into "companies" under the command of student captains
and majors;
they were only allowed to bath once or twice weekly in groups;
students were expected to spy on each other and pitted against each other by
administrators and teachers;
they were "taught" that the Indian way of life was "savage" and "inferior"
to the white way;
they were taught they were being "civilized" or "raised up" to a better way
of life;
they were told that Indians who retained their culture were "stupid,"
"dirty" and "backwards;"
they were taught that those who most quickly assimilated were "good"
Indians;
they were taught that those who didn't assimilate were "bad" Indians;
they were shamed and humilated for showing homesickness for their families;
flogging or kneeling for extended periods of time were a frequent
punishment.

Here's a poem written by one of the boarding school students:

Six o'clock in the morning,
Our breakfast comes around.
A bowl of mush and molasses,
Was enough to knock you down.
Our coffee's like tobacco juice,
Our bread is hard and stale,
and that's the way they treat you
At Mt. Pleasant Indian Jail.

My aunts and uncle plus a few cousins were sent to the Hoopa Valley Indian
Re-Education Center which was run, in part, by Shakers.  Traumatic, not only
in that they were taken away from home but traumatic because people didn't
"go up the mountain where the crazy Indians live."   Hoopa Valley is HOT,
dry, dusty and there's a world of difference between it and the coast.  The
Hupa (the valley and the tribe are not spelled the same) kids were sent down
to Riverside, for the most part.

For the most part, the Wiyot were sent to Arizona.  The Yurok were sent to
Oregon.  Somehow, probably knowing important people in high places, Grampa
got his kids sent to a school he and Gramma could get to to visit them.  And
he did visit which was way against the rules.  Again, he got white folks in
high places to give him rides up to the rez (he never did drive).  My uncle
died when he was 12.  Auntie Florence was 14 and Auntie Elsie was 11.  A
week after Sonny Boy died my grandparents were informed of his death.  I'm
not sure they would have been notitied that soon if Auntie Elsie hadn't
become hysterical.  There was nothing they could do to calm her down.
Grampa got the message, called Old Man Carson and headed up the mountain to
collect all three kids.  Sonny Boy was buried in the cemetary we own.
Auntie Florence never talked about the time at the boarding school and
Auntie Elsie spent the next 50 years telling everyone she was W-H-I-T-E!
She married a very blonde man and was quite upset when 2 of her 5 kids had
dark hair.

Sonny Boy had appendicitis.  He was beat with a rubber hose and told to stop
whining.  That if he'd become a good Christian instead of a being a dirty
heathen, this evil wouldn't be coming out of him.  He was sent to his bunk
without food (probably would have been a good thing).  A couple of days
later, the doctor made a routine visit to the school and he was diagnosed
with acute appendicitis.  They operated in the infirmary.  His appendix had
ruptured.  They removed the appendix, cleaned up the abdominal cavity, sewed
him up and promptly moved him to the little room off the main room.  The
next morning someone went to check on him.  He'd rolled off the bed and bled
to death.  No one watched him as he came out from the anesthesia.  There
were no rails on the bed.

O.K., that's the boarding school part.  I'll put the tribe history in
another e-mail.  I'm inclined to write books instead of short e-mails <g>

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "EarthNSky" <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>

I'm glad you brought this up..I was actually thinking about it today.
I would like to learn the whens, whos, wheres and whys of this..if you
would oblige..
I would like a brief tribe history.