Boarding school students in Minnesota
This chapter started out by telling how boarding school education came to the Ojibwe people, the Anishinaabe. It talks about the General Allotment Act, which was passed in 1887. The act provided for the division of tribally held lands into individually-owned parcels and opening "surplus" lands to settlement by non-Indians and development by railroads. The land base of Ojibwes (Minnesota and Wisconsin) declined abruptly. and new Eur-American landowners and beneficiaries of tribal losses had taken over the region. The ojibwes were expected to settle down to work as small farmers. The lands were so reduced in size that nothing more than a small garden would be possible for a small family. The remaining reservation lands were too poor to farm. The increased poverty and landlessness of many Ojibwes threatened the strength of the econmy. I found what historian Melissa Meyer said, very important. She argued, "if the government's programs of assimilation had a chance to succeed anywhere, White Earth should have become an eperimental showcase", because of its rich environment of fishing lakes, rice stands, forests, and fertile farmlands.
Not only did this affect the Ojibwe people, disease also began to take its toll. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, charged with providing medical care for Indians, often placed the blame on the indiands themselves. It was during these times that some people who supported assimilation, looked to boarding schools as a solution for many of the social problems. The boarding schools in the Midwest were hardly located in areas close to the reservation, making the transition even more traumatic. These promoters believed that civilizing indian children would be easier and possibilities of them remembering their language or tribal ways would be less likely if the children stayed away from teir homes and relatives until their education was complete. Parents often refused to surrender their children to government authorities and resisted boarding school education. There was another interesting part mentioned that I would like to look more into. This chapter stated that the most painful story of resistance to assimilation programs and compulsory school attendance laws involved the Hopis in Arizona. They surrendered a group of men to the military rather than voluntarily relinquish their children. The Hopi men served time in federal prison at Alcatraz.
I am noticing that we are starting to get into the nitty gritty of the book. I am eager to read more because unlike Chilocco, it seems to be focusing more on the history of that specific area and what happened to the land there and how people are being sent to boarding schools.
Joelle,
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, I am excited to hear that this book does differ from the Chilocco book. To learn about history we need to understand that one book does not represent all. Reading more and more about the different stories of the children, family, and staff provides us with a broader understanding of what all took place in the boarding schools of the past. I, myself, feel more confident in talking about the boarding school experiences because of the books that I have read alongside my Foundation of Education teacher candidates.
I wanted to focus on your post in which you shared that the majority of boarding schools were constructed off reservations and were a fair distance away. If you were in the mindset to remove the essence of an individual then moving them as far away from their family and their people would certainly do the trick. It makes me sad to think that children did not have the chance to see their families for lengthy periods of time. I can't imagine how children were not affected by this. I assume that there were children who suffered from deep depression, even triggering more severe mental issues, as well as contemplating and possibly committing suicide. I have never had the opportunity to see any of that kind of data and I would bet that that information was not documented. Hmmm?