The Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Assimilation with Education after the Indian Wars (Teaching with Historic Places) (U.S. National Park Service) (2024)

Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. It has preached against colonizing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them. It has demanded for them the same multiplicity of chances which all others in the country enjoy.

Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have.

Carlisle does not dictate to him what line of life he should fill, so it is an honest one. It says to him that, if he gets his living by the sweat of his brow, and demonstrates to the nation that he is a man, he does more good for his race than hundreds of his fellows who cling to their tribal communistic surroundings. . . .

…. When we cease to teach the Indian that he is less than a man; when we recognize fully that he is capable in all respects as we are….—

Then the Indian will quickly demonstrate that he can be truly civilized, and he himself will solve the question of what to do with the Indian.

The students arrived at the school at midnight on October 6, 1879. They traveled by horse, steamboat, and train from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian reservations in South Dakota to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. They came at night so white Americans would not come to stare at them, but even in the darkness a crowd waited. They were the first of thousands of young American Indians to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School and Carlisle was the first of many American Indian boarding schools.

The United States founded the Carlisle school in 1879 at the site of an old military base, used during the colonial era and the Civil War. Soldiers also used it as an army training school from 1838 to 1871. The same buildings were used for the Indian Industrial School. One reason the government chose this site was because it was on a railroad line. Students could travel there by train. The school was also a far distance from the western Indian reservations. The distance kept the students away from their families’ cultures and influence for long periods of time. Some students never returned home.

Richard Henry Pratt was a U.S. military officer who founded the school. He went into education after leading troops to fight American Indian nations during the Indian Wars and is famous for his boarding school philosophy: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Pratt believed American Indian children could become successful American citizens if they abandoned their heritage. He wanted to change what made them different from Americans descended from Europeans, including their clothing, language, and beliefs. After opening the school at Carlisle, Pratt and his supporters forced young people to attend the school for three to five years. Some chose to stay as long as 10 years.

Carlisle Barracks was in good condition when the school opened. Students lived on the north end of the campus. Teachers, staff, and the superintendent lived on the southern side near the entrance. A large green space or quadrangle separated the grounds from the north and the south. Students and teachers moved across the center of campus while using crisscrossing through footpaths, a bandstand, and a stone guardhouse.

In the early 1880s, the American Indian students and the white staff expanded the school campus. They built a chapel, three-story dining hall, classroom building, girls’ dormitory, warehouse, boiler house, laundry, hospital, printing shop, an art studio, and a cemetery. They also added a six-foot fence around the perimeter of the campus.

Civilian school officials enforced military-style discipline at Carlisle. Students marched across the grounds to and from their classes, the dining hall, extra-curricular activities, and for regular inspections. They marched in groups like soldiers in military drills. When officials rang a bell, they shifted to new movements. If a student disobeyed a rule, they went to the guardhouse for punishment or were sentenced to hard labor.

School officials tried to make the American Indian students look and dress like white Americans. Carlisle staff cut off the long braids of male children, took away the children’s personal or tribal clothing, moccasins, and family belongings. Students could not keep medicine bags, jewelry, or ceremonial rattles. These items often had special meanings to tribes. While at Carlisle, boys wore uniforms from morning until night and girls wore long, confining Victorian dresses. The school administrators also assigned a new English name to each child and did not allow native languages to be spoken. Administrators took “before and after” photos of students. These photos showed children in the style of their home cultures “before” and in the style of Anglo Americans “after.” People who supported assimilation used the photos as propaganda to show politicians and the American public that cultural assimilation was working.

Pratt and his teachers taught American school subjects as well as hands-on training. Their goal was to prepare American Indian students to work jobs outside of the reservation. Students studied English, math, geography, and music. Boys learned industrial skills. They were taught to build furniture and work with wood, iron, steel, tin, and other materials. Girls learned home skills. They learned to cook, do laundry, bake, and perform other caretaking skills. Students also participated in an “outing” system where they lived and worked with white American families in eastern Pennsylvania. They had to speak English and hold jobs to earn money while they were away from school.

Students at Carlisle were in sports teams, debate clubs, and marching bands. The school teams competed against prominent non-Indian schools and in regional championships. One of the greatest athletes of the 20th century attended Carlisle: Jim Thorpe of the Sac and Fox Nation. Thorpe won athletic competitions as a Carlisle student, won two gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics, and went on to be a professional football player. The Carlisle band was famous, too. It performed at presidential inaugurations while the school was open.

Over ten thousand children attended Carlisle between 1879 and 1918, with roughly 1,000 on campus in a given school year. They came from over 142 Indian nations. These nations had many different languages and cultures. Most students were Sioux, Chippewa, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Menominee, and Alaskan Native. Some students graduated in their late teens or early twenties but others left early due to illness or homesickness.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs founded 24 more American Indian boarding schools after Carlisle. Under the same military-style discipline, students at these schools learned domestic and industrial skills. The staff forced them to speak English and tried to destroy their ties to traditional cultures. In 1928 the U.S. government reported findings that children were abused, overworked, and underfed. Most off-reservation schools closed by the 1930s when Americans learned about how students were treated. Politicians chose to stop or decrease funding to the schools. Three schools are still open as of 2016. These three schools have military-style discipline but also teach American Indian customs, languages, and skills instead of trying to erase them.

The Carlisle campus returned to U.S. Army control in 1918. It was a hospital for soldiers injured in World War I. The historic school buildings in the 21st Century are home to the U.S. Army War College. Descendants of Carlisle students and members of tribes represented at Carlisle visit the school to honor the memory of the students.

Questions for Reading 2
1) When did Carlisle Indian Industrial School open? What was the site used for before it became a school?
2) Carlisle students came from over 100 different American Indian nations and cultures. What did they have in common? In what ways do you think they were different from each other? Explain your answers.
3) Using evidence from Reading 2, list three ways that attending Carlisle was like being in the military. How did the buildings and landscape support a military culture?
4) Consider the effects of the boarding school system. How do you think the Indian Boarding School system affected the American Indian tribes and cultures? Do you think Pratt was successful or unsuccessful (did he “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”)? Why or why not?