Assimilation, Resilience, and Survival: a History of the Stewart Indian School, 1890–2020 by Samantha M. Williams

Author:Samantha M. Williams [Williams, Samantha M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC021000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / American / Native American Studies, EDU016000 EDUCATION / History
Publisher: Nebraska

Assessing Boarding Schools

Throughout the 1950s, Native tribes and their allies vehemently protested the termination of their treaty rights. As a presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy expressed his opposition to termination and pledged to end the policy if elected. In a letter to the president of the Association of American Indian Affairs, Kennedy wrote in 1960 that, if elected, “There would be no change in treaty or contractual relationships” between the U.S. government and Indigenous nations, “without the consent of the tribes concerned,” and that his administration would make a “sharp break” with the Republican Party on the issue of termination.3 After his election, Kennedy mandated his new Indian Affairs commissioner, Philleo Nash, to work closely with tribes as the executive branch reassessed federal Indian policy and organized conferences to address issues related to Indigenous poverty and education.4 These efforts were later connected with the Great Society programs established during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, and continued throughout the 1960s as the U.S. government waged a “war on poverty” across the United States. In 1970 the U.S. government formally ended the termination program.

Federal reforms focused on Indigenous education in the 1960s, and the BIA pledged to resolve “accumulated deficiencies” by improving school facilities, alleviating overcrowding, and modernizing classrooms, labs, libraries, and vocational programs.5 Given the lack of resources historically directed toward the boarding school system, these efforts were characterized in dramatic terms. A 1965 report on Indian education, for example, noted that it cost $1,178 per pupil at a boarding school “to meet problems of isolation and transportation, and also to fill the gap left by inadequate health care, food, shelter, and clothing in the home environment.”6 This spending, however, did not keep up with inflation, which meant that “$11 less [was] being spent annually per student [in 1965] than 8 years [previously].”7 Additionally, the report noted that BIA schools were lacking in the following areas: “(a) playground supervision, (b) teaching materials, (c) specialized courses, (d) quality of teachers, (e) counselling services, (f) overtime pay for teachers.”8 Pessimistically, the report concluded the following: “At the present rate of improvement, it will take about 100 years to bring the median educational level of Indians up to the national median.”9

A 1969 report prepared by a Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education also underscored the extent to which BIA programs were negatively affecting Native students. The committee described Indian education policies as a “failure of major proportions” that denied Native children educational opportunities that were “anywhere near equal to that offered to the great bulk of American children.”10 The report criticized the BIA practice of sending young children to distant boarding schools, rather than building more schools near students and their families, and cited the traumatic nature of such separations on parents and children. The committee further cited the inferiority of school textbooks and course materials at BIA schools, along with dilapidated facilities and school buildings in many locations, describing them as “shocking in quality.”11

The report also featured sobering statistics about the ineffectiveness of Indigenous education in the United States.

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