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"Conquered Indian tribes were considered by whites to be culturally and morally inferior. Consequently, educational programs established by the federal government were designed to deculturalize the tribes and then 'civilize' them. Deculturalization included attempts to destroy Native American cultures, languages, and religion" (Spring, 1994, p. 1-2). The study of American Indian boarding schools has developed into one of the most important and powerful areas of the history of the American Indian (Davis, 2001). The diversity of experiences that American Indians had with boarding schools was as varied as the multiplicity of education available in the United States (US) today. Native children were taken away from their homes and communities and were forced to attend and live at boarding schools. The US government hoped that this process would civilize the students who would then return to their communities and civilize their elders. Educators covered up tribal languages and cultural practices and substituted them with English, Christianity, athletic activities, and a ritual calendar premeditated to further patriotic citizenships. Teachers and administrators cut Natives' hair, altered the type of clothes they wore, changed their ways of eating, changed their names, forced them to change their notions of space and time, and forced them to take part in militaristic schedules and regulations.
The victimization and agency that the Natives experienced was replicated throughout the US Even though boarding schools across the nation were not representative of one another, the experiences and feelings of inferiority were seen universally. This paper will address the experiences of the children, fami lies and missionaries who attended or were a part of the boarding school experience in the Midwest region of the US from the late nineteenth century through the early part of the twentieth century. For the purposes of this paper the Midwest region of the US included the following states: Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The large, government schools that were used for comparison were located in Kansas (Haskell Institute), Pennsylvania (Carlisle Indian Industrial School), and Virginia (Hampton Institute). Studying the reactions and experiences of Indian children and families will uncover the history and effects of boarding schools. Specifically, this paper seeks to identify and examine the differences and similarities between large government run boarding...