In the foreword of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Schaull writes, “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (34). Richard Henry Pratt’s institutional mission strived to “humanize” and “save” Native Americans from savagery by assimilating them into Western culture. In its attempt to do so, the Carlisle School oppressed Native American children by forcing them to erase their own culture and instead adopt Western culture. However these schools, through the integration and adoption of English by Native Peoples, are able to subvert the racism and myth of savagery projected onto Native Americans. 

The Carlisle School, a response to the ideology that “the only good Indian is a dead one”, tried to rescue Native Americans from the savagery and violence that was associated with being Native American by asserting that “all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” The Carlisle School’s institutional mission was founded by Pratt’s critique of the American government’s relationship with and practices toward Native Americans, including the massacres and treaty agreements to separate Native Americans from American civilization. However, Pratt’s ideology “kill the Indian, and Save the Man” has a blind duality as it also separates the race from the man. Pratt’s belief that the race is separate from the man denies the acknowledgement of the identity of Native Americans, including where these students came from, their families, friends, languages, religion, and culture. Furthermore, he criticized tribal schools which were on tribal land, and led by tribal teachers, believing that the allowing and funding of public tribal schools by the U.S. government, formulates a notion that Native Americans are in a “chronic condition of helplessness”, equating it to always telling a man that he is “sick”. This comparison shows Pratt’s own ignorance and racism toward Native Americans. Zitkala-Sa in American Indian Stories writes about  the basic chores her mother did, such as drawing water from the stream, building a fire for cooking and warmth, cooking meat and making coffee, gathering corn, doing beadwork for clothes, etc. Native Americans were not “sick” and “helpless”, but rather knew how to help themselves. They were able to survive and live comfortably even without a formal, Western idea of an education. Education was  passed down in an oral tradition. Zitkala-Sa writes that in her culture, it was required to practice good xenia. She explains how her mother would send her to the neighboring tepees to ask people to come to their tepee for dinner. But Zitkala-Sa was never to intrude. Her mother instructed her to, “Wait a moment before you invite any one. If other plans are being discussed, do not interfere, but go elsewhere.” Zitkala-Sa also explains that when her mother taught her how to sew beads, her mother wanted her to create simple designs, while she wanted to create complex ones. Rather than be reprimanded for not following directions, Zitkala-Sa was given her own agency, and by trial and error, she learned why her mother wanted her to make simple designs instead of complex ones which were harder to do. Through her own volition, she realized that the basics had to be learned first. None of these actions suggest that Native Americans were “sick” and “helpless” but rather shows their intelligence and agency. 

Founded on the belief that Native Americans need to be helped and rescued from sickness and savagery, the Carlisle School tried to erase the identities of Native Americans by forcing them to forget about their cultures and adopt Western beliefs. Zitkala-Sa writes that students at the Carlisle School were forced into cutting their hair. When Zitkala-Sa discovered that her hair was to be cut, she hides from her oppressors by going into a bedroom and crouching underneath a bed. She vividly remembers being “dragged out” as she resisted by kicking and screaming and then being carried and tied to a chair. She cried aloud as her hair was cut by “cool blades of the scissors against [her] neck”. She then “lost [her] spirit” as she was now “one of many little animals driven by a herder”. This demonstrates physical and mental violence instigated upon a child by the Carlisle School. In its attempt to assimilate Native Americans into Western society, rather to humanize and save Native Americans from savagery, the Carlisle School stoops to savagery. In the failure to see, hear, sympathize, question, and console a crying child, the Carlisle School became blind, deaf, and mute, showing no empathy, mercy, and kindness. This was not the first time the Carlisle School tried to “integrate” and “conform” Native Americans. Zitkala-Sa also mentions the snow day, when her friend Thowin was punished for playing in the snow. When asked by the “palefaced woman” if she would play her word next time, Thowin responded “no”. Each time the woman would deliver whippings to the poor child, failing to realize the miscommunication between the two. Whippings were ordinary parts of students’ lives. “During the first two or three seasons misunderstandings as ridiculous as this one of the snow episode frequently took place, bringing unjustifiable frights and punishments into our little lives.”  Although Pratt criticizes the violence towards Native Americans by the U.S. government, the Carlisle School acted no differently. The physical violence that the School engaged in to ensure conformity in the name of education, proves an education’s own hypocrisy and blindness. 

However, Zitkala-Sa and others have used the language of their oppressors to, as Schaull says, “deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (34). After adopting English as a language, Zitkala-Sa uses English to document the oppression she faced. In Pratt’s institutional mission, he never refers to Native Americans by name or acknowledges their voice. He rather, criticizes the American view of Native Peoples as the scourge of society, while inherently also calling them society’s dregs. Zitkala-Sa however, gives people names and dialogue. When she talks about the Snow Episode, she names her friend Thowin and places her against the “palefaced woman”, symbolizing not just that Zitkala-Sa may not have known the woman’s name, but also that she viewed that woman as an oppressive entity that brought great trauma into Thowin and Judewin’s life, as well as her own. By using dialogue such as “Are you going to obey my word next time” and describing the cries of Thowin as the woman whipped her, signifies the true helplessness of the child as she desperately attempted to please the woman with the only English word she knew: “No”. Describing the response as a “bad password” demonstrates how Zitkala-Sa may have viewed her time at the Carlisle School as a game in which if you said or did the wrong thing, you were punished. 

Zitkala-Sa was not the only one impacted by Native American boarding schools. Mary Annette Pember in the article “Death By Civilization”, writes about her mother having attended the Sister School, and the trauma she was plagued by. Pember describes how although her mother passed away in 2011, she can still see her mother trying to “outrun her invisible demons”. For instance, she would walk around and shake her head for hours to prevent the awful memories from entering. The idea of Native Americans being a savage race was so ingrained into the hearts, souls, and spirits of children that Pember recalls her mother saying (while doing the laundry), We may be Indian, but by God we ain’t dirty”. This demonstrates that there indeed was or is something dirty about being American Indian, something shameful, that if laundry wasn’t done, then they’d be a “dirty Indian”. Furthermore, Pember mentions Sister Catherine and the trauma that led caused Pember’s mother and many of her schoolmates to despise and loathe Sister Catherine. Pember describes how one Christmas when Sister Catherine was coming to check and reprimand the Native American children for stealing food, she fell down the stairs and died. Pember writes that her mother believed that this incident was “the best Christmas present we ever got”. This symbolizes the sort of sadistic trauma Sister Catherine and the Sister School created onto Pember’s mother and the other school children. But just like Zitkala-Sa, Pember, by writing about these experiences, she gives voice and agency to her mother and her people. She acknowledges and validates the occurrence of this violence and even though it doesn’t erase the brutality, it allows for evidence of this violence, and finally, the story is heard.

Richard Henry Pratt’s institutional mission for the Carlisle School promotes inherently promotes racism toward Native Americans as it is founded on a belief that Natice Amerivans need to be “saved” from the savagery. By forcing Native children to erase their identities and conform to Western society, they were dehumanized as their spirits were crushed. Instead of forming a dialogue in an educational system where school could be used as a platform to not just teach Native Americans but learn from them as well, Native Americans were physically and mentally traumatized and through only through the adoption of English, were Native Americans able to take back some semblance of their own identities and subvert their oppressors. 

Works Cited

Pember, Mary Annette. “Death by Civilization.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 8 Mar. 2019, http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/traumatic-legacy-indian-boarding-schools/584293/.

Sa, Zitkala. “AmericanIndian Stories.” American Indian Stories., digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/stories.html.

Schaull, Richard. “Foreword.” Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire, Continuum, 2007, pp. 29–35, http://www.regis.edu/~/media/Files/RHCHP/Service%20Learning/FreirePedagogyoftheOppressed.ashx.