Indian Boarding Schools In The 1900's

In 1976 a study by the Association on American Indian Affair stated that twenty-five to thirty five percent of the Native American children were being placed in out-of-tribe care. Within those pecents eighty-five percent of those children were being placed in non-native homes. (Unger, Steve 2016) This became a big issue in the late 1900’s because a sense of cultural genocide fell upon the Native American tribes. In 1867 Congress decided that there was an “Indian problem” and the only way to solve this “problem” is to remove the Indian children from their tribes. The government sent missionaries to collect the Indian children in effort to Christianize the Natives. The U.S. Government “went on the assumption that any Indian custom was, …show more content…
This tactic that many of the learning institutes used to scare the children was effective in that the Indian children feared to speak their language, leading them to forget it. By the 1880s, the U.S. operated 60 schools for 6,200 Indian students, including reservation day schools and reservation boarding schools. In these schools the Indian students would learn English and academics during the day. At these schools order, discipline, and self restraint were enforced because they they were prized values of white society. Discipline within the Indian boarding schools was severe and generally consisted of confinement, deprivation of privileges, threat of corporal punishment or restriction of diet. Not only did the children receive punishment, many were infected with disease. Tuberculosis and trachoma (“sore eyes”) were the greatest threats. In December of 1899, measles broke out at the Phoenix Indian School, reaching epidemic proportions by January. In its wake, 325 cases of measles, 60 cases of pneumonia, and 9 deaths were recorded in a 10-day period. Naturally, the American Indians resisted the the schools in different ways. Some tribes completely refused to enroll their children in the boarding schools run by the U.S., but did that stop the U.S. Government? No. The U.S. Government sent Indian agents to try to solve the “problem” by withholding food rations or by sending police to …show more content…
The Indian Child Welfare Act was became effective on November 8, 1978. This act was officially put in place to establish standards for the placement of Indian children in foster or adoptive homes to prevent the separation of Indian families, to protect the children from the emotional distress of being taken from their families, and to protect the Indian tribes from extinction. (wikipedia) The Indian Child Welfare Act is an important part of Native American history for it protects both the children and the tribe, but the act can only be taken so