Content warning: These materials cover the topics of violence and childhood trauma and may be especially hard for students with loved ones who are Indigenous.
Summary: In this lesson, you will look at primary sources from different time periods to investigate two forms of captivity that are different from traditional jails and prisons.
Share whatever information from this introduction you feel will help provide context for your students before they investigate the primary sources.
Introduction
NOTE: What names are we using? You might be confused to see a variety of terms in these materials: Native American, Indigenous, First Nations, and Indian. Different people prefer one term over another, based on what feels more accurate and respectful to them. The term “Indian” is used in U.S. Federal policies and was more commonly used by the general public in the past, which is why you’ll see it in these historic documents. If you know what tribe someone belongs to, be specific! For example, if you’re talking about a Penobscot person, say Penobscot.
We recommend you introduce your students to this topic with a short video about boarding schools in South Dakota: https://youtu.be/zMyaElqxV7s
Native American Children in Boarding Schools
The land we now know as Maine is Wabanaki homeland. Native Americans have lived here for thousands of years, and still live here today. The Wabanaki, or “People of the Dawn,” include the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, the Penobscot Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs. There are also Abenaki people living here, and people connected to tribes from other areas.
When European colonists first arrived in this part of the world, they viewed Indigenous people and their way of life as “uncivilized.” Their descendants continued to see Indigenous lives as a threat to Euro-American success and progress. Settler colonialism is when settlers create homes and a society in a new place, pushing out the Indigenous people who lived there before. It can happen in obvious ways, like warfare and taking land, and in quieter ways, like forcing Indigenous people to change their religion, language, and culture to fit the new society.
Right now, Indigenous people are still dealing with the effects of violence, both physical and cultural, against generations of their ancestors. They’ve fought to preserve their land and their culture, and they have survived. Still, history has shaped the way that families and individuals live today.
“…education has been a two-edged sword for Native people. On one hand, it has opened opportunities. On the other, it harmed us physically, psychologically and spiritually. It inflicted spiritual wounds upon Native people lasting for generations. We call these wounds ‘Soul Wounds.’”
-Donna Loring, The Dark Ages of Education and a New Hope: Teaching Native American history in Maine schools, 2009
Indian boarding schools, also known as residential schools, were built in the late 1800s with a goal of teaching Native children to blend into the rest of society. A boarding school is a place away from home where you attend classes, sleep, eat, and spend all your time. In the 1800s, most white Americans thought Native Americans were inferior, uncivilized “savages.” Therefore, people who wanted to help them believed that they should be taught to live like white people.
Children were taken from or sent by their families to live and learn at the boarding schools, usually for years. They were forced to change the way they dressed and cut their hair. They were not allowed to speak their Native languages or practice traditional religions. Punishments for disobedience could be harsh. Students were often abused by their teachers, and many dealt with the trauma for the rest of their lives.
Students were trained to blend into white society—to speak, act, work, and think like non-Native children. They were encouraged to use this training to “improve” their own lives, and the lives of their people.
One example – Carlisle Indian School
Carlisle Indian School, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was the first off-reservation “Indian boarding school” in the United States that was run by the federal government. During its years of operation (1879 to 1918), around ten thousand Indigenous children attended the Carlisle school. They came from over 100 different tribal nations.
Many of the students were forced to attend the school while others attended voluntarily. The school had a particular interest in recruiting the children of tribal leaders so that other parents would cooperate.
As part of their education at Carlisle, students would work in different jobs as preparation for their lives after school. The school had an “Outing System.” After being a student at the school for at least two years, some children were sent to live with a white family. The boys would do farm work, while the girls would do chores in the household. The students were also enrolled in the local public school. Eventually, the school started sending children to work in plants and factories. They were allowed to keep some of the money they earned, and they got the rest after they graduated. If a student ran away, the school kept their money.
When the program was first created, Captain Richard Pratt, the head of Carlisle Indian School, had to beg families to take in his students because people were afraid of them. However, after a few years, the school began receiving many requests from families who wanted students to work for them. In 1903, there were 948 students in the Outing System.
How did this happen?
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
– Attributed to General Philip Sheridan
“Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
-Captain Richard Pratt
Let’s talk about how this could happen in America. Here are two difficult and violent quotes – the first, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” was well-known and widely used in the 1800s. It’s very straightforward and hateful – a call to wipe out a whole group of people.
The second, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” is a response to the first quote. It means that a Native American person should not be killed – that he can be saved if the “Indian in him” is removed, meaning if he stops living and acting like a Native person and instead lives and acts like a white person.
This seemed like a progressive thought at the time compared to the first quote. It was a call to help Indigenous people improve their lives. The boarding schools were designed to “save” children, at the cost of their culture, families, and communities.
This isn’t an excuse – there were people at the time who knew this was wrong, unfair, and harmful – but it is a complicated issue! Today we can look back and see how much this way of thinking hurt Indigenous people.
Wabanaki Children
Since they lived near the border of the United States and Canada, Wabanaki children were sent to schools in both countries. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, children travelled thousands of miles by train from Maine to Pennsylvania’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
The Carlisle School’s digitized student records show that there was at least one Mi’kmaq child, eleven Passamaquoddy children, and over forty Penobscot children at the boarding school. There’s more work being done to identify Wabanaki children, and there were probably more at Carlisle than we know about.
Many children never returned to their home communities after leaving school. Families were split apart. Some returned home but felt like they were no longer connected to their culture. The schools also contributed to the loss of Native languages, which people today are trying to bring back.
Even though most boarding schools are now closed, the legacy of boarding schools still has an impact on Wabanaki families and communities today.
The Lesson:
- Present as much as desired from the introductory information below to your students to give them context for the lesson. Depending on reading level, they could read the introduction as a homework assignment, or you could go over it together as a class.
- Students choose (or the teacher assigns) one or more of the primary sources to work with.
- The primary source can be projected/viewed on a big screen by the full class, or printed, so each student has their own copy.
- This is a mystery-solving activity – students should not know details about the sources in advance. Without first seeing the source label information, students practice their observation and analysis skills. They only see the source and have to use their skills to pull out information about it.
- Option 1 – Open inquiry
- The teacher leads a full-class discussion using the prompts “What do you see?” and “What do you wonder?” The class should be encouraged to look at tiny details and pull out clues from each source. This can also work as a whiteboard or post-it note activity, with students writing their own comments in response to the sources.
- Option 2 – Guided worksheets
- Students complete an Analysis Worksheet for each source. They can make educated guesses using whatever information they find in the sources. Note – This can be completed as a class, individually, or in small groups.
- Option 1 – Open inquiry
- Present the source label information (the “answers”) to the students. Were you surprised by anything you learned? Have you found more connections between the different sources?
- Repeat with as many sources as desired.
- Discuss all the sources together. What sources did you work with? What did you learn from them? What questions do you have? How do the different sources connect to the theme or to each other?
- Optional: use the recommended activity prompts and reflection questions for further discussion.
Optional Activity 1:
As a class, browse the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center to learn about one of the students. The student records are located here: https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/student_records
Pick a student that you think is interesting. Use the whiteboard or post-it notes to write down anything you can learn about them.
Optional Activity 2:
Class discussion prompt – imagine you are a Wabanaki student at a boarding school and you just started a job working for a local farmer. You are writing a letter to your sister who is still at home. What do you want to tell her?
Additional Resources:
- DownEast article – Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition– Curriculum resources
- 2022 Testimony of Kirk E. Francis, Chief of the Penobscot Nation, on Federal Indian Boarding Schools
- Lesson plans from the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
- PBS Newshour Classroom Lesson plan: Native American boarding schools and human rights
- Native American Boarding Schools | Activity Starter for Grades: K-2, 3-5
- Digital Public Library of America: American Indian Boarding Schools
Reflection Questions:
- Based on these sources, what was the goal of the boarding schools?
- What do you think would be some of the long-term effects on people who were in the boarding schools? What about the effects on their families?
- Why do you think the history of boarding schools still matters to Wabanaki communities today?
Freedom & Captivity Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.