This is a before and after image of Thomas Moore, an Indigenous boy who attended Regina Industrial School in Canada. These images were taken a few years apart. The image on the left was when Thomas arrived at the school, and the image on the right was taken around when he finished his time at the school. Notice the differences in his outfit, hair, and background.
The Regina Indian Industrial School was open from 1891 until 1910 and was one of many “Indian boarding schools” that operated between 1869 and the 1960s. In a boarding school, students live at the school, not with their families. Because Maine is so close to the border, Wabanaki children were sent to schools in both America and Canada.
While some Indigenous children attended the school voluntarily, many others were forced. They were taken from their families and brought to these schools where they were often not allowed to speak their native language, wear traditional Indigenous clothing, or act in other ways that reflected their culture. When students broke these rules, it was common for them to be severely punished.
These images of Thomas Moore were taken by government officials at the Department of Indian Affairs and were widely distributed as propaganda to show the benefits of Indigenous children attending these boarding schools.
Source 2 - Image
Source 2 - Image
Carlisle Indian School Student Body
1884
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution NAA_73473; Photo Lot 81-12 06824700
http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/images/carlisle-indian-school-student-body-version-1-1884
This image shows the student body at Carlisle Indian School. It was taken in 1884 by John N. Choate. Carlisle Indian School, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was the first off-reservation “Indian boarding school” in the United States that was federally run. At a boarding school, students live at the school, not with their families.
During its years of operation (1879 to 1918), around ten thousand Indigenous children attended the Carlisle school. They came from over 100 tribal nations, including the Wabanaki nations. Families in Maine today have memories of relatives attending Carlisle.
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.
There are about 375 students in the image. Note what the children are wearing, how old they look, and how they are positioned. Like many other Native American boarding schools, students at Carlisle Indian School had to wear Anglo-American clothes, cut their hair, speak English instead of their native languages, change their names, and conform to White American culture. Children were punished if they did not follow the rules.
Capt. Richard H. Pratt on the Education of Native Americans.
Source: Official Report of the Nineteenth Annual Conference of Charities and Correction (1892), 46–59. Reprinted in Richard H. Pratt, “The Advantages of Mingling Indians with Whites,” Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the “Friends of the Indian” 1880–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 260–271.
A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man….
It is a sad day for the Indians when they fall under the assaults of our troops, as in the Piegan massacre, the massacre of Old Black Kettle and his Cheyennes at what is termed “the battle of the Washita,” and hundreds of other like places in the history of our dealings with them; but a far sadder day is it for them when they fall under the baneful influences of a treaty agreement with the United States whereby they are to receive large annuities, and to be protected on reservations, and held apart from all association with the best of our civilization. The destruction is not so speedy, but it is far more general.
Indian schools are just as well calculated to keep the Indians intact as Indians as Catholic schools are to keep the Catholics intact. Under our principles we have established the public school system, where people of all races may become unified in every way, and loyal to the government; but we do not gather the people of one nation into schools by themselves, and the people of another nation into schools by themselves, but we invite the youth of all peoples into all schools. We shall not succeed in Americanizing the Indian unless we take him in in exactly the same way.
It is a great mistake to think that the Indian is born an inevitable savage. He is born a blank, like all the rest of us. Left in the surroundings of savagery, he grows to possess a savage language, superstition, and life. We, left in the surroundings of civilization, grow to possess a civilized language, life, and purpose. Transfer the infant white to the savage surroundings, he will grow to possess a savage language, superstition, and habit. Transfer the savage-born infant to the surroundings of civilization, and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit.
Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have.
When we cease to teach the Indian that he is less than a man; when we recognize fully that he is capable in all respects as we are, and that he only needs the opportunities and privileges which we possess to enable him to assert his humanity and manhood.
Source 3 - Document
Source 3 - Document
“Kill the Indian, Save the Man” Speech
1892
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/teach/kill-indian-and-save-man-capt-richard-h-pratt-education-native-americans
This is part of a speech by Captain Richard H. Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian School. He delivered the speech at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1892. Carlisle Indian School was first federally run, off-reservation “Indian boarding school.” At a boarding school, students live at the school, not with their families.
Richard ran the school for 25 years. He was in favor of forced assimilation of Native Americans into white American culture. “Cultural assimilation” is when people’s native culture is replaced by the dominant culture. So, in this case, replacing Native American culture with white American culture. Richard said, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
This didn’t literally mean killing someone, it meant killing their cultural identity. Making them more “Americanized” and “civilized” was supposed to help them succeed. Richard believed that Carlisle Indian School was saving children.
Looking back, there is evidence that these schools did a lot of harm to Native children and communities. There were strict rules at these schools about students acting in ways that reflected their culture. This included, but was not limited to, not being allowed to wear the traditional clothing of their tribes, speak their native languages, or practice their own spiritual traditions. This training, and the fact that students were far away from their families and communities, contributed to a major loss of culture and identity.
LISTEN TO THE SOUND RECORDING
Click on or copy and paste the link below:http://mainesharedhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Captivity-Outside-Prison_Sound_Clip.mp3
Transcript (written copy of the sound recording):
My great-grandfather was a Tribal leader, Peter Paul. There’s a collection, an archive on him at the University of New Brunswick, which I didn’t know until later in life. Although as a child, my gramp would say to me, you know, ‘You come from good people,’ or whatever.
I did know my, on my mom’s side, my great-grandmother, who we called Grammy Paul, who was a brilliant woman and a healer, and very strict and very correct and mannerly and tidy and so forth.
But I was raised by my mother and my grandfather. He came from Kingsclear, New Brunswick, First Nations. And he told me when I was young that he had been sent to residential school. And his experiences there very much affected him, and then in turn, our family.
My gramp didn’t speak English when they sent him away. He spoke French and he spoke two different Native dialects. I know one was Maliseet, Passamaquoddy dialect. I don’t know what the other one was, it might have been Micmac. And he said, ‘I learned English quick enough.’ Because they would beat him, obviously, for speaking. And, uh, he said they locked him up, you know, in a closet, which I know was typical. My granddad was one of the ones who just couldn’t and wouldn’t accept it. So he told me he kept running away. And he ran away from the residential school in Canada four or five times, and they kept bringing him back.
Now my gramp was an intelligent man. He never graduated from high school. Um, he was brilliant in his way. But I think that generationally, he didn’t have a chance to fulfill his potential because of what happened to him. And so, you can see how quickly the effects of his being taken from his family then shaped the succeeding generations.
Because when you start damaging the family relationships, then people don’t have the kind of support network that they should have. And so I think it makes you easier to succumb to things like substance abuse, because people give up. You know, the despair is so powerful. And then, once you introduce the substance abuse, then you’re adding another layer of problems onto the family structure. And so here we are.
You know, my gramp was born in 1912, and that in that span of time, how much is lost? And I was the only one of four that was taught by him. So I’m the last person in my family to have any sense of a traditional upbringing. To have any knowledge, to have a strong cultural identity. You know? That I have fully internalized. And it’s sad to me to think that my siblings and their children only know of their cultural identity indirectly as a sort of a fact. They don’t have the living experience of it.
Source 4 - Sound Recording
Source 4 - Sound Recording
Statement by Mikhu Paul
December 18, 2014
Collected by Rachel George for the Maine Wabanaki- State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Bowdoin Digital Commons
Mikhu Paul grew up near the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation near Old Town, Maine and is a member of the Kingsclear First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada. Her story is about her grandfather’s time in a residential school and its impact on her family. “Residential school” is another name for “boarding school.”
Because Maine is close to the border, the children of Wabanaki families were sometimes taken to schools in America, like Carlisle Indian School, and sometimes to schools in Canada. Many Wabanaki families had relatives in both countries and moved freely across the border. After all, the border didn’t exist for much of their history.
Why was Mikhu interviewed? She was one of many people who shared their stories to help people understand the impact of child-welfare practices on Native families. Generations of children like Mikhu’s grandfather have been sent to boarding schools, foster care, or put up for adoption. Stories like this help explain the long-term impacts on families and communities.
More about the project: “The Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission led a truth-seeking process from February 2013 to June 2015 to uncover the truth about child-welfare practice with Maine’s Native people. The Commission and its staff traveled thousands of miles to the villages and communities of Maine to hear people’s testimonies. They reviewed state documents and interviewed over 150 people. They sought to create opportunities for people to heal and learn from what they discovered.” – www.mainewabanakireach.org
Source 5 - Image
Source 5 - Image
Male Students in the Country
Around 1895
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/images/male-students-country
These photographs show Indigenous students from Carlisle Indian School working on a farm. Farm work was part of the school’s Outing System. After being a student at the school for at least two years, some children sent to live with a white family. The boys would do farm work, while the girls would help in the household.
The students were also enrolled in the local public school. The goal of the program was to fully integrate students into White American culture and learn how to be “civilized,” while also learning valuable skills for life after school.
Pay close attention to the caption at the bottom of the image.
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.
Source 6 - Document
Source 6 - Document
Student Information Card for Ada Sockbeson
1912
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center
https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/student_files/ada-sockbeson-student-information-card
Some students did find their way back home after school. This card has student information from Ada Sockbeson. Ada was a young Penobscot woman from Old Town, Maine who had been a student at Carlisle from 1899 to 1902.
She ran away from the school in 1902 and by 1911 she was back in Old Town working as a waitress.
Notice the kinds of information that the school kept in their files. Ada’s card lists her as a “deserter,” meaning she ran away without permission.
Freedom & Captivity Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.
