Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press

by Jacqueline Emery

  These are the problems confronting white youth, and, I repeat, they are the Indian’s also.

  Besides these, the Indian has his own peculiar race problems to meet. There is the problem of home education. Education in the Indian home is almost universally lacking. The vast amount of education which white children receive in their homes—a great many of them cultured and Christian homes, where, between the ages of ten and fourteen, children read book after book on travel, biography, and current events—goes to make up for deficiencies in the public schools. The Indian youth go back from school into homes that have dominant interests altogether different from those he has been taught at school. I have seen many a young man and woman bravely struggle to change home conditions in order to bring them into keeping with their training, and they have at last gone down! The father and the mother have never been accustomed, in the modern sense, to a competitive form of existence. The father has no trade or vocation. The value of a dollar, of time, of labor, is unknown in that home. The parents have not enough insight into educational values to appreciate the boy’s achievements and to inspire him further. What is to be done under such circumstances? In many cases the youth finds himself face to face with a shattered home. Bad marriage conditions, the very core of his social problem, stare him in the face. Many a young man and woman, realizing these home conditions, have gone away to establish homes of their own. As soon as the thrifty Indian accumulates a little property his relatives and tribesmen, in keeping with the old custom of communal ownership of property, come and live at his expense. There was virtual communal ownership of property in the old days under the unwritten laws of hospitality; but the omission, in these days, of that corresponding equal distribution of labor plays havoc with the homes of young Indians.

  The Indian has his own labor problem. He has here a race inertia to overcome. The sort of labor he is called upon to do in these days is devoid of exploit. It is a change from sporadic effort to steady, routine labor calling for the qualities of self-control, patience, steady application, and a long look ahead. Shall he seek labor outside the reservation? Shall he work his own allotment? What bearing have his annuity money and his lease money on his labor problem? Do they stifle effort on his part? Do they make him content to eke out a living from year to year without labor? If he works, how is he to meet the ubiquitous grafter with his insistence upon chattel mortgages? How is he to avoid the maelstrom of credit into which so many have fallen?

  The health problem of the Indian race may well engage the entire attention and life-work of many young Indian men and women. What about the seventy to eighty thousand Indians now suffering from trachoma? What about the thirty thousand tubercular Indians? Is this due to housing conditions?

  There is also the legal problem. Is the Indian a ward of the Government, or a citizen? What are his rights and duties? His legal problem involves his land problem. Ought he to pay taxes? Will he ever secure his rights and be respected in the local courts unless he pays taxes? Is not this question most fundamental?

  Shall the Indian youth ignore the problem of religion? Of the many religions on the reservation, which one shall energize his life? Shall it be the sun dance, the medicine lodge, the mescal, or the Christian religion? Shall he take in all religions, as so many do? What do these different religions stand for?

  There is, finally, the whole problem of self-support. If he is to pursue agriculture he must study the physical environment and topography of his particular reservation, for these control, in a large measure, the fortunes of his people. If the reservation is mountainous, covered with timber, he must relate his studies to it. If it is a fertile plain, it means certain other studies. It involves the study of soils, of dry farming, irrigation, stock-farming, and sheep raising. The Indian must conquer nature if he is to achieve race adaptation.

  My friends, here are problems of unusual difficulty. In the face of these larger problems—city, state, and national, as well as the Indian’s own peculiar race problems, and the two are inextricably interwoven—what shall be the Indian’s preparation to successfully meet them? What sort of an education must he have? Miss Kate Barnard has told us something of the problem as it exists in Oklahoma. Into this maelstrom of political chicanery, of the intrigue and corrupting influences of great vested interests, shall we send Indian youth with only an eighth-grade education? In vast sections of that Oklahoma country ninety per cent of the farms of white men were under mortgage last year. It means that even they, with their education and inheritance, are failing. Well might one rise up like Jeremiah of old and cry out, “My people perish for lack of knowledge”—knowledge of the truth as it exists in every department of life. This only can make us truly free.

  The first effort, it seems to me, should be to give as many Indians as are able, all the education that the problems they face clearly indicate they should have. This means all the education the grammar schools, the secondary schools, and the colleges of the land can give them. This is not any too much for the final equipment of the leaders of the race. If we are to have leaders who will supply disciplined mental power in our race development, they cannot be merely grammar-school men. They must be trained to grapple with these economic, educational, political, religious, and social problems. They must be men who will take up the righteous cause among their people, interpret civilization to their people, and restore race confidence, race virility. Only by such leaders can race segregation be overcome. Real segregation of the Indian consists in segregation of thought and inequality of education.

  We would not be so foolish as to demand a college education for every Indian child in the land, irrespective of mental powers and dominant vocational interests; but, on the other hand, we do not want to make the mistake of advocating a system of education adapted only to the average Indian child. If every person in the United States had only an eighth-grade education with which to wrestle with the problems of life and of the nation, this country would be in a bad way. We would accelerate the pace in the Government grammar schools of such Indian youth as show a capacity for more rapid progress. For the Indian of exceptional ability, who wishes to lay his hand upon the more serious problems of our race, the industrial work, however valuable in itself, necessarily retards him in the grammar school until he is man-grown. He cannot afford to wait until he is twenty-five to enter the high school. This system is resulting in an absolute block upon the entrance of our ablest young people into the schools and colleges of the land which stand open to them. There are hundreds of the youth of Oriental and other native races in our colleges. As an Indian it is impossible for me to believe that the fact that there are almost no Indians under such training today is due to a failure of my race in mental ability. The difficulty lies in the system rather than in the race. According to the census of the last decade, there were 300,000 college men and women to 90,000,000 of people in the United States, or 1 to every 300. In the same proportion there should be 1000 college Indian men and women in the United States, taking as our total population 300,000, or 1 in 300. Allowing for racial handicaps let us say there should be at least 500 instead of 1000 Indian college men and women. Actually there is not 1 in 30,000, and most of these escaped in early life the retarding process in the Government schools.

  This is not in any way disparaging to the so-called industrial education in the Government Indian grammar schools, such as Carlisle, Haskell, Chilocco. Education that seeks to lead the Indians into outdoor vocational pursuits is most necessary. Our Government Indian Bureau feels the need for vocational training among the Indians, and I am very glad that it does. Productive skill we must have if we are to live on in this competitive age.

  Others before me, such as Dr. Walter C. Roe, have dreamed of founding a Christian, educational institution for developing strong, native, Christian leadership for the Indians of the United States.1 I, too, have dreamed. For, after all, it is Christian education that is going to solve these great problems confronting the Indian. Such an institution must recognize th
e principle that man cannot live by bread alone, and yet at the same time show the dignity and divineness of toil by the sweat of one’s brow. The school must teach self-support. The Indian himself must rise up and do for himself, with the help of Almighty God. It must be Christian education because every problem that confronts us is, in the last analysis, a moral problem. In the words of Sumner, “Capital is another word for self-denial.” The gift of millions for Indian education is the people’s self-denial. Into whatever activity we may enter for life work, we must pay the price of self-control if we are to achieve any degree of success. The moral qualities, therefore, are necessary for our successful advance. Where shall we look for our final authority in these moral questions? We must look to nothing this side of the “Great Spirit” for our final authority. Having, then, brought into the forefront of the Indian race men of sound morality, intellectual grasp, and productive skill, we shall have leaders who are like the great oak tree on the hill. Storm after storm may break upon them, but they will stand, because they are deeply rooted and the texture of their souls is strong.2

  Elizabeth Bender (White Earth Chippewa)

  See the Essays section for a profile of Elizabeth Bender (1888–1965).

  Training Indian Girls for Efficient Home Makers, 1916

  I do not intend to tire the reader with long drawn out stories of broken treaties, the misappropriation of Indian money, nor do I intend to dwell on the subject of how we have been starved and pampered on various reservations. Lamenting over past abuses, hanging around Indian trading stores, demanding certain rights, does not solve the Indian Problem. We hear a great deal about developing leaders for leadership and are apt to forget that our girls are to be the sources of such leadership, too, for they represent our homemakers and homekeepers.

  In traveling over this great country of ours, I have noticed that the best schools, the most productive farms, the most sanitary conditions exist only where educated fathers and mothers have given their sons and daughters the proper home life. But as I have traveled through the Indian country, I have not seen many homes on this order. The conditions are just the reverse. The unkempt homes, which are breeding places for filth and disease, outnumber the homes of cleanliness and Christian training, and thousands and thousands of acres of Indian lands, rich in undeveloped resources, are lying idle.

  The time was when the Government school system met the necessary requirements, but it lacks in the fact that it does not teach our girls and boys the real value of labor and the cost of materials. They are not impressed with money values and how much it means to make a living for themselves.

  Can we expect to develop great, strong Christian leaders in spite of such home conditions? Yes, we can. We can take our youth away from home, send them off to such schools as Haskell, Carlisle, or Hampton for a period of years, give them an even better education than these now offer, and have them associate with high minded instructors who shall teach them that the home is the very core of any civilization, that the ideal home shall permeate its environment and bring it into keeping with that of their school. When we shall have done this no girl will be ashamed of her people or disgusted with her lot.

  Often in the Indian country we find father speaking intelligent English, using the latest implements in farming, thrifty and industrious. But you wonder why his home does not show the result of his labor. You will have to look farther. Does the mother speak English? Does she know anything about food values? Has she had the training of Home Economics and Domestic Science? Does she know anything about organizing Mothers’ Clubs and Girls’ Clubs for the advancement and betterment of her community? You will find that that side of her education has been neglected. As no people advance any faster than their women and the home is considered to be the core of the Indian problem, my plea is that these Indian girls should receive a fair chance.

  Nearly all the large Indian schools have trade schools in which our young men are taught the various trades, but the Indian girls must day after day do the menial drudgery of the school, working in the laundry, washing dishes, with little time for recreation and play.

  More and more we are beginning to appreciate the fact that the Indian girl along with this sort of work must be given a thorough course in Home Economics and Domestic Science. The Indian girl was naturally a homemaker even in the days of savagery. She it was who pitched tent, tilled the little garden, and at that early stage made something of a home for her roaming people.

  Carlisle, for the first time in its history, has installed such a course. We have this year built a model home cottage, in which the girls get a real taste of home-life for a month. Here our girls are being trained how to cook over a common stove, to take care of kerosene lamps, and to prepare three meals a day in the most wholesome and economical way. In this model cottage she is to learn the art of cooking cereals, vegetables, and the preparation and serving of family meals. Invalid cookery, caning of fruits and vegetables, jelly making and pickling will be a part of the course. She will also learn how to do the plain, everyday sewing, so needful in a home of this kind.

  I believe that this sort of training will give her a broader outlook on life and make her realize the tremendous responsibility that confronts her as a homemaker. She will look upon her lot as a sacred calling and appreciate the dignity and nobility of labor.

  Along with Home Economics and Domestic Science, have her realize that she, too, has a social problem. Have her study sociology in its broadest sense so that she shall know the relation of character building to health, recreation, business, and racial welfare.

  One writer tells us that “Education is not simply the art of developing powers and capacities of the individual; it is rather the fitting of individuals for efficient membership. It should fit one for social service. It should create the good citizen.”

  My plea is for a broader and more comprehensive education for the girl than has ever been given before.

  Lastly, we must teach our girls to go out as strong, Christian leaders, for not only must they be good homemakers but also soul savers. I have been in some schools where this side of Christian education was sadly lacking. Do we not boast of belonging to a Christian Nation and are we not all seeking after the same God? Then teach my people more about the Great Spirit, so that they too shall be morally strong. Our girls as well as our boys must have great and compelling ideals. These are practical lines along which our girls should be educated. I think that something on this plan will produce the homes we wish to see in the Indian country, the Great West, the land of wonderful opportunities.

  We are a people that have always lived in the country, fished in the rivers, lived on its hills, raced upon its plains and that is where our homemakers belong. The West is where we wish to solve the Indian Problem, building up better schools, better churches, and better homes.1

  A Hampton Graduate’s Experience, 1916

  After being graduated from Hampton in 1907, I accepted a Government appointment in Montana, and in the fall of 1909 started on my new and untried work—that of a teacher among my own people.

  I was sent to work among the Blackfeet Indians who are located in the northwestern part of Montana. They are on a large reservation comprising many thousands of acres of excellent grazing land, which, however, is not well adapted to farming owing to the short season. According to tradition, the name “Blackfeet” was given to these Indians by another tribe with whom they had been fighting, and by whom they had been chased across a broad expanse of burned prairie, thus making their moccasins black.

  It was with a feeling of uncertainty that I got off at the little station in Montana on that cold, raw October night, and made my way into a dark and dingy waiting room. In one corner of the room was a sputtering lamp that tried to give a little light through a black chimney. As I glanced about, I saw a long-haired Indian sprawled upon the floor, wrapped in his blanket, snoring contentedly, and not at all concerned with the casual stranger who had happened in. On the bench was an Indian mother, cu
ddling in her arms a sickly-looking baby and trying to soothe its fretfulness. I learned afterward that they were all of the same family, and were there to take a midnight train in order to see if they could get medical aid which the government doctor could not adequately give the sick infant.

  After an hour’s wait, the stage arrived and conveyed me to the small town of Browning which was two miles from the station. The stage stopped at the Kipp Hotel, and there I was to put up for the night. As I entered, many men were sitting around the heater; some were smoking and one or two cowboys were rolling cigarettes. Gradually the conversation ceased, and the stranger was the center of interest.

  The next morning I called at the agent’s office and made it known that I was the new teacher. He welcomed me cordially and told me that the school team would be up at noon to get the beef supply and I could go back with it. The school was situated seven miles from the railroad station, beautifully located in the Cut Bank Valley. Looking westward one could see the Rocky Mountains in all their ruggedness and grandeur. Old Chief Mountain stood out grim and silent, separating the Blackfeet Reservation from the Dominion of Canada. Eastward one could see the rolling plains dotted with herds of cattle and horses belonging to these Indians.