Native American Savage Research Paper

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English 383 Ethnicity Position Paper De-Culturing the Native American Savage In the late 1800’s the United States Government believed they could solve the “Indian problem” by the removal of Native American children from their families and culture to teach them the ways of the white man and therefore de-savage them. Army officer Richard Pratt founded the first off-reservation boarding school around 1892 in a former prison. He had stated, “All of the Indians in a race should be dead, kill the Indian-save the man”. He said, “the children were to be immersed in western culture until they were thoroughly “soaked into our civilization”. He and the American government…show more content…
Long hair was the pride of the Indians, upon entering these schools, matrons cut the children’s long hair and took away their buck-skin clothes and gave them proper clothing of the Englishman. Families were coerced into sending their children to these school with the promise of higher education and opportunity which was important to the tribes. Cultural History and life lesson were passed down through oral tradition of the elders of the tribe to the children, the families did not know their children would be stripped of their cultural identities and forced to give up their own beliefs to adapt to new ones. What the children went through was deplorable. They weren’t allowed to visit their families. For long periods of time they did not go home. The children were homesick and didn’t have any trace of their ethnicity to comfort them. Children need comfort and familiarity to thrive, this new life was not good for the children, some were as young as 6 years old. What children experience in the formative years can have a negative effect for the rest of their lives. This

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