Civilize Them with a Stick
Travis Weight
Sociology 150
25 September 2011
Memo #1 “Civilize Them With A Stick”
In the short essay “Civilize Them With A Stick” Mary Dog writes about her experiences in a catholic boarding school as a child. The white race in American had a goal to civilize or integrate the Native Americans to the whites norms and values starting in 1879. They were doing this so the Native Americans became apart of the dominant society, which then was the whites society in America. They took the Native American children from their homes and from their families and placed them into boarding schools. Thousands of children were forced to live in these boarding schools their whole adolescent years. The children were abused in these so-called “boarding schools”. Many Native Americans now compare this incident to the Nazi concentration camps during world war II. The children had very strict rules and schedules. Their schedule usually went as followed, “Six A.M., kneeling in church for an hour or so; seven o’ clock, breakfast; eight o’ clock, scrub the floor, peel spuds, make classes” (Dog 565). If the children didn’t listen or were to disobey any rules they would be swatted many times by the nuns with a wooden stick. Other times they were placed in a dark boarded up room while only being fed bread and water for a week. The children were only able to see their families for just 7 days out of the 365 in the year. Many children tried to run away from the boarding school, but ultimately were found and brought back and then immediately swatted with a wooden sticks. As children got bigger and older they had thoughts about fighting back. Mary Dog, the author was one to fight back and ended up hitting one of her priests in the face after she tried to stand up for one of her fellow classmates. She was soon kicked out. The priest she hit ended up later realizing how bad the boarding school was treating the Native Americans and started standing up for them. Mary Dog wrote this
Sociology 150
25 September 2011
Memo #1 “Civilize Them With A Stick”
In the short essay “Civilize Them With A Stick” Mary Dog writes about her experiences in a catholic boarding school as a child. The white race in American had a goal to civilize or integrate the Native Americans to the whites norms and values starting in 1879. They were doing this so the Native Americans became apart of the dominant society, which then was the whites society in America. They took the Native American children from their homes and from their families and placed them into boarding schools. Thousands of children were forced to live in these boarding schools their whole adolescent years. The children were abused in these so-called “boarding schools”. Many Native Americans now compare this incident to the Nazi concentration camps during world war II. The children had very strict rules and schedules. Their schedule usually went as followed, “Six A.M., kneeling in church for an hour or so; seven o’ clock, breakfast; eight o’ clock, scrub the floor, peel spuds, make classes” (Dog 565). If the children didn’t listen or were to disobey any rules they would be swatted many times by the nuns with a wooden stick. Other times they were placed in a dark boarded up room while only being fed bread and water for a week. The children were only able to see their families for just 7 days out of the 365 in the year. Many children tried to run away from the boarding school, but ultimately were found and brought back and then immediately swatted with a wooden sticks. As children got bigger and older they had thoughts about fighting back. Mary Dog, the author was one to fight back and ended up hitting one of her priests in the face after she tried to stand up for one of her fellow classmates. She was soon kicked out. The priest she hit ended up later realizing how bad the boarding school was treating the Native Americans and started standing up for them. Mary Dog wrote this