Native American Education In The 19th Century

The United States of America is well known for its repeated attempts to steal Native American’s right to their homeland in their quest to colonize. Throughout its history, the country systematically tries to eradicate the ‘Native American problem’ by extinguishing their very identity. The main force the government used was education as a tool of oppression during the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. The North American government would force the American Indians to send their children to either a boarding school or a day school. Eventually, the Native Americans would have no other option but to choose to send their children to these schools of Americanization (Schupman). The problem of using education as a means
Americanization in this context is most simply defined as “the so-called civilization of American Indians,” (Lomawaima et al. 4). Colonialism is the “control of one power over a dependent area or people,” or a “policy advocating or based on such control,” (“Colonialism”). Oppression is “any situation in which ‘A’ objectively exploits ‘B’ or hinders his… pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person,” and thus the oppressed become “fearful of freedom,” (Freire 47, 55). Systematic is something that is “methodical in procedure or plan,” (“Systematic”). Furthermore, “systematic education...can only be changed by political power. Assimilation is the process by which the US government forced the Natives “to absorb into the cultural tradition of a population,” the population being one of civilized Americans and Protestant Christian ideals
After a century of forced assimilation, many nations are trying to bring back their culture, traditions, language, and “traditional knowledge of their elders,” (Boyer, “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science” vii). In modern times, there has been the creation of tribal colleges. These are colleges controlled by the tribe, on or near reservations, and established by Native Americans. Their mission is to “integrate Native knowledge and values” and teach every course “from a Native perspective… with Native knowledge,” (Boyer, “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science” viii). This ‘indianization’ of the curriculum and the act of gathering “knowledge from within the community… is an act of ‘decolonization,’” (Boyer, “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science” ix). However, these modern colleges still face their own unique challenges. The main one being that most of the teachers and professors are not Native American themselves. Although, this was not by design. All colleges would love to hire Native American faculty but “few tribal members had undergraduate degrees, fewer still had advanced beyond baccalaureate level” and those that did already had jobs. Even within the non-Native population, faculty was still hard to find. For the most part this was due to “rural isolation...low pay, and the unexpected shock of living in a... different culture,” (Boyer, “Capturing Education”