Questions on American Indians and Richard Pratt's Efforts

In what ways did the Indian School experiment of “kill the Indian and save the man” relate to the old saying, “the only good Indian is a dead one?” How did the experiment go about trying to accomplish this? The Indian School experiment set out to "kill the Indian and save the man". I believe this relates to the old saying, "the only good Indian is a dead one" in that the school essentially tried to kill the Indian spirit by attempting to "American-ize" the students. The process of assimilating the students into the "white man's way" took away a very important part of the children's being--their culture. Without being able to practice their religion or speak their native language, Pratt ensured that the students lost the most important parts of their culture. Through the view of Pratt and the others, forbidding these practices must have been a way to remove the “savage” from the children. The video mentioned several students that had died of plagues and various sicknesses, but I think it is important to note the cases of children dying of home-sickness. In these cases, it was impossible for the child to leave behind their previous way of life--an interesting application of the "nature vs. nurture" debate. The "white man's way" was forced upon these children and they were encouraged to abandon their past.

Some of these children were unable to sever the ties of their past, for a few this caused an impact to their health and ended up costing their lives. I wonder if the cases of death by home-sickness were viewed as accomplishments by the administrators of this experiment. Was this a success because the child (who failed to kill his inner-Indian) died? This seems to take the initial idea of “kill the Indian and save the man” a step further by creating a fail-safe—if killing t he inner Indian proved unsuccessful, then maybe the problem will solve itself with a fatal bout of homesickness (“the only good Indian is a dead one”). I found it