v.1. a”, .._ 7 ..,:;_‘z-'L‘-‘:-_.._._.‘.—v.. M Avg: ”.4 .u. -.-.. 1.! “mun: Wm. A; A m ‘ I .‘(muum . mm“ :34 .5 ‘ x A A €v L-‘I‘I I v.“ > 14" ‘ ~ 44.. .1..- ,.,,.,y . V m 1... ‘. . . ‘ . . ‘ " _ 1m.“- ' xv “J u .. : Jun». .. m...“ . _ um. . z..‘,fi.x.v _-_..,.,-., . .«.~..a. 5. h m. ""::;14:v:~. .rwzrw ..,.. {x ‘. , . ; v1‘1'l'l'j’l‘ . .'.[.,‘ Hump . V I h, , . z ' . '1'!" W ‘ ' v: . ~ " : .‘,:. ,.- v . .a .4 fl. . THESIS IIIIIIIllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIllIllllllllllllllllllll 293 01044 5207 This is to certify that the thesis entitled VANISHING THE INDIAN: ASSIMILATION, EDUCATION, AND THE PROGRAM TO ELIMINATE AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES presented by CHRISTOPHER DAVID GEHERIN has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M.A. degree in HIStOFY yo; I I 3741A Major professor Date {IA/Ia») l i ICICII'Z/ 0-7639 MS U is an Aflirmau've Action/Equal Opportunity Institution LIBRARY Michigan State Unlverslty PLACE IN FIE'I' URN BOX to remove thin checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date duo. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE {am 3993 R 212002. 'I 1- ,_,r,' ,> ‘ _ U 02. NEW ‘13! —‘ ‘ 0W3— 8 2002 mafia». W MAR 09 201 may“ ‘“" "° W I " NOV“ 1 W0 JA '1‘ 43-4-9-3-9-1 MSU In An Affirmative Aztlan/Equal Opportunity lnultulon Warns-p VANISHING THE INDIAN: ASSIMILATION, EDUCATION, AND THE PROGRAM TO ELIMINATE AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES BY Christopher David Geherin A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History 1994 ABSTRACT VANISHING THE INDIAN: ASSIMILATION, EDUCATION, AND THE PROGRAM TO ELIMINATE AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES BY Christopher David Geherin After the Civil War, the United States realigned its relationship with American Indians toward the objective of complete assimilation. To this end, education served as the primary means, and the imposition of the English language represented the linchpin. That Indians learn English was not the sole concern, however, for an encompassing ban of Indian languages became central to Indian education. Beginning with an analysis of the historical literature relating to the development of assimilation through Indian education, this study then explores the specifics of the government’s language policies. Examinations of linguistics, the influence of Indian languages, ethnographic evidence, education theory, and white and Indian responses further reveal the intent and impact of the policies. Presented in the name of benevolence, assimilation through education embodied a significantly oppressive intent: the language component of the government’s Indian education program was ultimately designed to obliterate Indian cultures and thereby effectively "vanish the Indian." ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It would be impossible to thank individually all the people whose support and understanding enabled the completion of this project. To all who helped, I offer my deepest gratitude. I especially wish to extend an expression of profound appreciation to Dr. David Bailey, under whose perceptive and. encouraging' guidance this examination. was undertaken, developed, and realized. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Vinten-Johansen and Dr. Harry Reed; their advice and insight added to whatever strengths this work possesses. Finally, I am grateful to Mary Reid and Nancy Ashley of the History Department at Michigan State University for their invaluable assistance in navigating the myriad channels of this process. iii Do we ask the white man, "Do as the Indian does"? No, we do not. Why then do you ask us, "Do as the white man does"? -an anonymous Kwakiutl to Franz Boas iv II. III. IV. VI. VII. VIII. IX. XI. XII. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 "IRON FINGERS IN A VELVET GLOVE": THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED STATES INDIAN POLICY AFTER 1865 6 "THE HABITS AND ARTS OF CIVILIZATION": THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN EDUCATION 24 "THEIR BARBAROUS DIALECT SHOULD BE BLOTTED OUT": THE SPECIFICS OF THE LANGUAGE POLICY 62 CREATING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH WORDS: THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND THE EFFECTS OF LANGUAGE IMPOSITION AND PROHIBITION 73 AN AMERICAN EXCHANGE: EVIDENCE AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF IMPOSITION AND PROHIBITION 88 MECHANISMS OF OPPRESSION: PUBLIC EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE RESTRICTION 107 "THE LOST PEOPLE": RESULTS, EFFECTS, AND INHERENT PROBLEMS OF THE LANGUAGE PROGRAM 119 "OUR OPINIONS, AND NOT THEIRS, OUGHT TO PREVAIL": WHITE SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE 127 OLDWAYS AND NEW: INDIAN RESPONSES TO WHITE EDUCATION AND ITS LANGUAGE POLICIES 145 "CIVILI ZATION DESTROYS THE INDIAN" : LANGUAGE ASSIMILATION AS A PROGRAM OF EXTERMINATION 164 BIBLIOGRAPHY 178 I. INTRODUCTION In the generation after the Civil War, the United States found itself confronted with a novel twist on the old "Indian Problem." It had long been assumed that the nation’s Indian population would eventually succumb to the inexorable tide of white civilization; however, as armed resistance diminished and blunt.military solutions became untenable, it was more and more apparent that the Indians would not simply vanish in the face of ever-encroaching whites. Therefore the situation required the formulation of a new approach to Indian Affairs in order to deal with the substantial, mostly subdued and, as was increasingly acknowledged, enduring Indian population. Not only did this approach have to consider the fact that Indian cultures represented profound alternatives to white American culture, but also that Indian cultures themselves were significantly distinct from each other.1 ‘Throughout this examination, the terms "Indian" and "white" are employed. Not only are such monolithic labels inaccurate, but, as Calvin Martin remarked in The American Indian and the Problem of History, sweeping identifications such as "Indian" often "straitjacket . . . diversity for the 1 2 White Americans approached this diversity not from a perspective of tolerance and cultural relativism, but from a standpoint of ethnocentrism and racism. Deemed inferior, all Indian cultures were to be replaced by white civilization. Thus the solution proposed to the late nineteenth century's chapter of the Indian problem centered upon a program of alleged assimilation, of which Indian education represented the primary tool. Within this concerted program of what rapidly became compulsory education, imposition of the English language constituted the linchpin. That Indians learn the language of white.Americans was not the sole concern, however, for stringent prohibitions of Indian languages attended all efforts of Indian instruction. Ultimately, the language component of assimilation demonstrated a bifurcated approach of singular intent. Through eradication of Indian languages sake of convenience," 3. In an examination of this scope and kind, generalizations are inevitable. Beyond mere convenience, however, these generalizations serve a valuable purpose: since whites and Indians often perceived each other as.a collective, it is important to explore Indian-white relations accordingly. Whenever possible and informative, however, more specific labels are utilized. Yet even narrower categorizations such.as "Protestant" or "Sioux" straitjacket the diversity within those groups. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that many of the more specific terms acknowledging Indian diversity are as inaccurate as the broad label that resulted from Columbus’s erroneous geography. For example, "Navajo" derives from a Spanish designation, and "Sioux" evolved from. a disparaging label applied by the Ojibwa people. (The Navajo refer to themselves as the Diné, and the Sioux consider themselves Lakota, Dakota, or’ Nakota.) Precisely’ because ignorance and prejudice have so frequently characterized the history of relations between differing peoples, the telling of that history involves little recourse to terms that transcend such human failings. 3 and the concomitant substitution of the English language, reformers hoped to work toward the complete elimination of Indian cultures. Although persistently cloaked in expressions of the noblest.motives, the "assimilation" sought by the means of language imposition and prohibition therefore represented the adaptation of an abiding assumption of United States Indian policy: the "Indian" would still vanish, now culturally rather than physically, and now at the hands of ostensibly benevolent educators. Simply recounting the development of Indian language policies does not adequately explore all that those policies represented, for the attempts at language imposition and prohibition were symptoms of a complex confrontation between profoundly distinct cultures. IExamining the language policies does afford invaluable insight into the nature of late nineteenth century Indian—white relations. As quintessential expressions of assimilationism, the policies disclose much regarding the mind-set and objectives of white reformers.2 2More than simply the realm of government policy makers, assimilation was a broad American impulse. It reflected the interests of multifarious white groups, crossing political, religious, and regional boundaries. In fact, most ‘white Americans with any concern for Indian issues agreed that Indians must relinquish their ways and adopt those of white civilization. Thus the term "reformer" extends broadly. There were those white Americans who opposed assimilation in favor of tolerating degrees of cultural diversity and Indian self- determination. Yet proponents of such policies were only a small and radical element. They were, in essence, Indian policy revolutionaries, not reformers. Assimilation represent- ed not an extreme transformation of Indian policy, but a refinement. The ultimate objectives of earlier Indian policy-- oppression and subjugation--maintained within the program of 4 Similarly, because the language 'policies represented. the culmination of assimilationist education, Indian responses to the policies illustrate Indian interests and perspectives in the starkest terms of cultural confrontation with whites. Yet the nature of the confrontation is far too complicated to be explained by a strict policy study. First of all, the language policies emerged from a maelstrom of often conflict- ing white interests. Diverse intellectual, religious, political, economic, and social concerns were distilled into a single program: assimilaticwn Thus, to understand assimila- tion--and the objectives it was designed to realize--the processes and different interests from which it evolved must be examined. Likewise, Indian responses to the language policies reflected interests and objectives that cannot be separated from the cultural and historical contexts that shaped them. Therefore, ethnohistorical evidence illuminating Indian perspectives is essential. Furthermore, the implica- tions of the language policies cannot be examined effectively without access toCongressional appropriation for the purpose of financing Indian education. See Federal Indian Law, 116. 63United States, Regulations of the Indian Department (1884), 86-89. 52 of the Dawes Act in Indian assimilation, the role of education deserves the greater attention. Prucha supports this asser- tion, arguing that "even more important than private property or citizenship under American laws was education."64 First, the relationship between allotment and education was a symbiotic one. The Dawes Act eliminated tribal land and thereby "civilized" Indians by making them individual land- holders, and money acquired from this dispossession was used to finance Indian education in government schools.“ As the cycle continued, the "civilizing" effects of acculturation through education would, it was hoped, result in freeing even more territory from Indian ownership, bringing the process full circle. More importantly, the success of allotment depended upon the Indians’ ability to learn and adopt white concepts of society, ownership, individual rights, etc. Even if the objective of allotment was merely to separate Indians from their tribal lands and not truly to assimilate them, the whole program hinged upon persuading Indians to embrace the white way of life. To this end, education--and its central component of language restrictions--was of paramount impor- tance. Moreover, in 1887 the government’s education program was just hitting full stride. "The early efforts to create an Indian school system look anemic compared with the earnest 64Prucha, Americanizing, 7. 65See note 62 above. 53 drive for Indian education that came after the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887."66 Interestingly, this statement not only asserts the full-blown nature of education endeavors at this time, but also further reveals the symbiosis inherent between allotment and education. Simultaneously, the Lake Mohonk Conferences--the effective right hand of government policy making and the flagship of nineteenth century Indian policy reform--"with a fearful sense of urgency, turned most of its attention to Indian education."67 Efforts to Americanize the Indians through education proceeded at an unprecedented rate. The earliest years of the 18905 represented the culmina- tion of assimilationist fervor as the government mobilized efforts to shape an inexorable, encompassing education program intended to completely eradicate Indian cultures. Commission- er of Indian Affairs (1889-1893) General Thomas J. Morgan, "the most significant national figure in Indian education in the nineteenth century," led this final push to, as Morgan.put it, "quickly and successfully" solve the "Indian problem."68 Morgan himself epitomized important intellectual trends of his age and represented the zenith of assimilationist zeal. "His ardent.and.aggressive Americanism, his unquestioning belief in the public school system, his professional Protestantism (with its corollary of anti-Catholicism), and his deep 66Prucha, Great Father, 699. 67Ibid. 68Ibid., 701; Morgan, Indian Education, 6. 54 humanitarianism brought together strands of American thought that had been slowly but steadily intertwining in the preced- ing decades . . . Morgan was a symbol . . . that education was the indispensable instrument that would make possible the final goal envisaged for the Indians."69 At the time of his appointment as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Morgan, although he had served as secretary of the Rhode Island Indian Rights Association, could claim little experience in issues of Indian policy. Like Richard Henry Pratt, Morgan was a Civil War veteran who had commanded black troops. However, Morgan followed his military service first by becoming a Baptist minister, then by pursuing a career in public education. The vice president of the National Educa- tion Association from 1887-89, Morgan.also.headed state normal schools in Nebraska, New York, and Rhode Island before accepting the position of Indian Commissioner. Despite his lack of experience in issues of Indian Affairs, Morgan’s passionate belief in the power of public education perfectly suited him to the present trend in Indian policy, a trend which identified education as the means by which to finally and thoroughly assimilate the Indians. In 1890, Morgan, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, articulated the encompassing scheme which, as the coalescence of all the components of assimilationist education, was directed at American Indians. The ultimate aims and 69Prucha, Great Father, 701. 55 ethnocentric flavor of Morgan’s program are illustrated in his idealistic proclamation: When we speak of the education of the Indians, we mean that comprehensive system of training and instruction which will convert them into American citizens, put within their reach the blessings which the rest of us enjoy, and enable them to compete successfully with the white man on his own ground and with his own methods. Education is to be the medium through which the rising generation of Indians are to be brought into fraternal and harmonious relationship with their white fellow- citizens, and with them enjoy the sweets of refined homes, the delight of social intercourse, the emoluments of commerce and.trade, the advantages of travel, together with the pleasures that come from literature, science, and philosophy, and the solace and stimulus afforded by a true religion.70 Such a panoply of assimilationism put words to the sentiments of the vast majority of those confronting issues of Indian affairs and served as the manifesto of the education program Morgan defined. Morgan hedged no bets in asserting the potential of his program. "Education, in the broad sense in which it is here used, is the Indians only salvation." Nor did he conceal the ends to which this panacea should be applied. "Education should seek the disintegration of the tribes, and not their segregation. They should be educated, not as Indians but as Americans. In short . . . schools should do for them what they are so successfully doing for all the other races in this 70Morgan, Indian Education, 1. 56 country,--assimilate them."71 Furthermore, Morgan’s definitive statement of assimila- tionist education policy left no stone unturned, and he honed its components to develop a plan that would fully and finally extend white education to all the "red children of the forest." To surmount "the stubborn conservatism of centuries, nothing less than universal education should be attempted." By universal, Morgan intended all interpretations of the word. Every aspect of white culture was to be inculcated, every aspect of Indian culture to be obliterated. Morgan exhorted that Indian students be imbued with the "methodical regularity of daily routine" of hours and habits. They must be taught the games, songs, sports and music of whites, must "memorize choice maxims and literary gems in which inspiring thoughts and noble sentiments are embodied," and must be instructed to cultivate cleanliness and politeness. Pictures of "civilized life" were to be hung as examples in every room. Indian students were to "be taught to love the American flag" and to know "little or nothing of the . . . injustice of the white race." They must be taught the ideals of capitalism, includ- ing the "true value of money" and that "in the sweat of their faces must they eat bread". In fact, Morgan argued, the very "school itself should be an illustration of the superiority of 71Ibid., 3, 5. 57 our Christian civilization."72 Attendance at these paragons of Christian living was to be equally universal. Not only did Morgan aspire to extend white civilization to all Indians, such an extension was explicitly required: all Indian children whose families lived on reservations were compelled to attend government Indian schools.73 Morgan offered an ironic rationalization of this policy of compulsory education. "I do not believe that Indians . . . who are a hindrance to civilization and a clog on our' progress--have any right to forcibly keep their children out of school to grow up like themselves, a race of barbarous and semi-savages.“74 To ensure that no potential for assimilation would be lost to Indian parents trying to bring their children up like themselves, Morgan advised that "children should be taken at as early an age as possible, before camp life has made an indelible stamp upon them," in some cases "much earlier than six."” The refinement of the government process responsible for implementing educational policies represented another key facet of Morgan’s prescription. Morgan argued that the "work 72All quotes in this paragraph come from Morgan, Indian Education, 4-11. 73Adams, American Indian Education, 55-56. 74Quoting Morgan to the secretary of the interior, Nov. 30, 1892, in the Henry L. Dawes papers, Library of Congress, as cited in Prucha, Great Father, 706. ”Morgan, Indian Education, 11, 14. 58 of Indian education should be completely systematized," a recommendation partially fulfilled by the 1890 Codification.of Rules for Indian Schools.76 A clearer image of government responsibility also attended the enhancement of its methods. Morgan advocated the federal government’s assumption of the complete burden for Indian education, based at least partially on the realization that such a gesture "would be but a slight compensation to be returned by this vast and rich nation to the original possessors of the soil upon whose lands the nation with its untold wealth now lives."77 The government further extended its already encompassing influence over Indian education when, in 1890, the Office of Indian Affairs for the first time authorized.the reimbursement of public schools undertaking the instruction of Indian students.78 This addition to the range of schools--including contract, day, on-reservation, and off-reservation boarding schools--already directly influenced by United States Indian policy came at an important juncture, as the government continued to solidify its control by phasing out mission-run contract schools.79 At the same time, the government shifted 76Ibid., 3. 77Ibid., 18. 78Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law, 274. 79Because of the religious interference and bilingual instruction that accompanied mission school involvement in Indian education, government subsidizing of mission schools through contracts was abolished in 1897. 59 its emphasis away from boarding schools to the direct cultural influence afforded by reservation institutions, thereby intensifying the acculturative impact upon Indian communities and, it was hoped, attracting more students through the assuaging effect of institutional proximity.80 Thus in 1890 Morgan could calculate that approximately 36,000 Indian children of school age (six to sixteen) were the I However, Morgan estimated that government’s responsibility.8 perhaps only 15,000 of these 36,000 children were actually enrolled.82 The government had its work cut out, both in fulfilling its intensified responsibilities toward those Indian children in school and in compelling the abstaining 21,000 or so to attend. This in no way diminished Morgan’s resolve, and.the Commissioner declared exuberantly that in the program he presented there is nothing radically new, nothing experimental or theoretical . . . it is simply an endeavor to put into more systematic and organic form the work in which the government. has been earnestly engaged for the past thirteen years, and to carry forward as rapidly as possible to its final consummation that scheme of education which during these years has gradually been unfolding itself.83 ”Adams, American Indian Education, 56. 81This figure did not include the approximately 14,000 Indian children for whom education was provided by either the Five Civilized Tribes or the State of New York. 82Morgan, Indian Education, 3. 83Ibid., 20. 60 According to the United States Government’s very Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the comprehensive education program had finally and fully been set in motion and its end--the extirpa- tion of Indian cultures--was in sight. In the first years of this last decade of the nineteenth century, the government continued to push the envelope of Indian policy, advancing to more stringent and severe policies until backlash forced halt or retreat. For example, in 1891, Congress passed the first bill authorizing the coercion of Indian attendance at school; the policy of compulsory educa- tion thus became de jure. Next, the Appropriation Act of March 3, 1893 strengthened the above enactment by enabling the Secretary of the Interior to "prevent the issuing of rations of the furnishing of subsistence either in money or in kind" to Indian families whose children as old as twenty-one did not attend.schoolJ Such measures "created considerable Indian and public resentment, as did the parallel practice of taking children from their parents and sending them to distant nonreservation boarding schools," and the ensuing Appropria- tion Act of August 15, 1894 struck down the authorization of such tactics.84 However, the highwater mark of forced decul- turation through education had been set, and the attack on 84Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law, 119. Although they could no longer be forced to attend off-reserva- tion boarding schools, the government still required Indian children living on reservations to attend schools on the reservation. 61 Indian languages endured as the embodiment of the most extreme expressions of assimilation. IV. "THEIR BARBAROUS DIALECT SHOULD BE BLOTTED OUT": THE SPECIFICS OF LANGUAGE POLICY Those concerned with Indian education and assimilation assigned tremendous importance to language policy. In order to "get the Indian out of the blanket and into trousers, and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars," reformers believed that they must "make the Indian more intelligently selfish before we can make him more unselfishly intelligent."l Language represented the key. For example, because "in all the Indian languages there is no word answering to the Latin habeo--have or possess," Indians would have to be forced to learn English in order to socialize them to the ways of white culture.2 Furthermore, lMerrill E. Gates in Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conferences of Friends of the Indian (1896), 8-13, reprinted in Prucha, ed., Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the "Friends of the Indian" 1880-1900, 334. 2House Committee on Indian Affairs, minority report on land in severalty bill, House Report no. 1576, 46 Congress, 2 session, serial 1938, 7-10, reprinted in Prucha, Americaniz- ing, 126. 62 63 only the English language would make Indians truly American, for "nothing so surely and.perfectly stamps upon an individual a national characteristh: as language."3 The language of white Americans would also prepare Indians to assume full American identity, because "only through the medium of the English tongue can they acquire a knowledge of the Constitu- tion of the country and their rights and duties thereunder."4 Yet the benefits of language manipulation derived not just from the imposition of English. In addition, prohibiting both instruction in and use of Indian languages would break down the "impenetrable walls of stone" that such languages represented, thereby more quickly and more fully Americanizing the Indians.5 Reformers asserted that "teaching an Indian youth in his own barbarous dialect [would be] a positive detriment to him. The first step to be taken toward civiliza- tion, toward teaching the Indians the mischief and folly of continuing in their barbarous practices, is to teach them the English language."6 Moreover, ridding Indians of their language would be, through the elimination of a central 3ARCIA, 1887, xxi. This report includes a subheading entitled "The English Language in Indian Schools," which serves as a valuable summary and statement of the government’s language policy. 4Ibid. 5Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian (1888), 11-16, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 213. 6ARCIA, 1887, xxiii. 64 component of "inferior" Indian cultures, another essential step in assisting them up the ladder of civilization. In keeping with such.beliefs, the:government took.its prohibition of bilingual instruction a step further and forbade Indian children to communicate in Indian languages: all "conversation of and communications between the pupils and with the teacher must be, as far as practicable, in English.“7 Instruction and conversation exclusively in English would serve to "remove the stumbling blocks of hereditary customs and manners," of which "language is one of the most important elements."8 Consequently, the government issued unequivocal language policy mandates. "All instruction must be in English" reads the 1880 regulations from the Indian Officef’ To effect that end, "only English-speaking teachers should be employed in schools" financed in any way by the government.” Further- more, an 1887 order declared that the prohibition of instruc- tion in Indian languages "applies to all schools on Indian reservations, whether they be Government or mission schools. The instruction of the Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them, but is detrimental to the cause of their education and civilization, and no school will be permitted on 7Quoted from the Indian Bureau regulations issued by the Indian Office in 1880, and cited in ARCIA, 1887, xx. 8ARCIA, 1887, xxiii. 9Quoted in ARCIA, 1887, xx. ”Morgan, Indian Education, 4. 65 the reservation in which the English language is not exclu- sively taught."11 The scope of government jurisdiction knew no bounds, and thus the ban on teaching in Indian languages was extended to "any school over which the Government has any control, or in which it has any interest whatever."12 Al- though prohibition of all communication in Indian languages was not as conspicuous in policy declarations, it was nonethe- less as sweeping in scope and as unconditional in exclusivity. Commissioner Morgan decreed that "only English should be allowed to be spoken in schools supported wholly or in part by the government."13 ‘Violations of such edicts dreW' punishment for both institutional and pupil transgressors. A report that bilin- gual education continued in one school elicited the categori- cal government response that "the English language only must be taught Indian youth . . . If Dakota or any other language is taught such children, they will be taken away and their support from. the Government will be withdrawn from the '“4 Likewise, Commissioner Morgan exhorted that "no school. pains should be spared to insure accuracy and fluency in the use of idiomatic English."15 Thus educators entertained a ”ARCIA, 1887, xxii, quoting an order of February 2, 1887. 12Ibid., xxii-xxiii, quoting an order of July 16, 1887. 13Morgan, Indian Education, 4. 14Ibid., xxi, quoting an order of 1884. l5Morgan, Indian Education, 12. 66 sadistic creativity in developing a penal code that spared no pains for Indian students, violently impressing upon them through rulers, belts, and paddles the intransigence of the white commitment to the exclusivity of English. Indian schools took prohibition to an extreme, often harshly punishing students for using their native languages in any capacity--at play or even inadvertently. Perhaps such severe proscriptions of Indian languages were improvised in the schools, extrapolations. of lexisting' regulations that educators felt necessary to enhance and fully comply with the intent of the language program prescribed by the government. Declarations such as that from the principal of a Northwest boarding school who asserted that "the Indian tongue must be put to silence" certainly dispel any notions of tepid assimi- lationism on the part of educators.” ‘Moreover, the bountiful evidence of policies of absolute prohibition identifies them as widely practiced and accepted in the Indian schools. ‘While the government did not explicitly require such stark prohibi- tions of Indian languages, the absence of any articulated government. disapproval regarding such. policies stands to confirm the government’s complicity and consent. The extensive evidence of the absolute prohibition of Indian languages--and the corresponding penalties--exists in the autobiographies of former government Indian school 1“Elizabeth Colson, The Makah Indians: A Study of an Indian Tribe in Modern American Society, 19. 67 students. Kay Bennett, Navajo, recalled that at the Toadlena Boarding School in New Mexico, penalties were imposed after holiday breaks to force Indian children to speak English again, and the children had to resort to stealth in order to speak to one another in their own language.17 Ah-nen-la-de- ni, a former pupil at the Lincoln Institute of Philadelphia, remembered that students were punished for speaking Indian languages by having to stand or march around the yard during recreation periods.” Another autobiographer recalled that "we were not allowed to speak the Pima tongue at school. Some students would report on those who spoke Indian, and as punishment our mouths would be taped."19 This particular recollection demonstrates not only that prohibition and attendant penalties existed, but also that the punishment was severe enough that students could.use tattling as an effective and threatening tool of revenge and oppression. The strictly unilingual approach to Indian instruction did, in practical terms, make some sense. Especially at multi-tribal schools like Carlisle--which served as the prototype for all subsequent Indian education efforts-- programs which sought to teach students in their native 17Kay Bennett, Kaibah, 226-27. l8Ah-nen-la-de-ni, "An Indian Boy’s Story," The Indepen- dent, 55 (July 30, 1903), as cited in Coleman, Education, 151- 2. 19Anna Moore Shaw, A Pima Past, 127. Emphasis added; notice that apparently Shaw herself engaged in breaking the prohibition of Indian languages. 68 languages would have been tremendously complicated. Not only would instructors have had to learn Indian languages for which there existed very little instructional material, but the diverse backgrounds of students in many of the schools would have required educators to know and be able to teach in numerous Indian languages. In this light, unilingual educa- tion was more viable and, at the same time, entirely consis- tent with the overriding educational goal of indoctrinating the Indians in white cultures IHowever, such considerations do not justify the unyielding prohibitions of any use of Indian languages. Imposing exclusively the English language upon Indians of all tribes performed the critical function of helping to construct in reality what had long existed in white minds: the monolithic image of the "Indian," an image which dismissed all aspects of diversity among the numerous Indian groups living in the United States“ IMoreover, bringing the generic "Indian" out of theory and further into reality was essential to the success of assimilation. Acknowledging or tolerating the extent of Indian cultural diversity' would. have dealt a crippling blow to a program founded upon notions of the inferiority, simplicity, and essential crudeness of Indian culture. Rather than passive and unwitting participants, American Indian students played an active and positive role in con- structing the image of the "Indian." For instance, in many 69 schools the students themselves willingly adopted English as a lingua franca. But such efforts were more a part of Indian resistance than of accommodation, for the development of a sense of pan-Indianism has been crucial to the struggle for Indian.rights in the United States. .Adopting English.provided the means for Indian students to transcend the obstacles to Indian solidarity posed.by a lack.of alcommon Indian language. Rather than a loss of Indian identity, adoption of English proved a tactic to preserve that identity. Furthermore, the selection of English.as the common language was not exclusive. In fact, when feasible, Indian students chose such Indian languages.as Sioux to communicate across the language barriers presented by diverse tribal backgrounds.” Therefore, while the students’ adoption of English contributed to the develop- ment of a broader Indian identity beyond traditional tribal distinctions--an identity consistent with the white image of the "Indian"--this adoption represented a choice of expedience and a necessary strategy of communication, not an abandonment of Indian culture in favor of white. Reformers viewed language as an essential tool for remedying much of the "Indian Problem." Through the proper language policies, a wide range of aspects of Indian culture would be extinguished and, simultaneously, Indians would be 20Coleman, School, 140. Coleman provides evidence to demonstrate that both English and Indian languages (including sign languages) were adopted as the lingua franca of various multi-tribal schools. 7O assimilatedd "The object of the.greatest solicitude should.be to break down the prejudices of tribe among the Indians; to blot out the boundary lines which divide them into distinct nations, and fuse them into one homogeneous mass. Uniformity of language will do this--nothing else will."21 And by uniformity of language, reformers unquestionably meant the language of white Americans. Through the exclusiVity of the English language, reform- ers intended not only to eliminate both Indian diversity and culture and to assimilate the Indians, but also to pacify them: "through sameness in language is produced sameness of sentiment, and thought; customs and habits are moulded and assimilated in the same way, and thus in process of time the differences producing trouble would [be] gradually obliterat- ed."22 In light of the oppression and inequality that plagues Indian-white relations to this date, such statements demon- strate either hypocrisy or substantial.miscalculationn ‘Yet to many reformers, the prodigious effects of restricting language use and instruction represented a panacea. Such unbounded faith in the potential of language policy was fueled by flagrant prejudice and ardent ethnocentrism. The incessant litany of pejorative adjectives unleashed against Indian languages mars nearly every assertion of the 21ARCIA, 1887, xx, quoting the 1868 Peace Commission report. 22ARCIA, 1887, xx, quoting the Peace Commission report. 71 beneficence of imposing English, and reflects biased senti- ments of the ilk expressed by "an Indian agent of long experience" who stated that he "found the vernacular of the Sioux very misleading."23 Not surprisingly, this particular agent therefore proposed English language instruction as the proper remedy. Such prejudices were generated by remarkable cultural arrogance, perhaps nowhere declared.more exuberantly than by J.C.D. Atkins, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1885-1888, who exalted his "own vernacular--the language of the greatest, most powerful, and enterprising nationalities beneath the sun. The English language as taught in America is good enough for all her people of all races." The ultimate product of such conceit would.be the uncompromising attempt to force upon the Indian "the language of his real country."24 Ultimately, the program of imposition and prohibition was not about education, but about annihilation of Indian cul- tures. Secretary of the Interior Schurz demonstrated that effectively educating Indians did not represent the true desire of policy makers by flatly dismissing a proposal to teach in Indian languages using collected Indian grammars as "very interesting and meritorious philological work" 23Ibid., xxiv. 24Commissioner Atkins, quoting his own 1886 report and a "leading religious weekly," in ARCIA, 1887, xxi, xxv. 72 impertinent to Indian education.” Similarly, the commission- er of Indian affairs decreed that "no books in any Indian languages must be used or instruction given in that language in any school."26 Education merely provided the pretext, the smokescreen, the cloaking sanction of a formal American institution. If Indian languages could have been effectively prohibited and replaced in Indian homes and Indian communi- ties, then pedagogical fervor would have played an infinitely smaller role in the clamor for English language imposition; the extensive attention devoted to discussions of the impact of day schools (versus boarding schools) on the Indian community reveals how engrossing was the unadulterated desire to banish Indian languages from United States soil. To this end, education served as the enabling institution, not the end itself. Reducing the issue to its utter essentials, the Peace Commission perhaps best expressed the genuine and paramount concern of even those most strenuously engaged in extolling the virtues of Indian education: "their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted."27 ”Schurz’s dismissal is in Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1877, House Executive Document no. 1, part 5, serial 1880, 10-11, as cited in Prucha, Great Father, 690. ”ARCIA, 1887 , xxii. 27Ibid., xx, quoting the Peace Commission report. V. CREATING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH WORDS: THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND THE EFFECTS OF LANGUAGE IMPOSITION AND PROHIBITION When reformers addressed Indian education, they readily understood the tremendous language differences that stood between Indians and whites. From the earliest contact, these cultures had experienced profound difficulties in communicat- ing verbally, even with translators of varying--and sometimes even reliable and accurate--capabilities. Even when Indians and whites managed to communicate, they spanned profoundly distinct cultural perspectives; a cursory examination. of Indian-white relations discloses such massive cultural misunderstandings as those evidenced by the fact that some Indian languages could not express--and therefore could not truly understand--concepts of personal property. Reformers recognized, then, that. substantial cultural change ‘would necessarily follow the forced substitution of English for Indian languages. In fact, it is upon this point that white hopes for civilizing the Indians rested. Yet the potentially traumatic implications for Indians were dismissed by white 73 74 reformers, under the flag of benevolent paternalism at best and.under the colors of oppression.and.ethnocentrism.at‘worst. Perhaps most white Americans concerned with Indian education did believe that they were conferring upon Indians the gift of a "higher" language and its corresponding "ad- vanced" culture. Perhaps also they believed that their efforts to impose the English language would truly benefit both Indians and whites by facilitating cross-cultural communication through a common language, thereby resulting in smoother, more peaceable, and more mutually beneficial Indian- white relations. (M1 the other hand, one might argue that adoption of a common language would, in the minds of many self-interested whites, remove one final moral barrier to the dispossession of American Indians: if Indians could speak English, arguments that they did not comprehend the agreements that stole their land, resources, and rights would hold less weight and command less attention. The coincidence of the Dawes Act and the emphasis on cultural assimilation through English language education is profoundly disturbing in this light. Yet if a noted historian of the English language in America saw a common language as the "binding force" that brought and held the nation together after the brutally divisive years of civil war, it is plausible that post- Appomattox Americans hoped to bind the distinct Indian and white American cultures into one peaceful, happier nation by 75 virtue of the power of a common language.‘ However, ‘whether 'they realized. it or .not--and. most reformers.did.to some extent understand and desire the adverse effects their policies would have upon traditional Indian cultures--imposing the English language and prohibiting the use of Indian languages represented an attempt to deal a devastating blow to Indian cultures. The importance of language to culture cannot be overem- phasized: the ties that bind culture and language are life- lines of identity and understanding. Ultimately, a symbiotic and profound relationship exists between the two, and one can be neither easily distinguished nor disassociated from the other. ‘Yet such an understanding was not fully formulated and explicitly articulated until Franz Boas, the acknowledged father’ of‘ modern linguistics, delivered. the seminal and definitive statement of linguistic relativism in his introduc- tion to The Handbook of American Indian Languages in 1911.2 In arguing that the study of a language must be undertak- en from within the language itself--not by using one’s own ‘George Philip Krapp, The English Language in America, vii. Krapp contends that a common language helped transcend and heal the divisions of the Civil War. 2By emphasizing empiricism and asserting the necessity of intensively and thoroughly studying a culture from within, Boas laid the foundations for the modern anthropological approach to studying Indians: cultural pluralism and relativ- ism, IHis extensive field work with Eskimos and the Indians of the Pacific Northwest provided evidence for his rejection of concepts.of:raciology'and.cultura1.evolution, thereby shatter- ing the previous anthropological assumptions which had linked race and culture. 76 language as a cultural standard--Boas revolutionized ethnolog- ical.methodologyu Essentially, Boas asserted that in order to understand a culture, one must explore that culture’s language in and of itself because only through language can world View, psyche, etc. , be understood. Trying to examine cultural concepts and perceptions from the vantage point of another culture’s language is unacceptable; all languages are based on assumptions and concepts that obscure the true meaning behind another culture’s words. Furthermore, according to Boas, this relationship between language and culture is one of mutual influence: language both affects and reflects culture. Ultimately, cultures perceive the world differently because languages confront the world differently and vice versa. The work of Benjamin Lee Whorf solidified Boas’s concepts of linguistic relativism. Whorf’s hypothesis that the form and content.of a culture’s language affect how'members of that culture perceive and therefore react and act toward the world became an axiom of the study of language and culture. And to Boas’s arguments linking culture and language, Whorf added another dimension to the particular importance of language. Although language and culture influence each other perpetual- ly, Whorf contended that "in this partnership the nature of the language is the factor that limits free plasticity and rigidifies channels of development in the more autocratic way."3 The absolutely crucial role played by language in 3Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, 156. 77 shaping culture cannot, according to Whorf, be denied. Furthermore, Whorf extended the notions of linguistic relativism far beyond the realm.of words“ He asserted that in essence different cultures operate in distinct realities by virtue of distinct languages. "We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar."4 Renowned linguist Edward Sapir concurred on this point.ofjperceptual reality being defined by language, stating that "the fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group . . . We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation."5 George W. Grace, in his book The Linguistic Construction of Reality, took this linguistic relativism even further in a theoretical examination that involves significant implications for United States Indian language policy. Grace’s theories emphasize the role of culture in determining the character of our "effective environment" (which Grace distinguished from the actual qualities of the external worLd), a process he referred to as the social construction of reality: 4Ibid., v. SWhorf quoting Edward Sapir in Leslie Spier, ed., Language, Culture and Personality, Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir, 75-93, reprinted in Whorf, Language, 134. 78 The human species--and no other--possesses the one essential tool which makes a social construction of reality possible. That tool is language. Not only is language the means by which this kind of reality con- struction is accomplished, it is also the means by which the realities, once constructed, are preserved and transmitted from person to person and from generation to generation. Hence, it is entirely appropriate to refer more specifically to the linguistic construction of reality.6 Grace saw the study of languages as divided into two basic schools of thought. The first, which he termed the mapping theory--and which he argued is essentially flawed and therefore at least partially invalid--holds that different languages provide different "mappings" of what is, according to this hypothesis, a world common to all people. Under this theory, all humans know the same physical world directly, albeit through imperfect senses, which therefore results in slightly different understandings of reality. The second theory is what Grace called the reality- construction model, in which he asserted that we do not have direct access to the world, but understand it only through senses which are very incomplete at best (senses that, for example, cannot perceive much of the visual and aural spec- trums). Therefore, Grace contended, cultures construct very different models of the world that account for what we do senses What cannot be accounted for by our senses is 6GeorgeW. Grace, The Linguistic Construction of Reality, 3. 79 extrapolated, in essence, by an elaborate system of beliefs, assumptions, and preconceptions, all of which are culturally relative: we fill in the blanks and do so quite differently from culture to culture. These constructed realities are reflected in our languages, and are in fact also shaped by language: "the realities in which we human beings effectively live our lives are realities which we have constructed, and language is the primary instrument of such reality construc- tion."7 Now, even if one rejects the reality-construction model in favor of the widely accepted mapping theory, the fundamen- tal agreement which exists between the two has significance for ‘this study. 131 both. hypotheses, the ‘world. imposes limitations on our ability to know it; language represents the reality we do know; and different languages interpret reality very differently, One key point of contention between the two theories is that under the reality-construction model, the intertranslatability postulate--which is accepted under the mapping theory and which holds that anything which can.be said in one language can be said in another--becomes invalid and in fact impossible because different languages express under- standings of substantially different realities. This has remarkable implications for the assumption that English was at the very least a suitable and equal replacement for all Indian languages. 7Ibid., 139. 80 Rejection of the intertranslatability postulate is a position not accepted by all linguists, including some as respected.and influential as Edward Sapiru However, the point to be made here regards the fundamental agreement between the reality-construction and mapping theories that different languages do represent at least marginally different reali- ties. Therefore some concepts of reality may be exclusive or central to a particular language system and not to others, and these peculiar concepts may not be able to be easily, fully, or even adequately expressed through other languages. Moreover, the attempted prohibition of a language in favor of the imposition of another will have dramatic influence upon especially those concepts--expressed, reflected, and under- stood through language--specific to a particular culture. Examples of such cultural traits will be examined below. Theories explaining reality as do Grace’s are neither as new nor as radical as they might initially seem. In his Republic, Plato constructed the striking allegory of the cave--in which people take reality to be shadows cast upon a cave wall--to illustrate his ideas of the human relationship to reality: "It is a strange picture," said Glaucon. "And a strange sort of prisoners." "Like ourselves," Socrates replied.8 8Plato, The Republic of Plato, translated with an introduction and notes by Francis MacDonald Cornford, 228-229. 81 Similarly, Willard Van Orman Quine, the eminent twentieth century philosopher, expressed his skepticism regarding the human capacity to experience reality accurately in the pithy epigram: "There is many a slip betwixt objective cup and subjective lip."9 Further pursuit of these philosophical discussions does begin to lead down a tangential and arcane path distant from the direct considerations of this examination. But taken as they stand and in conjunction with the complementary reality- construction model presented by Grace, such theories involve dramatic implications for attempting to impose a new language upon.a people. Beyond.a mere reorganization of vocabulary and grammar, forcing a different language on a culture of an entirely’ distinct language stock. will have: a jprofoundly mutative effect upon that culture itself. Furthermore, the prohibition of a native language coinciding with the imposi- tion of a foreign language--precisely the program advocated by Indian policy reformers craving "complete" assimilation-- represents an especially willful and encompassing attack on a culture’s language, on the culture itself, and therefore on that culture’s vision of reality and its world. On a less abstract level, ethnological evidence abounds supporting theories of linguistic relativism and the crucial role played by language in shaping and reflecting culture. First, most Indian cultures at the time of the focused 9Willard Van Orman Quine, Methods of Logic, xii. 82 assimilationist impulse were non-literate, meaning education and socialization were conducted largely through the spoken word. "Traditional Indians were exposed to a complex system of education, one which involved all aspects of their exis- tence and for the duration of their lives. This folk-educa- tional process was transmitted verbally and passed on from generation to generation."” In transmitting culture verbal- ly, it was the spoken word that held the concepts and under- standing to be conveyed. Furthermore, for traditional Indian cultures it is as Witherspoon asserted regarding the Navajo: there exists an "unbreakable connection between mind and matter, speech and event."“ This is not to argue that the importance of language declines with literacy, but to ShOW’the importance to Indian cultures of language as they knew it and practiced it--verbally. Other evidence demonstrates further the particular significance of language to Indian cultures. The Apache, for example, did not exhibit as rigid a kinship system as some tribes: "Not only were formal clan ties lacking, there were no tribal chiefs, councils, or any other political unit among these people. What held them together was a common language, customs and rituals."” Language, to the Apache, represented ”French, Psychocultural Change, 44. “Gary Witherspoon, Language and Art in the Navajo Universe, 9, emphasis added. ”French, Psychocultural Change, 70. 83 an integral component of culture and identity. In recounting his experiences at an Indian school, Francis LaFlesche offered a personal and intriguing perspec- tive regarding the importance of his native language and the efforts to dissuade him from using it. "[N]o native American can ever cease to regret that the utterances of his father have been constantly belittled when put into English, that their thoughts have frequently been travestied and their native dignity obscured." Furthermore, LaFlesche contended that "the beauty and picturesqueness, and euphonious playful- ness, or the gravity of diction which I have heard among my own people, and other tribes as well, are all but impossible to be given literally in English."‘3 These statements present a clear and practical, not theoretical, rejection of the intertranslatability postulate. lkrsome regards, LaFlesche’s assertions render high-brow hypothesizing on the validity of intertranslatability almost ludicrous: through direct experi- ence, LaFlesche was both aware and adamant in his opinion that English failed as a substitute for the Omaha language. Moreover, LaFlesche’s sentiments vividly illustrate not only his reverence for his native tongue, but also his preference for its expressive capacities. LaFlesche’s assessment of English in relation to Omaha is especially interesting in light of the fact that he not only excelled as a student in an Indian school, but also went on to write a rather fond ”Francis LaFlesche, The Middle Five, xix. 84 autobiographical account--in English--of his experiences. In undertaking white education, Francis LaFlesche proved himself one of the most receptive and successful Indian students of his time. ‘Yet writing his memoirs, years after his experienc- es in school, LaFlesche still asserted the value and virtue of the Omaha language--in direct comparison to English. Such evidence sheds an unflattering light upon reformers’ claims of the superiority of English and the benevolence of imposing it upon Indian students. That language is culturally-specific is a fact especially illustrated by Boas’s discussion of the complexity and the markedly distinct (from each other as well as from English) character of Indian languages: The. category' of gender' is rare . . . ideas--such. as visibility, or position in regard to the speaker in the six principal directions (up, down, right, left, front, back), or tense--are added to the concept of the demon- strative pronouns . . . In the verb the category of tense may be almost suppressed.or may be exuberantly developed. Modes may include many ideas that we express by means of adverbs, or they may be absent. The distinction between verb and noun may be different from ours . . . it is characteristh of many American languages that verbal ideas are expressed by different stems according to the form of the object to which the verb predicates. This feature occurs particularly in verbs of existence and of motion, so that existence or motion.of round, long, flat, etc., objects, are differentiated.‘4 Though Boas’s examination becomes somewhat esoteric, the gist remains clear: Indian languages are extremely diverse and ”Franz Boas, Race, Language and Culture, 207; 214-215. 85 quite dissimilar to European languages, and in these differ- ences is reflected and created a substantially distinct psychology and understanding of the world. Specific examples of these distinctions between European and Indian languages are bountiful and highly revealing, each language trait disclosing something particular about the culture it helps compose. For instance, the Kwakiutl engage their world through a language which exhibits a strong propensity for metaphorical expressions of an artful and decidedly euphemistic flavor.” Such an example illustrates something intriguing of the nature of the Kwakiutl world itself. Similarly, former Hampton Institute student Thomas Wildcat Alford’s descriptions of his native Shawnee language speak of remarkable differences between Shawnee and white culture. In his autobiography, Alford stated that in the Shawnee language, "men and women are spoken of as of the same gender" and "personal pronouns are neither masculine nor feminine."” An aspect of the Hopi language particularly demonstrates the magnitude of the bond between language and culture and even existence itself. Hopi expressions always involve notions of space and time; therefore there are no verb tenses in the Hopi language.‘7 This linguistic trait reflects and, ”ibid., 232ff. ”Thomas Wildcat Alford, Civilization, 19. ”Whorf, Language, 65ff. /_ 86 indeed, creates, some remarkable aspects of the pri world view. In Hopi reality, time is understood as a drastically different concept than in the Western European tradition. In fact, using the term "time" is substantially misleading when referring to the Hopi awareness of things getting later, for the word and the concepts behind it are bound by cultural constructs that obscure and fail to approximate what to the Hopi is an understanding of "time." Time cannot be objecti- fied or quantified in the Hopi world view; it is not a succession.of different days, but the successive return of the same day. Everything that has occurred and will occur is a part of the Hopi present. Thus the ramifications for prepar- ing for the future and dealing with the past in the Hopi world are as fascinating as they are demonstrative of an approach to existence quite different from that of the European tradition. And these dramatic distinctions from European/Euro-American world views must be understood as inseparable from the Hopi language. That such linguistically based cultural traits cannot be taken lightly is illustrated further by the degree to which language is absolutely central to Navajo concepts of the existence and maintenance of the world. Witherspoon argued that "it is through language that the world of the Navajo was created, and it is through language that the Navajos control, classify, and beautify their world."‘8 To illustrate more ”Witherspoon, Navajo Universe, 7. 87 explicitly the significance of language to the world of the Navajo, Witherspoon pointed out that the Navajo believe that "the form of the world was first conceived in thought, and then this form was projected onto primordial unordered substance through the compulsive power of speech and song."‘9 In the Navajo belief system, language created the world itself. 19Ibid., 47. VI. AN AMERICAN EXCHANGE: EVIDENCE AGAINST THE NECESSITY OF IMPOSITION AND PROHIBITION That language represents a precious and crucial component of culture is undeniable in light of the evidence presented above; to foist another language upon a culture has dramatic effects upon that culture.‘ 'To attempt to deprive a culture of its native tongue, though, is an endeavor of an even more insidious nature, and the negative ramifications increase exponentially. In contemplating these ramifications, Grace did not shy from expressing his fullest apprehension: "The prospect of the present linguistic diversity in the world being submerged by a single juggernaut of a language (say English) is at least as disturbing as the prospect of the extinction of biological species."2 Furthermore, when one acknowledges the essential relationship between language and culture; when prejudices toward Indian languages are properly ‘A nod of recognition is due regarding the title of this chapter, for it involves an allusion to Alfred W. Crosby’s fascinating The Columbian Exchange (Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1972). 2Grace, Construction, 11. 88 89 seen in the light of racism and ethnocentrism; and when extermination of Indian languages (and not merely education in a second language) is recognized as a central concern of language policy, then the educational program proposed steps darkly into the realm of morality. Offered in the name of benevolence, United States language policy reflected ulterior motives of malevolent intent: the annihilation of Indian cultures through the replacement of Indian languages was the desired end. It is only fair to state that the ideas held in the language theories of those such as Franz Boas were certainly not explicitly understood in all of their theoretical and practical profundity by Indian policy reformers: linguistics as a modern discipline did not come into to its own until the 18805 when, according to such a leading practitioner as Boas, the study of languages moved.more fully beyond compilations of grammar and vocabulary to the more intensive examinations of epistemology and morphology that enabled the later work of such linguists as Whorf and Grace. However, it is equally fair and necessary to point out that the substantial language differences that separated Indians from white Americans were easily recognized. This is the critical issue. For even if Whorfian hypotheses or Gracian forebodings had been accessible in the late nineteenth century, Indian policy reformers very likely would have adopted a policy of paternally-minded, "benign neglect" toward theories of linguistic relativism and 90 the importance of language to culture. The intent of reform- ers never involved concern for the preservation and protection of Indian cultures, but only the spread of white American culture and the suppression of all others. Indian languages were not the language of white Americans, and therefore they were to be obliterated.3 Yet ironies exist. Not only did white Americans compre- hend the vast differences in language (and therefore culture) between themselves and Indians, but they also understood to some.degree the extent to which Indian languages had.profound- ly influenced the English language. Full acknowledgement and acceptance of these contributions could not have prevented forced and exclusive education in English, for adopting the majority language is deemed by many even today as an obliga- tion of citizenship and is arguably beneficial in some regards. Yet recognition of the positive exchange between English and Indian languages should have played some role in asserting the value of Indian languages and resisting the wholesale denigration, rejection, and replacement of those 3Notions of encouraging cultural diversity were immeasur- ably distant from the thoughts of most white Americans in the late nineteenth century. Instead, a firm belief in the absolute superiority--moralLy as well as aesthetically and intellectually--of white American culture defined the era. In The.End of.American Innocence, Henry May argues that Americans held to this encompassing idea of superiority with unity and utter conviction, and that it was not until a profound cultural revolution in the first decades of the twentieth century that the persistent confidence and complacency of the nineteenth century were shattered. In such a climate, toler- ance of the cultural alternatives represented by American Indian languages stood little chance. 91 languages that the policies of imposition and prohibition represented. First of all, it must be understood that languages constantly change: the evolution of language is an axiom of linguistics, and the character and impetus of this change is as diverse as languages themselves.“ Boas argued that even before European contact Indian languages underwent substantial revisions as a result of interchange between tribes, changing cultural foundations that found expression in language, refining of expression, etc. He even considered the possibil- ity of a natural hybridization of languages.5 Following European-Indian contact, the evolution of the respective languages continued, perhaps now more dramatically, now more rapidly, and now involving the not unnatural component of exchange between cultures of different continents and dramati- cally distinct world views. Boas saw nothing aberrant or inherently deleterious in such an exchange, for he accepted the fact that "as soon as two groups come into close contact their cultural traits will be disseminated from one to the other."6 The evidence of cultural exchange is substantial, with the extensive adoption into English of aspects of Indian languages having a particular significance for this “Boas, Race, 253. 5Ibid., 220. ‘Ibid., 251. 92 examination. When Europeans found themselves in the strange new world of the Americas, the animals, plants, weather, topography, etc., that they had.never before encountered often retained Indian appellations when incorporated into European languages. Raccoon, puma, hickory, yucca, avocado, maize, blizzard, hurricane, bayou, savanna, andgpodunk.all originated in Indian languages and found their way into English. Today a.majority of American states and Canadian provinces are known by names of Indian etymology.7 Even more abstract concepts were assimilated into the English language and its corresponding culture. Weatherford argued that since making decisions by consensus was not a trait especially familiar to sixteenth.and.seventeenth.century European cultures, Europeans in the Americas adopted the Algonquian term caucus to identify and explain to themselves what was a rather foreign process. Similarly, because Europeans had no cultural equivalent, they appropriated the term potlatch to identify the "ritualized giving away of presents" common to Northwest tribes.8 All told, Weatherford estimated that approximately two hundred words of Indian origin have become relatively common in the English language. If terms of a less common variety--for example, specialized 7See Jack Weatherford, Native Roots: How the Indians .Enriched America; George Philip Krapp, The.English.Language in America; and John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins. 8Weatherford, Native Roots, 203. Weatherford’s etymology for the term "caucus" is corroborated by Ayto, Dictionary. 93 words such as those of science--are included, Weatherford counts as many as 2,200 Indian words "taken.directly" into the English language.9 The significance of this exchange for European existence in the western hemisphere should not be belittled. On the one hand, the endurance of Indian terms adopted into English attests to their effectiveness; they are as much an integral part of the English language as are linguistic components adopted from "Old World" languages. Beyond this, however, stands the idea that Indian words in fact assisted Europeans to survive and become Americans. The immigrants to this continent received a profound gift from the native peoples they found waiting on American shores: by assimilating Indian words and the concepts they conveyed, Europeans took a dramatic leap from seeing this world as strangers to seeing it--at least somewhat--a5 did those people who had lived here for ages. As Weatherford put it, "Indian terms formed the linguistic map of the new territory."” Europeans survived in this strange new world as much by the grace of Indian words that explained a country to which they were not accustomed as by the grace of the food and assistance that similarly enabled a survival beyond the limiting factors of European inexperi- ence and ignorance. Though the gifts of physical nourishment are still celebrated by Americans at Thanksgiving each 9Weatherford, Native Roots, 204. ”Ibid., 199. 94 November, the gifts of linguistic nourishment were apparently forgotten by United States Indian policy reformers by the 18805. Not only do all anglophones possess a substantially Indian linguistic:heritage, but.some influential thinkers have gone to great lengths to emphasize the virtues of Indian languages, the Indian use of language, and the capacity of Indians to learn English, In the seminal Lectures on American Literature, Samuel Knapp wore his personal agenda on his sleeve, proudly asserting the value and validity of early American letters. To this end, Knapp unabashedly glorified the contributions made by Indians, lauding the eloquence of such renowned Indian orators as Tecumseh and, quite notably, commending Indian advances in English.“ Not only did Knapp shower approbation upon, in. particular, Sequoia for' his development of the Cherokee syllabary, but he also declared "that the Indians themselves are becoming philologists and grammarians, and exciting the wonder of the world."‘2 Fur- thermore, Knapp contended that as early as the first decades “Samuel L. Knapp, Lectures on American Literature. Regarding Indian oratory, Knapp argues that "the sons of the forest are as fond of [eloquence] as the best cultivated.minds in polished life," and that Indians are in fact capable of "high attainments in the noble art," 210. In a somewhat muddled presentation, Knapp also alludes to English language dabbling in Indian languages, drawing a parallel between the ancient adoption.of Roman words and characters into the.Briton language and the contemporary English approach to Indian languages, 11. ”Knapp, Lectures, 25. 95 of the eighteenth century, Indians were successfully cultivat- ing knowledge of English. He pointed out that by 1829 the Cherokee possessed a tfilingual newspaper "characterized by decency and good sense; and thus many of the Cherokee are able to read both languages."‘3 The fact that these Indians willingly learned English--without being coerced to do so and without having their native language prohibited--should not go unnoticed. Knapp’s analysis possesses its shortcomings, including a peculiar discussion of the impact of climate upon the aesthet- ic appeal of different languages. ‘Vitiated also by racist and ethnocentric evaluations and by his assumption that "the Indians are fated to fade away before the progress of civili- zation; it was so written in the destiny of nations," Knapp’s examination nonetheless stands as a significant counterpoint to the rationalizations of language imposition and prohibition that would flourish decades later.” In fact, Knapp’s preju- diced opinions make his praise for Indians and their use of language all the more remarkable. Despite his personal and 13Ibid., 29. ”Knapp, Lectures, 48. In regards to climate, Knapp contends that warmer temperatures made Italian and.French more melodic and harmonic languages than their northern counter- parts. However, he asserts that the same climatic influences had an almost pathological effect upon West Indian languages, reducing them to "infantile imbecility," 10. Knapp permits his ethnocentrism--or perhaps racism--to surface again in refer- ring to Wampanoag leader King Philip in oxymoronic terms as "a savage of the first order of intellect," 229. (Emphasis added.) 96 cultural biases, he offered conspicuous evidence and argumen- tation in direct contradiction to the ethnocentric criticisms that would fuel the assimilationist attack on American Indian languages. Indian languages and linguistic abilities attracted praiseful and prominent attention from other influential representatives of intellectual American culture. As pre- eminent a man of American letters as Walt Whitman exclaimed jubilantly his support for Indian languages: "What is the fitness--What the strange charm of aboriginal names? . . . All aboriginal names sound good . . . They are honest words--they give the true length, breadth, depth. They all fit. Missis- sippi!--The word winds with chutes--it rolls a stream three thousand miles long."” Whitman went as far as declaring that Indian names should be substituted for such European titles as those of the St. Lawrence River and the "great cities" of St. Louis and New Orleans.” Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the larval anthropologist and later budding racist, advocated the instruction of Indian languages in American colleges.‘7 And the eloquence of one Indian in particular, Logan, a Cayuga ”Walt Whitman, An American Primer, 30, 18. ”Ibid., 32. Whitman, as Knapp, has a particular agenda: "The great proper names used in America must commemorate things belonging to America and dating thence.--Because what is America for?--To commemorate the old myths and the gods?-- To repeat the Mediterranean here? Or the uses and growths of Europe here?--No...but to destroy all those from the purposes of the earth, and to erect a new earth in their place." ”Weatherford, Roots, 256. 97 chief, received the broad sanction of American educators, his words once gracing schoolbooks.” Relating to Indian proficiency in learning English--a dramatic point when considering that the prohibition of Indian languages was ostensibly presented as a compensatory measure meant to eliminate hindrances upon the Indians’ supposedly weak.capacity to learn English--one finds.a:rather interesting perspective from the literary world. In The Last of the Mohicans, a novel by the very popular writer James Fenimore Cooper, even. the brutal Indian. villain. Magua speaks in articulate and eloquent English. Furthermore, Magua under- stands the most formal speech of his English foes; in conver- sations with the daughter of his arch enemy, esoteric words such as "palliating" give Magua no pause.” Two points require notice here. First, it should be recognized that Magua represents an Indian who learned the English language successfully without relinquishing his native tongue. Second, Magua is a fictional character. Precisely and solely because of this existence as a creative composition one might tend toward discounting any influences (represented by the first point above) that Magua’s English capabilities might have had upon the mind-set of those effecting language policy. However, the power of popular culture--even fiction- alized reality--has had a profound influence upon American ”Eastman, Pratt, 13. ”James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, 141. 98 perceptions of reality. Rarely have whites understood and related to Indian people according to the realities of Indian existence. Instead, as Robert F. Berkhofer argued in The White Man’s Indian, white images of Indians have been shaped almost exclusively by white preconceptions and stereotypes. Such preconceptions and stereotypes have been drawn substan- tially from the realm of the make-believe. One need look no further than such distorted representations as Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows to appreciate the extent to which the Pretend shaped American visions of reality. Largely as a result of Cody’s traveling shows, Americans came to picture all Indians according to a single image--that of horse-riding, braided-hair, feather-wearing warriors--an image that held true for only a very small minority of traditional Indian cultures. One is led therefore to wonder why, if fictional- ized.popular culture played such.a significant role in shaping white conceptions of Indians, reformers felt compelled to prohibit Indian languages in the interest of promoting the successful indoctrination of English; there existed obvious and potentially influential examples such as Cooper’s of Indians who learned English well as a complement to their first language. Another interesting perspective on the Indian.capacity to learn English is offered by George Philip Krapp in his 1925 examination of the English language in America. writing a decade before the Indian New Deal would finally back the 99 government away from the prohibition of Indian languages and recommend a bilingual approach to education, a determined Krapp hedged no bets in arguing with one blanket statement that "Indians who learned English learned it so well that comparatively little Indian color was left in their spoken "20 This statement is wonderfully problematic for English. such a terse assertion, First of all, it directly contradicts both factual evidence and Krapp’s arguments themselves. Anyone who has ever spoken with a American Indian to whom English is a language second to an Indian tongue will attest to the fact that there exists a decidedly unique accent. Krapp himself demonstrated this in arguing that some Indian languages and their pronunciation traits lead.to the substitu- tion of the sound "L" in place of "R" in English words. Yet Krapp still asserted that Indians learned English so thoroughly that no identifiable Indian dialect remains. Perhaps this is a result of the diversity of Indian languages themselves: Krapp found no consistent, single Indian dialect because, for example, in speaking English, a Navajo will demonstrate a markedly different world View, syncretic vocabulary, syntax, accent, etc., than a native speaker of Lakota or a native speaker of Kwakiutl. More likely, Krapp’s conclusions were products of his personal prejudices. He criticized.many Indians as being content to speak a "crude and childish English"; in his estimation, imperfect English _.¥ 20Krapp, English, 267. 100 demonstrates laziness, not the persistence of linguistic traits which constitute existence of a dialect. Krapp also argued that Indians resisted learning English because of a prideful fear of making mistakes.” Such a perspective not only neglects Indian devotion to their languages, but also misses the extent to which resistance to learning English represented defiant cultural assertion in the face of white assimilation efforts. Furthermore, perhaps Krapp’s assertion reflected a particular agenda: his declaration of Indians’ success in learning English.may'have been a veiled affirmation of the desirability of assimilation and an expression of confidence in its potential for success. Ultimately, Krapp’s evaluation possesses significance for this examination, for it represents a respected, learned scholar of the English language publicly and formally asserting that, in his opinion, Indians learn English remarkably well. When taken together, the opinions of those from Knapp to Krapp regarding American Indian languages, linguistic abili- ties, and capacities to learn.English present intellectual and moral bookends upon the assimilationist era. By hemming in the period in 'which reformers zealously called for the complete assimilation of Indians through education, the imposition of the English language and the demand for the prohibition of Indian languages become far less excusable. Despite any understanding' of the influence and positive 21Ibid. 101 contributions of Indian languages to English, despite whatever glorifications of Indian. oratory' and. acknowledgements of Indian linguistic capacities, and despite any incipient comprehension of the ideas of linguistic relativity, reformers settled resolutely upon the idea of not only forcing English upon Indians, but also prohibiting any use of Indian languag- es. There were alternatives. First, the sovereignty of Indians could have been respected; Indians might have been allowed to define their own educational and cultural programs under a policy of self-determination. But in an era marked by intense Indian-white hostility, by the strong pressures of anti-Indian white self-interest, and by the absolute confi- dence whites held in the value of their own culture, such magnanimity remained both highly unlikely and decidedly untenable. Second, a multicultural approach could have been developed which supported and celebrated traditional Indian languages and cultures at the same time that the English language (and corresponding white American culture) was introduced, perhaps even involving some degree of coercion. Yet even a policy such as this was too radical and therefore unacceptable to most reformers. A third sort of program, equally dismissed yet perhaps the most innocuous for it was already being pursued (if only as an incidental result of some of the more natural tendencies of intercultural contact) , was the combination of segregation, 102 assimilation, accommodation, and cultural assertion demon- strated by the Five Civilized Tribes of the Indian Territo- ” Though not organized into a formal program of Indian- ry. white relations, the example of these nations offers insight into the reality of what the public and policy makers defined as the "Indian Problem." In the midst of the clamor for Indian assimilation and the persistent assertions of the necessity of forcing white culture upon Indians, the Civilized Tribes had already submitted to various white demands and had been busily adopting many aspects of white culture--while at the same time determinedly preserving aspects of their traditional cul- tures.23 Not only had these nations relocated to the Indian Territory to appease white interests, there they continued to practice a variety of white American cultural traits. By 1833, the Choctaw had built twelve school houses in the Indian Territory. By 1877, the Cherokee had seventy-five schools. Between 1838 and 1865, the Five Civilized Tribes had built a comprehensive system of schools--including two Negro schools-- with the majority of teachers being themselves Indians from ”The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations comprised what became collectively known as the Five Civilized Tribes. ”In The Roots of Dependency, Richard White argues that, prior to removal to the Indian Territory in the 18305, the Choctaw had in fact "embarked on a process of planned accul- turation" as the means to cope with the dramatic changes wrought upon their world by interaction with Europeans, 1. 103 the community.” The Cherokee Nation had even patterned its constitution after that of the United States. Indeed the most heinous aspects of white culture were embraced: the holding of black slaves was a practice common to the Civilized Tribes. The Civilized Tribes also assimilated explicitly linguis- tic aspects of white culture. Following Sequoia’s development of the Cherokee syllabary, the nation established two bilin- gual newspapers, The Phoenix (1828) and The Advocate (1844). The Bible was translated into the Cherokee syllabary so that the white man’s religion could be learned more effectively, now in Cherokee as well as English.” Yet these adoptions of white culture were not enough to persuade reformers that a more lenient and culturally tolerant policy toward Indian languages was plausible and--in light of the evidence--viable. Instead, Indian education plowed ahead according to a single guiding vision: complete assimilation through the exclusive imposition of English. The rejection of even the example set by the relatively accommodative Five Civilized Tribes reveals that the ultimate objective behind the language policy was not the cultivation of the common ground of the English language. Ironically, even the best intentions behind the language program were misguided. Reformers believed that ridding 24French, Psychocultural Change, 136, 157. ”As the culmination of the Civilized Tribes’ particular combination of assimilation, segregation, and cultural preservation, the Cherokee nation proposed the creation of a distinct Indian state--Sequoia--to be admitted to the Union. 104 Indians of their native languages would benefit the Indians themselves by 'uplifting them ‘toward the level of white civilization. Yet such notions were founded upon fallacious evaluations of languages. First of all, the complexity, diversity, and sophistication of Indian languages was dis- missed. Reformers monotonously invoked such erroneous pejoratives as "crude" and "savage" and "inferior" when referring to Indian languages. The assumption was that the English language--the complement to the technologically advanced white American culture--was a superior form of verbal and literary expression. Hewever, such cultural vainglory proves unfounded. Whorf contended that in actuality, "many preliterate ("primitive") communities, far from being sub- rational, may show the human mind functioning on a higher and more complex plane of rationality than among civilized men."26 Furthermore, in examining specifically the Hopi language, Whorf reached a striking conclusion concerning the relation of sensation to resulting consciousness: "Does the Hopi language show here a higher plane of thinking, a more rational analysis of situations, than our vaunted English? Of course it does. In this field and in various others, English compared to Hopi is like a bludgeon compared to a rapier."27 In spite of reformers’ convictions to the contrary, the English language did not represent a superior form of communication. Thus the 26Whorf, Language, 81. 27Ibid., 85. 105 language program, intended as an expression of benevolence, was instead an expression replete with the errors and injus- tices intrinsic to ethnocentrism. This ethnocentrism combined with a steadfast adherence to the notion of a linear progression of societies along a cultural continuum--a common belief of the late nineteenth century soundly trashed by succeeding generations of anthro- pologists--to lead reformers to truly and mistakenly believe that they bestowed upon Indians the priceless gift of a few jumps up the cultural ladder.” In indicting such thinking and its impact on linguistic theories, Whorf offered a statement ripe with implications for the government’s language policies: The evolutionary concept, having been dumped upon modern man while his notions of language and thought were based on knowledge of only a few types out of the hundreds of very diverse linguistic types existing, has abetted his provincial linguistic prejudices and fostered the grandiose hokum that his type of thinking and the few European tongues on which it is based represent the culmination and flower of the evolution of language!” 28The hierarchical arrangement of races was central to the nineteenth century mind-set. See Gould, Mismeasure, 31. Since culture was typically attributed to biology, or at least to the same factors--such as environment--that determined racial traits, culture and race were indistinguishable. Thus racial ranking was cultural ranking, and.the racial hierarchy implied a corresponding cultural hierarchy. Furthermore, that races develop along a cultural continuum was an abiding component of the entire hierarchical context. See Bieder, Science, 13. Eventually, anthropologists such as Boas rejected concepts of social/cultural progress. See Boas, Race, 254. 2“’Whorf, Language, 84. 106 Those concerned with Indian education had not only based their attitudes and policies toward Indian languages upon an ignorance of and a disregard for the importance of language to culture; upon neglect of and hypocrisy toward the value of Indian languages (as evident even to the reformers in the contributions made to English); and upon indifference to the evidence of prior and contemporary Indian assimilation of the English language; but also upon misguided assumptions regard- ing cultural relativism and cultural development. VII. MECHANISMS OF OPPRESSION: PUBLIC EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE RESTRICTION The timing and the zealous undertaking of language imposition and prohibition represented no aberration in overall United States policy. In fact, reformers unleashed at the same time the same assimilationist fervor and methods versus such other supposedly insufficiently-American groups as immigrants, southern blacks, and the lower classes. None other than Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas J. Morgan made this connection to Indian policy explicit, arguing that the "benevolent institutions"--that is, schools--which were accessible to "foreigners," "the negroes of the South," and "the poor man’s child" should be extended to Indians to "do for them what they are so successfully doing for all the other races in this country--assimilate them."‘ Similarly, in the appeal to Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz that would ultimately result in the establishment of the prototypical Carlisle Indian School, Richard Henry Pratt, the other ‘Morgan, Indian Education, 7, 5. 107 108 patriarch of nineteenth century Indian education, alluded to Schurz’s experience as an immigrant to the United States and thereby equated immigrants and.American Indians: "The Indians need the chances of participation you have had and they will just as easily become useful citizens."2 And in addressing the 1891 Mohonk Conference, Pratt reiterated that he had ever "urged foreign emigrant privileges for (Indians).3 Despite some similarities, Indians must be recognized as distinct from all the other groups targeted.by assimilationist policy. First, Indians, unlike immigrants to the United States, did not conduct relations with white Americans based on an initial decision to separate themselves from their own culture to live in another. Ohannessian identified this realization as critical to comprehending the difficulties of teaching English to Indians.“ Second, the circumstances of southern blacks and American Indians are not identical. Most southern blacks who had come to the United States by the late nineteenth century certainly did not immigrate of their own volition. ‘Yet the situation of blacks was decidedly different from that of Indians in that it was one of marked separation 2Richard Henry Pratt, Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indian, 1867-1904, edited by Robert M. Utley, 215-16. 3Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of the Friends of the Indian (1891), 60-67, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 273. “Sirarpi Ohannessian, The Study' of the Problems of Teaching English to American Indians: Report and Recommenda- tions, 11. 109 from both the home of their culture and the direct support of the millions who practiced it there. Furthermore, blacks, since even their earliest experience in what would become the United States, mostly lived in proximity to large numbers of whites and were thereby significantly exposed to and involved in white American culture. The English language was already a integral component of black culture by the late nineteenth century. Although blacks did struggle to and succeed in preserving and maintaining many aspects of African culture, their particular circumstances necessarily entailed a struggle of different character from that of American Indians. Finally, while a profoundly disproportionate number of American Indians have historically lived in conditions of poverty in the‘United States, one cannot--for the same reasons that Indians must be distinguished from immigrants and blacks--equate their situation with that of poor whites. Although poverty itself to some extent implies a distinct culture, even poorer Indians were still dramatically cultural- ly distinguished from other Americans of similarly oppressed economic status. Indian cultures and histories combined to create distinct and particular responses to the assimilation- ist efforts regarding language. Despite marked differences, however, all of these groups were targeted by the same scheme of public education. In the mid-nineteenth. century, education. itself’ had. undergone 1a critical metamorphosis, and the 18405 and 18505 saw the 110 groundwork laid for a broad system of public instruction.5 Influenced by the ideas of Horace Mann and Adam Smith (and in fact personally led by Mann), the Massachusetts Board of Education designed the prototype for public education. This Massachusetts model utilized standardized curriculum and centralized, authority’ as 'tools of social control, tools designed to cope with such rapid changes in the American social landscape as the waves of immigration and the shift toward industrializationwwith its attendant.poverty and.crime. With the traditional methods of social control practiced in formerly small, tight-knit communities breaking down as Americans urbanized and atomized, public education and its emphasis on the internalization. of abstract concepts of control--conformity, hard work, the equation that acceptance of the system equals success--became a preferred method of imposing restraint. Such developments would have profound implications for Indian.education, for this pattern.of1dealing with social problems--upper levels of American society imposing their standards of culture and morality as a means of preserving and. protecting the status quo by ‘which. they benefitted--would be influential and enduring. "This was the first major reform in United States education and it set the pattern for school expansion for the next two generations."6 5This discussion of the development of public education draws especially upon Michael B. Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools. 6Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism, 235. 111 Thus the assimilationist program of Indian education undertak- en in the latter third of the nineteenth century finds its true heritage in a program of conscious oppression. This scheme of public education was widely embraced. Though an array of problems hindered implementation, even the South and the western territories adopted its philosophies.7 In the South, for instance, "a single pervasive institution, the public school, was the lever" expected to "move the region, to solve all of the other complex problems arising from southern poverty, ignorance and racial tension."8 Yet such hopes, as demonstrated above, ultimately rested upon ulterior motives of social control. While public education granted new opportunities to blacks, women, the poor, and other groups--including Indians--largely neglected by earlier educational structures, such opportunities also reflected the extension and solidification of oppression. Allegedly devised to confer upon American Indians the positive aspects intrinsic to white schooling, the late nineteenth century program of Indian education also involved decidedly malevolent intent. That language would be an integral component of an education program intended to oppress minority groups in the United States also represents no aberrant. methods. In Discourse and Discrimination, Smitherman-Donaldson and van 7French, Psychocultural Change, 27. 8Louis R. Harlan, Separate but Unequal (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958) , as cited in Carnoy, Education, 291. 112 Dijk.argued that racismtis conveyed.through language, and.that the power of the dominant majority is both expressed and maintained through this racist manipulation of language. They referred specifically to such racist manifestations of language as biased reporting, prejudiced choice of words, and negative connotation labels--racism as it is explicitly or implicitly expressed in discourse. But the implications must be taken further: language is at once an integral part of racism, of maintaining a power status quo, of institutionaliz- ing racism. This goes beyond merely discourse to include as well how one group’s use of language may be circumscribed by another group as a means of imposing, expressing, and main- taining power, The prohibition of Indian languages is as much a linguistically related expressiontof power and.the desire to control as is the discourse-based denigration of black English. Smitherman-Donaldson and van Dijk explained the key to a racist expression of power through language thusly: "For one group to exert power over another, it must reproduce the conditions that allow it to maintain control."9 They also argued that "the discursive reproduction of racism is the enactment or legitimation of white majority power at the micro levels of everyday verbal interaction and communication."” 9Geneva Smitherman-Donaldson and Teun A. van Dijk, eds., Discourse and Discrimination, 16. ”Ibid., 17. 113 Again, in discussing the use of language to reinforce the self-righteousness of the perpetrating group and to rational- ize, justify, or express desire for the oppression of other groups, they referred.specifically to racist discourse. (And, interestingly, they referred only to majority over minority racist discourse, neglecting to discuss how minorities can similarly manipulate language as racist expressions of or toward power.)‘1 But such notions regarding the manipulation of language should again be extended beyond discourse to include such expressions of power as the government’s Indian policy of language imposition and prohibition. By attempting to eliminate the cultural alternative represented by Indian languages and, at the very least, to impose English--the language that would best inculcate the ideals, rules, and structure of the American status quo--such.a policy intends to reproduce at the most basic levels of "verbal interaction and communication" the conditions that allow the empowered group to maintain control. Furthermore, what qualifies as knowledge and.education in a particular society is primarily defined by the dominant group, and the instruction meant to indoctrinate this knowl- edge in other groups is carried out by means of the dominant language and through the educational program mandated by the “Smitherman-Donaldson and van Dijk do state that their study analyzes only discrimination "against minority groups," 22. However, Smitherman-Donaldson later contends that in fact blacks cannot be racist because they do not wield power in the relationship between blacks and whites, 146-47. 114 group that speaks it. Of course both the language and the education program reflect (and attempt to instill) the dominant group’s beliefs and concepts--even those tainted by racism. Complementary to the dominant group’s imposition of a prejudiced education is its insistence that minority/non- dominant group intelligence (and cultural manifestations of that intelligence) is inferior, though the dominant group’s biases skew the evaluation away from any objective standard. As Smitherman-Donaldson explained in discussing white atti- tudes toward black English, this process has entrenched.racism in the American consciousness and "generally reaffirmed the perspective that the problem is not racism but the victims of racism and their failure to conform to the Anglo ideal."” Pursuing this "illogic of racism" had profound ramifications for United States Indian education policy: forced conformity to the white ideal--through the complete substitution of English in place of Indian languages--was precisely the remedy prescribed to rectify the Indian Problem.” Both.the policy makers who shaped.the intolerant language program and those prominent thinkers who offered up theories of a social hierarchy’ to justify‘ that system expressed prejudice toward Indians with no pretense of subtlety or ”Geneva Smitherman-Donaldson, "Discriminatory Discourse on Afro-American Speech," in Smitherman-Donaldson and van Dijk, Discourse and Discrimination, 146. ”The "illogic of racism" is a term drawn from Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America. 115 emotional detachment. However, they endeavored to give their virulent racism and its attendant attempt to subordinate Indians the imprimatur of formal education and the sheen of respectability and legitimacy it afforded. Education itself is, however, neither a neutral nor benign institution. Yet that policy makers couched their arguments for imposing white education upon American Indians in terms of philanthropy is entirely consistent, for "the ‘traditional’ theory of schooling is based on the widely held view that 'Western education brings people out of their ignorance and underdevelopment into a condition of enlighten- ment and understanding." Closer to the truth in practice, however, "Western formal education came to most countries as part of imperialist domination." In Education as Cultural Imperialism, Martin Carnoy' argued. that. Western education performs a definite function in socializing members of a society into the power-holding elites’ version of the status quo: "schools transfer culture and values and they channel children into various social roles. They maintain social order." Carnoy stated this concept even more explicitly, arguing that in the United States, schools have been "used to ensure, as much as possible and apparently with some success, that those in the worst economic positions do not rebel u 14 against the system which oppresses them. While Carnoy’s propensity for economic explanations colors his perception of ”Carnoy, Education, 4, 3, 8, l8. 116 the particular aims of education, his take on the oppressive intent behind education holds true. Yet the intent should be extended to include cultural, social, and political oppression as well: education represented.the means to force upon Indians all aspects of white American culture and thereby preserve the white-dominated status quo. What resulted in the case of Indian education was a program. engineered to operate as a machine of internal colonization. Carnoy asserted that "the colonial element in schooling is its attempt to silence, to rationalize the irrational, and to gain acceptance for structures which are oppressive." Furthermore, he argued that educational coloni- zation relates to relationships between classes, races, and even genders--not exclusively between nations. Finally, Carnoy contended that in using education as a mechanism of oppression, "primary schools stress socialization into European language, values and norms (Christianity), and the degradation of all that is native." The attack on Indian languages and the attempt.to persuade Indian students that.the whole of white American culture represented an infinitely superior and preferable way of living match Carnoy’s defini- tions with accuracy. Despite the vociferous insistence that Indians be treated ultimately as individual United States citizens, the relationships inherent in white efforts to educate Indians displayed the character of those between 117 colonizer and colonized.” If public education (and the manipulation of language it included) afforded some measure of social control to those who mandated it, the question arises: control by whom? Carnoy answered bluntly that the establishment of public education as it stood in nineteenth century America represented the assertion of Protestant control of education.” Similarly, French argued that the manipulation of education as a tool of forced accommodation was a significantly Protestant contribu- tion.‘7 One need only appraise the degree to which Protes- tants dominated the government, influential reform groups such as the Lake Mohonk Conferences, and American society in general at that time to find evidence in support of the claim that defense of the status quo versus the perceived threat of Indian cultures implied defense of Protestant domination. (Relating specifically to Indian language policy, it was a Protestant-led. charge ‘that struck. down.1government funded bilingual education,) Furthermore, if the common.assertion is true that "Americanization" defined the central theme of public education, it is also true that the term "Americaniza- tion" itself requires further refinement. "[W]hat especially marked the last decades of the nineteenth century . . . was the subtle transformation that brought about an almost ”Ibid., 19, 27 n. 4, 70. ”Ibid., 243. 17French, Psychocultural Change, 152. 118 complete identification of Protestantism and Americanism."” The. Reverend. Lyman. Abbott captured the essence of this identification between Americanism, Protestantism, and education with particular perspicuity, declaring "Christianity is not merely a thing of churches and school-houses. The post-office is a Christianizing institution; the railroad, with all its corruptions, is a Christianizing power."” Thus public education provided the means by which it was hoped that Indians would be Americanized--largely according to the Protestant concept of that term--and thereby manipulated into a relationship of perpetual subordination. The combined imposition of English and proscription of Indian languages-- together the central component of Indian education--played the critical role in this endeavor. ”Prucha, Great Father, 623. ”Lake Mohonk Conference Proceedings, (1885), 51-52, as cited in Prucha, Great Father, 624-25. VIII. "THE LOST PEOPLE": RESULTS, EFFECTS, AND INHERENT PROBLEMS OF THE LANGUAGE PROGRAM If United States language policy is evaluated ultimately by the degree of its success in educating Indians in the English language, then imposition and prohibition must be deemed anything but triumphant. An 1879 report from a representative agency in the midst of the language program, the Grand River Agency of Dakota, stated that of 200 children on or adjacent to the reservation (of which only 54 attended school a month), only sixteen (including "half-breeds") could read and write English "understandingly."‘ Lame Deer vouched that "in all those years at the day school they never taught me to speak English or to write and read. I learned these things only many years later, in saloons, in the army or in jail."2 Gauging the accomplishments of the language policy with the benefit that a later perspective in time affords offers no more evidence of the realization of strictly educational ‘As cited in United States, Regulations of the Indian Department, 191. 2Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 34. 119 120 goals. In 1953, one study concluded that "more than half the children enrolling in federal schools do not use English as a native language. More than 30% of the Indian children in public schools are bilingual. On the average, 15% of all Indian students come from homes where no English is spoken. For many of these children, therefore, English is a second language."3 .As late 1964, another inquiry found that out of 56,000 school age Indian children in New Mexico and Arizona, "not one in a hundred starts school with a knowledge of English."“ Certainly by these years, had the government’s language policy been effective, such numbers would not have been possible. On the other hand, by this time some nations such as the Pamunkey and Nanticoke spoke only English, and a 1942 effort to teach the Cherokee language in North Carolina Indian schools failed due to apathy.5 Yet these are eastern nations, nations that had long been closely exposed to white culture and had assimilated much of its aspects by the time of the 3Willard W. Beatty et al., Education for Cultural Change (Washington: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1953), 504, as cited in Brewton Berry, The Education of the American Indians: A Survey of the Literature, 77. “Norman C. Greenberg et al., Education of the American Indian in Today’s World, (Dubuque: W. C. Brown Book Co., 1964), 11, as cited in Berry, Education, 77. 5The failed attempt to teach the Cherokee language is culled from Myrtle S. Bonner, "Education and Other Influences in the Cultural Assimilation of the Cherokee Indians on the Qualla Reservation in North Carolina" (master’s thesis, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 1950), as cited in Berry, Education, 79. 121 late nineteenth century language policy developments. Such Indian nations were not the primary or true targets of the government’s stringent and intolerant assimilationism. Instead, defiant western nations such as those of the Dakota Territory and the Southwest--precisely those who most resisted learning English and most successfully maintained their languages--were intended to suffer the brunt of the language policies. Ultimately, the evidence that by the middle of the twentieth century many Indians still did not speak English and that even those who did had not abandoned their Indian languages illustrates the massive failure of the government’s program to establish English as the sole language in Indian communities. Perhaps the autobiographies written by Indians who learned to read, write, and speak English in government schools stand as evidence of a degree of success. However, autobiographers represent a very small--albeit high-profile-- minority of Indian students. Furthermore, the autobiographies offer evidence of quite another kind of result: language imposition and prohibition had painful and malignant effects far beyond issues of linguistics for individual Indians and their societies and cultures. White education often had profoundly inimical consequenc- es according to those Indians who experienced it firsthand. For example, the Stony Indians of Canada used the term aintsikn ustombe--"the lost people"--to describe those 122 individuals, now neither Indian nor white, who returned from school.“ This perception of the marginalizing effects of white education is substantiated by one scholar who asserted that The intended end of [assimilation] was not full-fledged membership into the dominant society. Instead [assimila- tion] more often involved an educational awareness process whereby Indians were taught the superiority of the European/white ways vis-a-vis those of their respec- tive aboriginal cultures . . . The result was often an Indian who was unacceptable to the majority society and who felt guilty about his or her Indianism.7 In turn, this academic evaluation is corroborated by former students themselves. Hoke Denetsosie, Navajo, argued that white schools "only half prepared [Indians] to make a living in the dominant world around us."8 Another former student lamented that "we come out [of the schools] half red and half '” Indian children were pulled white, not knowing what we are. out of their communities and.cultures, only partially educated in the ways of whites and then left dangling. Lame Deer “Peter Nabokov, ed., Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophesy to the Present, 1492-1992, 216. No specific source for this term is provided by Nabokov. 7French, Psychocultural Change, 152. 8Denetsosie quoted from Broderick H. Johnson, ed., Stories of Traditional Navajo Life and Culture, by Twenty-TWO Navajo Men and Women (Tsaile, Navajo Nation, Arizona: Navajo Community College Press, 1977), 102, as cited in Coleman, School, 187. 9Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 35. 123 summed up the impact of this program in one trenchant, terse statement: "The schools leave a scar."” One final and telling example serves to illustrate both the tragic effects of deculturative education and the intrin- sic bond between such education and language. In 1881, English speaking Omaha--known as "make-believe white men"-- requested.that Congress«divide up their lands into allotments. This request was opposed by a traditional faction of Omaha known as "those who live in earth lodges." INot insignificant- ly, this traditional faction also opposed white schooling. Ultimately, the accommodative contingent won out with, ironically, the help of noted anthropologist Alice Fletcher, and the Omaha land was broken up. As a result, Omaha farmers eventually lost two-thirds of the land allotted to them because they were not prepared for the complexities and depredations that accompanied the kind of private land ownership practiced by white Americans.“ Gauging the degree to which the broader culturally accommodative objectives of government language policy were realized presents a complicated undertaking, for the intent behind the policy was diffuse, elusive, and often misleading. If the intent was to turn American Indians into English- speaking, full United States citizens "with the same rights and privileges which we accord to any other class of people," ”Ibid. “Nabokov, Testimony, 238. 124 than the program failed miserably.” (As will be demonstrated shortly, such claims are rather dubious anyway.) Yet if such benevolent claims merely obscured ulterior motives, and the oft-articulated hope of exterminating Indian languages and Indian cultures--and thereby more effectively imposing control and white interests over Indians--represented the true design, then policy makers probably came closer to success than failure. The above example of the Omaha demonstrates this. However, for the many Indians who were forcibly required to learn English; who were taught contempt and embarrassment toward the language of their ancestors; and who, through assorted government pressures and measures, gradually aban- doned their languages, such arguments merely constitute sophistry. United States government language policy failed the .American Indians, precisely those. to ‘whom :reformers professed benevolence. The attempt at complete assimilation through education suffered substantially due to essential inherent flaws. First, any discussion of sweeping assimilation was misguided precisely because of its inclusive scope. The diversity of Indian cultures presented far too many factors for the blunt and general assimilation programs to be effective--a point especially relevant at multi-tribal schools such as Carlisle. While consensus exists that some "pivotal and.core features of psychological structure" do hold true across tribal ”Morgan, Indian Education, 5. 125 distinctions, many of these common cultural traits--such as reticence, passivity, non-interference, and a strong distaste for the coercive and competitive methods required by white education--directly hindered the government’s education program and precluded any realization of substantial suc- 3 Furthermore, many Indians were particularly cultural- cess.‘ ly predisposed to resist the siege on their languages. For instance, some Indian cultures "believe that the Indian child knows his language from birth," and "many believe that there is a relationship between race and language, and that Indian blood is a prerequisite for learning an Indian language and hence, by implication, that it is difficult for Indians to learn English."” Indians staunchly opposed government efforts to extinguish their languages because language represents an intrinsic and innate component of Indian identity. That the entire education.program hinged upon the success of imposing English also entailed particular difficulties. The myriad languages.and.dialects of.American Indians present- ed incredible educational obstacles--ranging from those of vocabulary to those of the different cognitive approaches implied by distinct languages--which nineteenth century ”George D. Spindler and Louise S. Spindler, "American Indian Personality Types and Their Sociocultural Roots," .Annals of the .American .Academy of .Political and Social Science, vol. 311, 147. Ohannessian also supports this assertion in Ohannessian, Teaching English, 12, 13. ”Ohannessian, Teaching English, 10, 11. 126 educators were unprepared to cope with or even recognize. One comprehensive study of the problems that have hindered Indian education found that even a hundred years after the concerted attempt to deliver the English language wholesale to the Indians, ineffective methods of teaching English as a second language to Indian pupils still plagued educators.” ”Berry, Education, 81. IX. "OUR OPINION, AND NOT THEIRS, OUGHT TO PREVAIL": WHITE SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE The language program of imposition and prohibition received substantial, though not unified and often indirect, support from the diverse representatives of American society whom such policies would not directly affect--that is, whites. Regard- ing the government’s language policy, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs declared in 1886--at the height of assimila- tionist zeal and endeavors--that the government apparatus was monolithic in its support: "so far as I am advised, there is notdissent either among the law-makers or the executive agents who are selected under the law to do the work."‘ This contention is somewhat dubious in light of the fact that it comes from an official with particular self-interest invested in the success of the policy. Such a statement might reflect a strategically manipulative effort to deny or gloss over any effective opposition. Yet it is noteworthy that the Commis- sioner, in such a high-profile declaration, neither attempted ‘ARCIA, 1886, xxiv. 127 128 to mobilize his supporters nor decry the errors or injustices of any opposition policy. One can safely assume therefore that any existing opposition was at best small and unthreat- ening. Furthermore, the Commissioner’s unqualified claim of confidence:is corroborated with.the added acuity of hindsight: regarding the educational prime directive of total assimila- tion, one historian asserted that "only a few men spoke out against such proposals and they were quickly overwhelmed."2 Far more complicated than the above blanket statements acknowledge, the issue of language policy attracted extensive debate. Yet even the dissent is often misleading, frequently representing not opposition to the ultimate aims of the government’s policy, but merely to the means by which those objectives were to be realized, The 1880 minority report from the House of Representatives’ Committee on Indian Affairs criticized. the assimilation. program. as :neglecting Indian diversity: "it applies the same rule to all without regard to '” However, this the wide differences in their condition. criticism referred only to such distinctions as those that separated such Indian nations as "the roving and predatory Utes" from the "nearly civilized Omahas and Poncas." The "civilization" of Indians was still the goal, and white American civilization still represented the standard. 2Prucha, Americanizing, 8. 3House Report no. 1576, 46 Congress, 2 session, serial 1938, 7-10, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 124. 129 The minority report also pointed out that assimilationist efforts would attract significant opposition because of Indian cultures themselves. "The whole training of an Indian from his birth, the whole history of the Indian race, and the entire array of Indian tradition, running back at least four hundred years, all combine to predispose the Indian against this scheme for his improvement, devised by those who judge him exclusively from their standpoint instead of his."“ However, such apparently perceptive and sympathetic sentiments were directed toward specific ends and represented not a more virtuous approach toward Indian Affairs, but merely a differ- ent perspective on the proper chronology of civilizing the Indians. Utilized explicitly as an argument versus allotment, the report’s sentiments were simultaneously'used.to illustrate the importance of imposing the English language on Indians. Since "in all the Indian languages there is no word answering to the Latin habeo--have or possess," the report argued, Indians must be taught the English language prior to allot- ment. In order to socialize them in the self-interest that defines capitalistic, white American society, Indians first had to learn the language that reflects and embodies such concepts.“ Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller similarly opposed Indian policy as it stood. Despite professing ownership of a "heart “Ibid., 125. 5Ibid., 126. 130 that beats as warmly for the Indian as that of any other man living," he wholeheartedly advocated assimilating Indians through imposed education. "It does not accomplish the great purpose of civilization to send a few wild Indians down to Hampton and a few up to Carlisle . . . We must put the schools in the Indian community; we must bring the influences where a whole Indian tribe or a whole band will be affected and '” Teller merely predicted the failure of influenced by them. the government’s assimilation program unless the emphasis was diverted from severalty to cultural imposition. "I say to-day that you cannot make any Indian on this continent, I do not care where he is, while he remains anything like an Indian in sentiment and feeling, take land in severalty." Furthermore, The trouble with this question of land in severalty is, that the friends of the measure have adopted the end for the means. They have turned things right around. When an Indian becomes civilized, when he becomes Christian- ized, when he knows the value of a home . . . then he is prepared to take land in severalty . . . and to discharge all the duties of citizenship in the highest sensezof the term. That the Indian must be "civilized" according to the white standard was a foregone conclusion. As far as Teller, the House committee, and most white dissenters were concerned, the “Congressional Record, XI, part I, (46 Congress, 3 session), 780-81, 783, 934-35, reprinted in Prucha, American- izing, 136, 137. 7Ibid., 132, 140. Emphasis added. 131 agenda of the assimilation program represented the only unresolved issue. There were notable white Americans who, to some extent, defended Indian rights. Merrill E. Gates, a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners who often presided over the Mohonk Conferences, declared that a primary duty of all friends of the Indiantwas to "guard the rights of the Indian." Such sentiments are rather surprising coming from someone who expressed his version of contempt for Indians in such state- ments as "there is hardly one tribe outside the five civilized tribes which can merit the name of an organized society." Yet Gates made his defense of Indian rights more explicit, arguing that "the Indians have a perfect right to bring up their children in the old devotion to the tribe and the chief. To require anything else of them is unreasonable. These are their ancestral institutions. We have no right to meddle with them." The perplexing paradox ends abruptly here, as Gates quickly pointed out that he offered these statements merely as a risible illustration of what he deems the "false View" of Indian policy. Instead, Gates championed the belief that the government. held an obligation to fervidly intervene and disrupt Indian traditional culture: "we must not only offer them education, we must force it upon them."8 What Gates 8All the above quotations are drawn from "Land and Law as Agents in Educating Indians," intthe.Seventeenth.Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners (1885), 17-19, 26-35, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 54, 49, 50, 52. 132 intended by protecting "the rights of the Indian," then, was the protection of an Indian’s right to live according to white principles. An Indian’s private property, his individualism, and his Christian education would be defended once he set himself apart from the tribe. The extermination of Indian cultures in general and Indian languages specifically had therefore been deftly categorized under the heading of Indian privilege. Even the arguments of supposedly pro-Indian reformers followed a similar tack ‘while asserting that the first priority of Indian policy must be the immediate extension of full legal protection to the Indians. According to the Reverend William Justin Harsha, an acknowledged advocate of Indian legal equality, legal coverage should be offered not as a measure to ensure Indian self-determination, but to elimi- nate the resistance to acculturation that accompanies legal inequality and its subsequent feelings of oppression. As advocated by Harsha, extending legal protection to Indians would not protect Indian culture, but accelerate its elimina- tion.9 Thus, while such reformers may have in some measure resisted the existing program to assimilate Indians, their opposition was only temporary; they believed that Indians would themselves desire acculturation once the premature education efforts were properly predicated upon legal 9"Law for the Indians," North American Review, CXXXIV (1882), 272, 281-83, 287-92, reprinted in Prucha, Americaniz- ing, 149-154. 133 "equality." Unfortunately, Harsha’s antipathy toward the oppression inherent in legal inequality did not extend to the cultural oppression manifest in assimilation. The government itself engaged in ostensibly protecting Indian rights. Presented as a benevolent measure intended to halt depredations against Indians by providing them the full protection of United States law, the government moved to strike down legal distinctions based on "racial dissimilari- ty." Indians were to be treated as all other Americans, no longer as a special or separate class of citizens. In fact, this was an essential motive behind (and expected result of) the Dawes Act’s breaking up of tribal authority.” Yet this particular component of United States Indian policy discloses the ironic and ultimately insidious nature of the assimila- tionist program, for claims of equality disguised profoundly hypocritical and pernicious efforts. It was only by entirely disregarding Indian civil rights that Indian children could.be dragged off to school--their attendance guaranteed by govern- ment sanctions enabling the withholding of subsistence rations, the mere existence of which belied rejections of distinct status--where they would be methodically stripped of their culture and forced to abandon their language and adopt English. It also should be noted that claims of cultural, rather than racial, dissimilarity do not excuse Indian policy from accusations of hypocrisy. For while coerced assimilation ”Priest, stepchildren, 247. 134 was often presented as a remedy to overcome aspects of the cultural "inferiority" of Indians, this intent cannot be separated from contemporary ideas concerning race: in the nineteenth century, no distinction was made or understood between race and culture, and the two were viewed as one and the same.“ Thus it was precisely Indian "racial dissimilari- ty" that provided the justification for the government’ 5 assimilationist program at the same time the government was disavowing such notions.” Public opinion ran along similar lines. While some of the harsher methods--such as withholding rations and having police drag unwilling Indian students off to schools--roused public ill-will, there are abundant references to policy reflecting and responding to the popular desire for complete assimilation. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs went so far as to declare that the vox populi had even imposed a deadline “Theories such as polygenism, biological determinism, and social evolution fell in and out of favor as the debate raged over establishing the scientific basis for the white assump- tion of Indian (and black) inferiority. In this debate, culture was firmly attached to ideas of race; culture was viewed as determined by the same factors that determined racial qualities, and was seen as an expression of racial identity. For discussions of nineteenth century scientific concepts regarding race and culture, see Bieder, Science; Gould, Mismeasure; and Stanton, Leopard’s Spots. ”This presents an ignominious conundrum regarding the nature of United States principles, for either the govern- ment’s claims of Indian equality were blatantly hypocritical and steeped in scandalous ulterior motives, or the government was sincere in believing that all citizens should be coerced into conformity if their way of life did not suit the elite- defined, white American standard. 135 of sorts: compelling Indian students to speak English was requisite "so long as the American public now demand that Indians shall become. white :men. within one generation."‘3 Again, one must be somewhat wary of ascribing too much sincerity to the Indian Commissioner’ 5 statement rationalizing Indian policy; politically self-serving declarations hardly provoke astonishment. Yet history serves to confirm his estimation of public sentiment. The decidedly meager opposi- tion to assimilation could only propose modest and ultimately inefficacious objections because general "hatred of Indian institutions had become so acute that no halt was possible in the campaign to abolish them."” But register objections the public did, led primarily by reform organizations and their publications. However, even this antagonism was not especially sizable. Although Commis- sioner J.C.D. Atkins’s 1887 report alluded.to the considerable public press regarding the prohibition of Indian languages, such an evaluation does not necessarily indicate substantial dissent.” Rather, opposition to assimilation was championed by a small contingent: "so overwhelming was the popularity of assimilation that criticism was limited almost entirely to members of the National Indian Defense Association."” Led by l3ARCIA, 1881, xxxiv. ”Priest, Stepchildren, 148. ”ARCIA, 1887, xxiv. ”Priest, Stepchildren, 147. 136 tolerant and somewhat radical reformers Dr. Theodore A. Bland and Alfred B. Meacham, this organization and its pro-Indian publication The Council Fire preached non-interference with and protection of Indian cultures. Yet even these reformers worked toward the eventual assimilation of Indians, arguing only that Indian institutions should be preserved to assist Indians in working toward assimilation at their own pace. Despite support for the Indian communistic system and other components of traditional Indian culture, Bland and comrades were, according to Priest--himself an advocate of overcoming the "racial failings" that hindered Indians--"sufficiently realistic to admit that the race must ultimately conform to white customs. Their primary aim therefore was to prevent changes which would destroy Indian individuality by their "” However these resistance efforts were in fact suddenness. short-lived and of only little effect, "except perhaps to strengthen the reformers in their determination to move ahead against all opposition."” Objections to the efforts to eradicate Indian cultures emanated from the field of ethnology. Yet even these criti- cisms of assimilation were neither as widespread nor as adamant as one might expect from.a1group whose very livelihood was jeopardized by the culturally destructive policies already implemented. That ethnologists protested the government’s ”Ibid., 114, 148. ”Ibid., 140. 137 program to deculturate the Indians is clear. In fact, none other than.Captain Pratt felt compelled to rebuke ethnologists for endorsing traditional Indian cultures.” The support for Indian cultures came from specific and influential proponents: James Mooney defended Indian rights and freedom; Frank Hamilton Cushing, who became a Zuni priest, advocated leaving Indians to themselves; and.others like Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, George Catlin, Lewis Henry Morgan, and John Wesley Powell collected a variety of valuable information regarding Indian oldways.20 Yet despite such defenses of and interest in traditional Indian cultures, the program to substitute the English language continued unfettered and successfully enough that a later colleague of the aforementioned anthropologists, Franz Boas, would bemoan the fact that much of the substance and style of every day, spoken Indian languages had been irretrievably lost.” In bringing about this effect, ethnologists, despite some notable efforts to the contrary, were complicitous. Lewis Henry Morgan objected to attempts at immediate assimilation. However, he based his opposition on theories that, while intending to demonstrate Indian unpreparedness to progress rapidly up the ladder of civilization, actually served to confirm and officially sanction white ethnocentric ideas of ”Prucha, Great Father, 699. 20Nabokov, Testimony, 217-218. ”Boas, Race, 200. 138 the inferiority of Indian cultures. Morgan saw Indians as at "a low stage of barbarism, immensely below the plane of civilization" with "the skulls and brains of barbarians." In defense of his resistance to unrestrained assimilation efforts, he asked the rhetorical question."how could they, any more 'than our' remote barbarous ancestors, jump ethnical periods?"”! John Wesley' Powell, the father of .American ethnology and the first director of the Bureau of Ethnology (created in 1879 through his insistence), endeavored to "put American Indian policy for the first time on a scientific footing."” However, his concept of scientific footing did not bode well for the targets of Indian policy, mired as it was in notions of hierarchical social evolution--with Indians firmly categorized far below the representatives of white American culture. Therefore Powell--despite a definite interest in Indian.cultures, despite personal efforts expended to collect Indian vocabularies along the Colorado River, and despite the fact that he had learned to speak both the Ute and Southern Paiute languages--advocated replacing Indian languag- es as a:necessary step to more.thorough cultural assimilation. "Savagery is not inchoate civilization," he argued, but "a ”L.H.Morgan, "Factory System for Indian Reservations," Nation, XXIII (July 27, 1876), 58, ; Morgan to President Hayes in.Bernhard Stern, Lewis.Henry Morgan (Chicago, 1931), 58; and L. H. Morgan, "The Indian Question," Nation, XXVII (Nov. 28, 1878), 332-33; all as cited in Dippie, Vanishing, 166. ”Morgan, "Indian Question," 322-23, as cited in Dippie, Vanishing, 166. 139 distinct status of society, with its own institutions, customs, philosophy and religion; and all of this :must necessarily be overthrown before new institutions, customs, philosophy and religion can be introduced."” Thus much of the opposition registered by ethnologists is, similar to that of even pro-Indian reform organizations, highly misleading. Although engaged in studying and collect- ing' aspects of ‘traditional American Indian cultures and arguing that immediate assimilation was improbable, leading ethnologists such. as Powell, Morgan, and. Alice Fletcher actively encouraged assimilationist efforts. For them, assimilation represented a preferable alternative to the imminent extinction that resistance to the tide of encroaching white civilization would bring. While they spoke knowingly of progressive development through prescribed ethnical periods, of barbaric skulls that could.not absorb»civilized.teachings, and of peoples who lagged centuries behind and were still in the infancy of cultural growth, reformers looked anxiously at the Indians’ present situation and concluded that immutable natural laws would have to be ignored.” For many ethnologists, it was as one reformer remarked of 2“J.W. Powell to Carl Schurz, Sec. of Interior, Nov. 1, 1878, in "Surveys of the Territories: Letters from the Acting President of the National Academy of Sciences Transmitting a Report on the Survey of the Territories" (Dec. 3, 1878), in House Misc. Documents no. 5, 45 Congress, 3 session, 26-27, as cited in Dippie, Vanishing, 168. ”Dippie, Vanishing, 171. 140 Alice Fletcher: "her philanthropy swallowed up her anthropolo- .26 9Y-' Substantial and steadfast opposition to the sweeping prohibition of Indian languages, though anomalous, was not nonexistent in white society: missionary resolve to use the indigenous vernaculars as a means of instruction remained determined. Claiming that prohibiting instruction in Indian languages constituted a form of religious persecution because it impeded Indians’ learning of Christianity, religious organizations engaged the government in bitter conflict over the initially unconditional ban of Indian languages.‘27 The government acquiesced, declaring that the "preaching of the Gospel to Indians in the vernacular is, of course, not prohibited." Furthermore, such methods were deemed by the government as "essential in explaining the precepts of the Christian religion to adult Indians who do not understand."28 The denominational defense of the right to instruct Indians in their native languages should. be recognized, however, not as a victory for tolerance of cultural diversity, but as a demonstration of the power of white self-interest. Religious organizations merely had a different priority in their attempt to transform the Indians--conversion--a goal 2“Philip C. Garrett, "Indian Citizenship," Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Lake Mohonk Conference (1886), 8-11, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 59. 27Prucha, Great Father, 691. 28ARCIA, 1887, xxiv. 141 that the government as well held in high esteem. Bilingual education simply expedited the realization of this particular objective. The true sectarian attitudes toward the value of Indian languages were not discordant with those of government policy. This is evident in the sentiments expressed by the Reverend Lyman Abbott, who, in advocating a full-scale educational system for Indians, argued at Lake Mohonk in 1888 that while the government was wholly wrong in assuming to prohibit individual societies and churches from.teaching what doctrine they pleased in what language they chose, so long as they paid the expenses out of their own pockets, it was wholly right in refusing to spend a dollar of the people’s money to educate a pagan popula- tion in a foreign tongue. The impalpable walls of language are more impenetrable than walls of stone. It would be in vain to destroy the imaginary line which surrounds the reservation if we leave the Indian hedged about by an ignorance of the language of his neighbors; this would be to convert him from the gypsy isolated into a gypsy of the neighborhood.” As in the example of denominational opposition to government language policy, most white attitudes toward that policy can be explained by a discussion that reduces the issues to 'the central component of self-interests The significant appeal of the language policy in particular andlof the assimilationist program in general existed in the fact that it quenched the multifarious desires of diverse white ”Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conferences of Friends of the Indian (1888), 11-16, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 213. 142 interest groups. Assimilation crossed sectional concerns. It attracted the eastern progressives who sought to appease the demons of their benevolence by bestowing the gifts of reform, Christianity, education, and civilization upon Indians. Westerners could stand behind the same program because it promised to pacify their defiant Indian neighbors. Assimila- tion also appealed to both the benevolent- and malevolent- minded; whether one’s intent was sharing "progress" or appropriating Indian land, "civilizing" the Indians promised opportunity. Yet even distilled to the elemental issue of self- interest, the contradictory stances taken by proponents and opponents of assimilation were intriguingly convoluted. While one western homesteader might have found his fears of Indian reprisals and resistance allayed by the program of assimila- tion, another protested educating Indians because it equipped them to more effectively resist white depredations. Represen- tative James W. Throckmorton of Texas put words to this white apprehension, arguing that educated Indians had become the most "cunning and treacherous of their race."30 Western cattlemen resisted assimilation because preserving aspects of traditional Indian cultures--especially the large tribal landholdings--might enable them to continue cultivating the exclusive white access to expanses of tribal land. Yet other westerners, in the hopes of securing their own smaller slices 30Elaine Goodale Eastman, Red Man’s Moses, 97. 143 of presently Indian land, put aside their trepidations to side with the eastern reformers whose encompassing Americanizing program rejected Indian cultures and the holding of communal land based upon them. Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows encouraged. and. glorified. (and. profited. from) 'traditional Indian cultures and thereby strengthened the monolithic image of a braided-haired, mounted Indian in the national conscious- ness” At the same time, reformers diligently pushed onward in their efforts to eradicate all remnants of the reality of that image (including attempting to prohibit Indian involvement in )3‘ Spanning such conflicting jperspectives, Cody’s shows. white self-interest remained the consistent, guiding princi- ple. Self-serving or otherwise, whatever white resistance to the language policies did exist ultimately can be character- ized as either tepid or tangential. Ethnologists ascribed some value to Indian languages through both statements and through their extensive investigative endeavors, but they balked at rejecting the efforts to assimilate Indians. Religious organizations directly opposed the inclusive ban on Indian languages, but only because one specific aspect hindered.the proselytizing efforts central.to their existence. In fact, the general assault on Indian languages remained mostly unchallenged for the simple reason that the end toward 3‘Prucha, Great Father, 712-715. Prucha discusses a range of white responses to both traditional Indian cultures and to the education meant to eliminate them. 144 which that attack endeavored--the elimination of "Indian- ness"--was widely accepted. X. OLDWAYS AND NEW: INDIAN RESPONSES TO WHITE EDUCATION AND ITS LANGUAGE POLICIES In responding to the United States government’s attempt to entirely substitute English in place of their own languages, Indians themselves did not present a unified voice. This is in no way surprising, for the immense differences between Indian cultures and between individual Indians themselves naturally entailed a wide range of reactions to the assimila- tion program. Michael Coleman, in his examination of Indian autobiographical information relating to education, lists seven major factors that determined the myriad and dynamic Indian responses: kin, cultural background, peers, personal motivation, specific curriculum, institutional context, and the impact of the educators/whites.‘ These powerful and overlapping forces shaped the ways that Indians responded to white education in general and to the extermination of Indian languages that represented the central objective of that education. Although Indian responses were as distinct as the ‘Coleman, School, 69. 145 146 individuals who demonstrated them, the three general catego- ries that Coleman defined--support, resistance, and re- jection--prove useful despite some crucial qualifications to be discussed below. For many Indians, recognizing the importance of "going to see some writing"--the Winnebago phrase for schooling--drew them.to support at least partially the government’s attempt to educate them according to white principles.2 Yet such support must be understood not as a submissive, accommodative gesture, but as a positive, creative response to the rapidly changing world Indians saw around them. The true character of these responses is evident in the reasons that Indians advocated pursuing white education. For example, Asa Daklugie recalled that his uncle, Geronimo, insisted that he accompany Captain Pratt to Carlisle because "without this training in the ways of the White Eyes our' people could never compete with them . . . it was necessary that those destined for leadership prepare themselves to cope with the enemy."3 Similarly, a Shawnee chief encouraged Thomas Alford and other young men of the tribe to learn to read and write in English so that the Shawnee nation could "use the club of the white man’s wisdom against him in defense of [Shawnee] customs."4 Indian 2Nabokov, Testimony, 215. Nabokov cites this phrase but offers no specific source. 3Asa Daklugie et al., Indeh: An Apache Odyssey, edited by Eve Ball, 135-36. “Thomas Wildcat Alford, Civilization, 73. 147 acceptance of white education was therefore a means to adapt to the new context of an ever-encroaching white civilization. For the numerous Indians who chose to pursue white education, the decision represented a tactic of asserting Indian strength and Indian rights. Specific support for learning the English language--which necessarily entailed formally forgoing use of one’s native tongue during the process--was expressed by the students themselves. Asa Daklugie recalled that "learning English wasn’t too bad . . . I wanted desperately to be able to read.":5 Refugio Savala, a Yaqui student and later poet, said he "started writing and became a word hunter in English and Spanish." Francis LaFlesche, Omaha, described his joy at working through the alphabet and learning to read short sentences.“ And at least two Indian autobiographers remem- bered going above and beyond the prescribed regulations to enhance their English language skills. Irene Stewart, when she transferred to a school where Indian languages were not prohibited, continued to speak English. Jason Betzinez quit his "outing" with.a Quaker farm family because he felt it took “Daklugie, Indeh, 144-47, as cited in Coleman, School, 107 . “Refugio Savala, Autobiography of'a Yaqui Poet, 44-45, as cited in Coleman, School, 107; and Francis LaFlesche, Middle Five, 13. Although it is clear that LaFlesche simply enjoyed the challenge and thrill of learning, it is also obvious that his determined efforts to learn English reflected a strong desire to please his schoolmate, mentor, and best friend, Brush. “_*.‘... ._ 148 too much time away from his learning English.7 Yet such sentiments of support do not necessarily embody rejections of traditional Indian cultures. As stated above, many Indians recognized the pragmatic benefits of understand- ing white culture and of being able to work within it to defend.tribal identity and.rights. .Also, many Indian students were drawn to learning the language and practices of a strange culture for a variety of other reasons. To some, attending school satisfied a curious nature or fulfilled a desire to court challenge and adventure. For one particular young Indian, being a student meant avoiding the tedium and hard work of having to tend sheep.8 Such reasons reflect common human traits. They may also have more to do with traditional Indian cultural values than with cultural accommodation. For example, pushing oneself to confront and master the unknown challenge of learning English at a distant boarding school may have represented an adaptive, creative attempt to fit a new experience into the ‘traditional Indian context. in ‘which courage and testing one’s potential were highly valued. Whites tended to grossly overestimate the extent to which Indian pursuit of white education constituted an abandonment of Indian cultures. Succumbing to what one scholar called the 7Irene Stewart, A Voice in Her Tribe, 34, Jason Betzinez , I Fought with Geronimo, 154-59 , both cited in Coleman, School, 108, 113, respectively. 8Don Talayesva, Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian, edited by Leo W. Simmons, 94, as cited in Coleman, School, 69. 149 "myth of assimilation"--which takes outward manifestations such as the adoption of English and the absence of visible traditional cultural traits such as feathers and braids as evidence of successful assimilation--white5 remained ignorant of the substantial maintenance of vibrant Indian cultures. Meanwhile, such.critical components of traditional Indian ways of life as native languages continued to flourish.9 Rather than relinquishing their traditional cultures in favor of the culture of white Americans, those Indians who undertook white education strove to shape it to their needs. To many Indians, white education simply represented an unavoidably indispensable supplement to the traditional education preserved within Indian communities. "Indeed, to the extent that Indian adults exercised choice, they sent their children to school to learn white ways; they themselves would teach the oldways."” In this sense, the Indian educa- tion program.was somewhat mutually satisfying to both Indians and whites: Indians sought the individual and tribal benefits afforded by white education, and whites reveled in the fact that at least some Indians were enthusiastically cultivating 9Albert Wahrhaftig, "Community and the Caretakers," New University Thought, iv:4, Winter, 1966-67, as cited in Berry, Education, 72-73. Whites failed to understand that adoption of English did not necessarily mean abandonment of Indian languages; many Indians merely learned Engli5h as a second language. Furthermore, such aspects of traditional Indian culture as social relationships and conceptions of themselves as a people survived despite incorporation.of the more obvious aspects of white culture. ”Coleman, School, 112. 150 aspects of white culture. Through this bifurcated approach to education some Indians aspired to much higher ends than most reformers recognized or set for themselves. Both the duality of and the high expectations for the education process pursued by those Indians who sought instruction in white schools are especially articulated by Joseph LaFlesche. LaFlesche, a principal chief of the Omaha, sent his son Francis to white schools so that the young boy "might profit by the teachings of [our] own people and that of the white race." According to LaFlesche’s counsel, whites "have in their books the utterances of great and learned men. I had treasured the hope that you would wish to know the good deeds done by men of your own race, and by men of the white race, that you.would follow their example and take pleasure in doing the things that are noble and helpful to those around you."“ In this passage, the elder LaFlesche demonstrated.an awareness.of the benefits.of cultural diversi- ty that intolerant white educational policy never acknowledged and in fact endeavored to deny and reject. White policy makers never came close to embracing a program of such simple virtue, and thus LaFlesche’s eloquent expression stands through history as a dramatic and neglected alternative to the assimilationism ascribed to by the United States. A.significant number of Indians.did.actively'and.optimis- tically seek. white education, of ‘which English language l‘LaFlesche, Middle Five, 127-28. 151 instruction was understood by all parties as the dominant theme. Parents willingly sent children off to school, and some children looked forward. to and. then enjoyed their experiences there. Yet nowhere is there evidence that even these Indians supported the sweeping prohibition of Indian languages. While many Indians courted white education and English instruction, the denigration and elimination of their traditional languages was encouraged. by" none. Instead, Indians who chose to pursue white education did so defiantly, undertaking a difficult process they recognized as coercive and intolerant, yet resisting the methods and attitudes that never succeeded in vanquishing Indian love and respect for their traditional languages and cultures. Carl Sweezy, an Arapaho, described the ambivalence that must have character- ized many an Indian’s sentiments toward white education. We had everything to learn about the white man’s road . . . We had to learn to live by farming instead of by hunting and trading; we had to learn from people who did not speak our language or try to learn it except for a feW'words, though they expected us to learn theirs. ‘We had to learn to cut our hair short, and to wear close- fitting clothes made of dull-colored cloth, and to live in houses, though we knew that our long braids of hair and embroidered robes and moccasins and tall, round lodges were more beautiful.” Furthermore, the qualified support of those Indians who actively encouraged seeking white education may be misleading. ”Carl Sweezy, The Arapaho Way, A Memoir of an Indian Boyhood, edited by Althea Bass, 5. 152 For if even these somewhat accommodative individuals resisted the wholesale rejection of Indian cultures, then it is likely that the vast majority of Indians engaged at least to some extent in resisting white education. The issue of attempting to categorize Indian responses to education itself becomes complicated; distinctions blur easily. For instance, Geronimo’s advice to his nephew to undertake white education in order to more successfully compete with whites must stand as both support and resistance. Therefore resistance and support may not be truly discrete categories, but rather overlapping responses on a dynamic spectrum. True, there is a distinction to be found between those who willingly sent their children to school and those who had to be coerced into acceptance through police action or the withholding of rations. Yet even the children whose parents encouraged attendance at school practiced many of the same measures of resistance--and even rejection--described below. First, it is valuable to recognize a difference between resistance to and rejection of white education. As Coleman pointed.out, "resistance means those forms of pupil opposition to the school and its staff that were compatible with contin- ued attendance, often compatible with impressive achievement as a student."‘3 Thus as accommodating and exemplary a student as Francis LaFlesche, whose father so eloquently expressed his support for white education, could violate ”Coleman, School, 146. 153 school rules by engaging in such tactics of resistance as the telling of traditional tribal stories.” In this sense even those students excelling in education must be recognized as actively shaping education to their needs, of asserting and maintaining tribal and individual identity in the face of concerted pressure to do just the opposite. Resistance was not "to prevent learning or to plot permanent escape." Instead, resistance tactics "institutionalized both resistance and acceptance, and expressed fundamentally ambivalent pupil responses. Although always a threat to the total control sought by school authorities, such [methods] could also work to their advantage by making school more bearable to the students."” Thus the students themselves molded white education to their visions of its means and ends. Rules prohibiting the use of Indian languages in the schools were explicit, encompassing, and well understood. Thus students were quite aware that speaking in their native tongue was not allowed and would result in hardly subtle forms of punishment: "we were told never to talk Indian and if we were caught, we got a strapping with a leather belt."” Lame Deer recalled that the punishment expected for breaking the prohibition of Indian languages was perniciously diverse, 14Ibid., 152. ”Ibid., 157. ”"Lone Wolf Returns. . .to that Long Ago Time," in Montana, The Magazine of Western History, vol. 22, no. 1. (1972), reprinted in Nabokov, Testimony, 220. 154 ranging from being forced to stand nose to a wall or being beaten with a brass-studded ruler.‘7 The ample evidence of punishment received--including memories of bruised bodies and psyches--stands therefore as a sort of corpus delicti of equally substantial Indian resistance.” Despite understanding the punishment that resistance entailed, Indian children resisted the prohibition of their languages not only frequently, but wittingly and willfully. According to Frank Mitchell, a student at the Fort Defiance Boarding School, "most of the time we talked Navajo, our own language, to each other. They did not understand us."” Another student recalled that "the children stayed some distance from those in authority, or whispered, covering their mouths, when they wished to use their native tongue."20 And, somewhat more defiantly, the indomitable Lame Deer claimed 17Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 33. ”Consider the substantial evidence that Indian students frequently received harsh corporal punishment for speaking their banned native languages in light of the not uncommon ethnohistorical evidence that many Indian cultural groups traditionally disapproved of using physical punishment upon their children. For example, inmJim Whitewolf [pseudonym], Jim Whitewolf: The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian, edited by Charles S. Brant, Brant asserts that the Kiowa never physical- ly punish their children, for their "mores oppose it strong- ly," 29. Whites typically viewed the opposition of Indian parents to physical punishment as indulgent and argued that it "spoiled" Indian children. ”Frank Mitchell, Navajo Blessingway Singer, 66, as cited in Coleman, School, 152. 2° Kay Bennett, Kaibah, 226-27, as cited in Coleman, School, 152. 155 that he once cursed a white educator in.Lakota, a diversionary smile upon his young face.” Ultimately, any use of an Indian language in school constituted resistance to the uncompromis- ing ban imposed upon them. Indian recalcitrance took subtler and more general forms. For example, various tribes skirted the language prohibition by using tribal funds to contract with the mission schools which continued bilingual education.” Furthermore, since language policy and education in general were inseparable--and indistinguishable in terms of their ultimate objectives and guiding principles--resistance to education must also repre- sent resistance to language imposition and prohibition. Thus unsuccessful struggles to avoid or escape schooling constitut- ed resistance to the language policies. Even passivity-- ranging from non-participation in the classroom to deliberate- ly denying one’s full potential in school--represented effective resistance according to Coleman.” In recalling his opposition to education, Lame Deer declared. "I wouldn’t cooperate in the remaking of myself. I played the dumb Indian. They couldn’t make me into an apple--red outside and white inside.W” Assertion of tribal identity demonstrated ”Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 34. 22Leibowitz, "Language Policy," 4. Tribal monies had been ruled beyond the scope of the act prohibiting the direction of funds to sectarian schools. ”Coleman, School, 154. 24Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 35. 156 similarly subtle resistance, as students went.truant.to attend tribal ceremonies and celebrations. Rather than a conscious effort.to oppose education, such.actions may merely reflect an expression of homesickness or of simple desire--the students may have just enjoyed taking part in traditional ceremonies. Regardless, these actions effectively hindered the assimila- tion process and therefore constituted resistance. Coleman asserted that in fact "all cases of syncretic blending of traditions should be seen as cultural resistance to school demands for total rejection of the tribal past and total acceptance of the Christian civilization."” Indian children engaged in a variety of indirect, but nonetheless disruptive, resistance tactics. While one student’s inclinations led to his filing a complaint with the Indian Rights Association regarding school conditions, others resorted to less ambitious methods such as releasing school pigs from their pens to ensure that time for their recovery would be time out of the classroom. Tactics of registering resistance to white education also included such measures as circumventing sex segregation rules or refusing to submit to corporal punishment.” One shrewdly refractory group of students devised descriptive, disparaging names in Navajo for ”Coleman, School, 151. ”Ibid., 148-49. 157 the faculty and staff of which they did not approve.” Though mischievous and perhaps a little puerile, such a strategy was no less explicit in its expression of contempt for the educational process in general and the language prohibition specifically. Looking back upon Indian education from the vantage point of the early twentieth century, one scholar of the English language declared that "the Indian" had never "taken enthusi- astic advantage of such opportunities as he had to learn English. Too proud to make himself ridiculous by inadequate attempts to speak an unknown language, he preferred either to remain.silent.or'to'transact.necessary‘negotiations.through.an interpreter.”8 This evaluation of Indian receptiveness to white efforts to impose English does find qualified support in historical analyses. A prominent historian argued that as "few tribes showed any intention of accepting educational facilities willingly, the necessity for forceful methods was increasingly admitted."” But any perception of Indian resistance that denies the positive, culturally assertive, creative opposition to acculturation is inherently flawed. Despite being outnumbered and oppressed by an ever-encroaching white civilization, Indians chose to resist white culture and 27Mitchell, Navajo Blessingway Singer, as cited in Coleman, School, 147. 28Krapp, English, 267. ”Priest, Stepchildren, 152. 158 did so with fortitude; Indians opposed language education and resisted using English because they already possessed beloved, expressive, and effective languages of their own.” Beyond qualified support and determined resistance, many Indians shunned white education outright and thereby entirely rejected any efforts toward language imposition and prohibi- tion. Yet evidence from those who most thoroughly rejected white education is scarce because, by avoiding education altogether, these Indians drastically limited the voice that history would grant them. Autobiographical data may therefore skew estimations of the balance between support, resistance, and rejection, precisely because those most inclined or able to write their memoirs (and encouraged to do so by white literary powers) would logically be those who did not, for whatever reasons, reject white education. However, autobio- graphical evidence does serve the invaluable purpose:of acting as witness to feats of rejection, of providing a voice to the often voiceless. And so one finds such evidence as that related by Jim Whitewolf. In describing his experiences at school, Whitewolf recalled that he fled on three occasions, voluntarily returning only the first time. Despite being forcibly returned after the next two attempts to escape, Whitewolf went on to write an autobiography, an autobiography ”Consider Francis LaFlesche’s description of his native Omaha language: "the beauty and picturesqueness, the euphoni- ous playfulness, or the gravity of diction which.I heard among my own people." LaFlesche, Middle Five, xix. 159 in which.he recounted the story of those who had fled with him on each escape. And thus exists the ample evidence of those Indians who refused to submit to white culture.31 As with support and resistance, a variety of expressions embodied rejection. Many students rejected all aspects of white education.by--through.either their parents’ or their own methods--entirely avoiding school. Unfortunately for many similarly disposed, however, the United States considered its Indian education program neither voluntary nor optional. One Indian student recalled that "the government had decided we were to get the white man’s education by force . . . None of us wanted to go and our parents did not want to let us go."32 Soldiers and police did the dirty work. But rejection of white education continued, transplanted to the schools themselves. Coleman asserted that such manifestations of defiance as arson, chronic truancy or escape, expulsion due to extreme intransigence or refusal to submit to school codes (such as haircuts), and suicide constituted effective efforts of rejection.” Although Coleman hedged somewhat on the issue of suicide--stating that explicit evidence is lacking--Lame Deer confirmed.this tragic response:to school, remembering the 3‘Whitewolf, Whitewolf, 87-90. ”"Lone Wolf Returns," reprinted in Nabokov, Testimony, 220. ”Coleman, School, 165-7. 160 ten year old student who hanged herself.” There is reason to believe that language policy in particular played. a substantial role in inciting Indian rejections of white education. Abandoning aspects of Indian cultures for white held no tremendous appeal on any count for most Indians. Therefore marked Indian resistance attended all attempts to impose white culture. And although probably swollen with some degree of paranoia and self-interest, the sweeping statement of one Agent Armstrong of the Crow does reverberate with a measure of veracity: "The truth is the Indians hate the white man’s life in their hearts.”” Yet according to one historian, language policy’s effect on Indian reactions was especially crucial, for "the English lan- guage . . . was probably a major factor in producing accep- "” Regardless of the degree of validity tance or rejection. one grants to the preceding statement, the fact remains that many Indians flatly rejected white education and whatever language policy might have been contained therein. That language policy was a determining factor in this rejection is supported by explicit evidence. Lone Wolf’s recollection of one particular incident attests to this fact--as well as to the argument that the demarcations between support, resis- tance, and rejection were never clear or fixed. "I remember 3“Lame Deer and Erdoes, Lame Deer, 35. 35ARCIA, 1884, 111, as cited in Priest, Stepchildren, 243. ”Coleman, School, 174. 161 one evening when we were all lined up in a room and one of the boys said something in Indian to another boy. The man in charge of us pounced on the boy, caught him by the shirt, and threw him across the room. ILater we found out that his collar bone was broken . "37 The boy's father promptly removed him from school. To the government’s attempts to assimilate them through compulsory education in general and the language policies in particular, Indians responded in diverse fashion. Some rejected out of hand all white education, others did so only after particularly distasteful or simply more direct experi- ences. Many on the opposite end of the spectrum courted aspects of education--some before possessing any firsthand experience, some even after initial opposition, and many even after extended periods in school. But a common theme--whether absolute rejection or qualified support represented the chosen perspective--permeated all Indian attitudes toward white education: the repudiation of their cultures was neither supported nor tolerated by Indians. Thus while one historian of Indian education could claim validly that he located no evidence of an Indian student regretting learning English, one must recognize the sentiments embodied in a former student’s statement that "they told us that Indian ways were bad. They said we must get civilized. I remember that word, too. It 37"Lone Wolf Returns," reprinted in Nabokov, Testimony, 220-21. 162 means ‘be like the white man.’ I am willing to be like the white man, but I did not believe Indian ways were wrong."38 Such resilient beliefs have significant implications for the United States government’s Indian language policy. As demonstrated. above, qualified. Indian. support. for' English language instruction was rather extensive; many Indian parents encouraged their children to learn the language of the white culture that surrounded them, and many children did so with enthusiasm” If one accepts such support as the mark of Indian sanction, then although the imposition of English was coer- cive, unyielding, paternalistic, and ethnocentric, it was not necessarily or entirely oppressive. waever, the absolute prohibition of any use of Indian languages cannot be justi- fied. Education in a second language certainly does not require the elimination of the first. In fact, such education may be facilitated using the native language as a tool of instruction. If the concern truly lay in bringing the English language to the Indians, then some degree of instruction in Indian languages should not only have been permitted, but encouraged. Yet no matter what the educational concerns of Indian instruction, the banning of any communication in Indian languages remains severe and unwarranted. As an unmitigated attempt to exterminate an aspect of Indian culture and as consistently opposed by even those Indians who advocated 38Coleman, School, 184; Sun Elk quoted in Edwin R. Embree, Indians of the Americas, reprinted.in Nabokov, Testimony, 221. 163 learning English, the ban must be acknowledged as sinister and reprehensible. XI."CIVILIZATION DESTROYS THE INDIAN": LANGUAGE ASSIMILATION AS A PROGRAM OF EXTERMINATION Ultimately, despite involving a professed desire to assimilate American Indians, United States Indian language policy was part of an education program primarily designed to eliminate Indian cultures--and thereby "vanish the Indian." The education of Indians as it was undertaken grew not out of generosity and benevolence, but out of apprehension: the development of the kind of centralized, standardized, coer- cive, and Protestant-led program of public schooling to which Indians found themselves subjected in the late nineteenth century was spawned by "a gut fear of the cultural divisive- ness inherent in the increasing religious and ethnic diversity of American life."1 According to this fear, cultural diversi- ty represented not only deviance but menace. This perception of cultural alternativeslas a threat.to the white, essentially Anglo-Saxon Protestant vision of American life created a 1Michael B. Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools, 39. Illustrating a particularly revealing parallel, Katz discusses the prohibition of the German language in Pennsylvania public schools. 164 165 mind-set conducive to the formulation and implementation of an education system that sought to exterminate all vestiges of cultural alternatives—-including all aspects of Indian cultures and specifically including Indian languages. Everything that in white minds defined the image of the Indian came under siege. Meticulously inclusive, the program of cultural annihilation targeted every possible trait of Indian cultures. Indian subsistence practices had already been.dramatically disrupted by, as in the case of the buffalo, the elimination of food sources, or by the often unscrupulous diminution of Indian lands. But the coherent assimilation program was more encompassing and more direct in its methods: Indianmreligions, deemed pagan and inferior by reformers, were subjected to a sectarian-led, government sanctioned program of conversion; the Dawes Act leveled an attack on the tribal system and communal land-holding; medicine men and traditional dances, celebrations, and marriage practices were among the cultural components prohibited by Indian policy regulations; schools sheared the long hair of Indian students and stripped them of their traditional Indian clothes; and a program of renaming Indians was undertaken by the government. Indian languages were, of course, not exempt. Commis- sioner of Indian Affairs J.C.D. Atkins blithely argued that prohibiting Indian languages was no different than prohibiting the use of the "scalping knife" or tomahawk.2 'Yet language, 2ARCIA, 1887, xxiii. 166 in the minds of reformers, represented.alcritical component of barbaric and therefore doomed Indian culture. As one Indian agent put it, "schools conducted in the vernacular are detrimental to civilization. They encourage Indians to adhere to their time-honored customs and inherent superstitions which the government has in every way sought to overcome, and which can only be accomplished by adopting uniform rules requiring instruction in the English language exclusively."3 Such a statement not only asserted the importance of language to achieving assimilationist policy objectives, but also revealed the true objectives themselves. If Indians were not going to wither and die in the face of white culture--a long-held but imminently moribund percep- tion--then whites advocated manipulating that culture as a tool to completely eliminate the perceived threat to the status quo that Indian cultures represented. Through white education, "Indianness" would be extinguished. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas J. Morgan supported this endeavor, insisting that Indians "must stand or fall as men and women, not as Indians."4 By implication, Indians would be neither fully civilized.nor fully human until the replacement.of their cultures. Similar sentiments echoed abundantly across the field of reform, as the public demanded "that 3Ibid., xxiv. 4Morgan, Indian Education, 11. 167 Indians . . . become white men in one generation."5 In actuality, such statements clamored not for granting Indians full admission into white culture, but for effectively transforming them into non-Indians. Both the intent and the impatience behind the attempt to completely eradicate Indian cultures found expression in the words of one concerned reformer who wondered "why we cannot absorb two hundred and fifty thousand Indians into our millions and never know where they are."6 Thus the solution to the "Indian Problem"-- resolved according to the adage "out of sight, out of mind"—- lay in the elimination of all visible manifestations of Indian cultures. Other alternatives existed. Only decades after such extreme cultural intolerance found expression in the concerted program of ostensible assimilation, the federal government’s Indian New Deal of the 19305 endeavored to realign Indian education policy according to tenets of cultural pluralism, including encouraging the preservation and use of Indian languagesf7 But late nineteenth century Indian education did SARCIA, 1881, xxxiv. 6Frances Campbell Sparhawk, "The Indian’s Yoke," North American Review, CLXXXIII, (Jan. 1906), 50, as cited in Dippie, Vanishing, 180. 7Led by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier and involving such measures as the Wheeler-Howard (Indian Reorga- nization) Act, the Indian New Deal addressed problems and presented significant reforms in all realms of Indian Affairs, including culture, landholding, education, and legal rights. The central principles of this heightened concern for Indian well-being were a respect for Indian cultures and a commitment 168 not represent a misguided attempt to share with Indians the finest attributes of white American culture. Instead, education in white culture was utilized deliberately as the wedge by which to separate Indians from their traditional cultures. Furthermore, the catch-word of the entire program-- assimilation--is markedly inaccurate. If one takes the term to denote the cultivation of similarity, then its application to Indian education remains partially legitimate: through the forced substitution of white American culture for traditional Indian cultures, reformers hoped to make Indians less dissimi- lar from themselves by making them less "Indian." Yet if the definition of assimilation is extended to include notions of complete absorption and incorporation--the definition asserted by reformers themselves--then designating education efforts as assimilationist is invalhdf‘ Despite the din of declarations contending that complete assimilation was the ultimate aim of educating Indians in white culture, definite limits upon the extent of accepting them into white society were recognized. By not granting United States citizenship to all Indians born in the country until 1924 and by allowing the prohibition of Indian suffrage until as late as 1948 in Arizona and 1962 in to uphold Indian self—determination. 8In a representative example of assimilationist rhetoric, Thomas Morgan called for "the complete education and absorp- tion into the national life of those who for more than one hundred years have been among us, but not of us." Morgan, Indian Education, 20. 169 New Mexico, the government neglected components central to the realization of true and thorough assimilation.9 The issue of racial intermixture between whites and Indians also disclosed the real intent behind the veil of assimilation. Although white reformers sought to make Indians culturally indistinguishable from themselves, most certainly never advocated crossing perceived biological boundaries. Arguing ‘that. "many' people ‘naturally ‘viewed intermarriage with . . . dread" and that most reformers did not exhibit "enthusiasm" regarding miscegenation, Priest referred to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis A. Walker's particular preference for extermination over intermarriage.” Philip C. Garrett, a lawyer and member of the executive committee of the Indian Rights Association, stated that he did "not recommend the intermingling of the races," and that he believed most whites would be intelligent enough to avoid interracial sexual relations and thereby "avert the nightmare of a confusion of races or the degradation of the Caucasian by either Indian or African infusion."11 Notwithstanding the popularity and prevalence of assimilation rhetoric, the physical distinctions 9Dates cited in Dippie, Vanishing, 196. 10Francis A. Walker, The Indian Question, (Boston; 1884), 94, as cited in Priest, Stepchildren, 147. 11"Indian Citizenship," Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Lake Mohonk Conferences (1884), 8-11, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 61, 62. 170 between whites and Indians were to be maintained.” Americanization had its definite and substantial legal qualifications, assimilation its biological restrictions. Therefore the terms "Americanization" and "assimilation" were 12The staunch and impassioned opposition to racial intermixture should be understood as to some extent reflecting popular, although waning, anthropological concepts of the mid to late nineteenth century. Grounded.in the theory'ofypolygen- ism-~that different races were created separately and with distinct qualities and capabilities--many Americans firmly believed, with legitimate scientific.opinions.to support them, that Indians were a biologically separate and inferior race. It is no wonder, then, that most whites viewed intermixture with some dread. However, there were white Americans advocating racial intermixture. None other than prominent and progressive ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan encouraged miscegenation. This encouragement reflected both scientific beliefs and a social agenda. First of all, Morgan’s perspective involved a hearty dose of biological determinism; to Morgan, culture was in large measure a factor of biology. His belief in the Enlight- enment principles of equality and progress and in the rejuve- nated theory of monogenism, however, required that he shape his notions of biological determinism to his encompassing belief in the essential equality of man. Thus, Morgan argued that the inferior Indians could be uplifted to a position of equality with whites through intermixture: "the only way to tame [the Indians] is to put in the white blood." (Cited in Bieder, Science, 225.) Morgan’s objective involved more than acculturating or "elevating" Indians through racial intermixture. Morgan, like other reformers, believed that Indian cultures would, through assimilationist efforts, be replaced by white culture. His aim, however, was more insidious in light of its desired results. Although truly benevolently intended, Morgan’s encouragement of racial intermixture was designed not only to eliminate Indian cultures, but also to physically eliminate Indians. Through,thejprogressiveldilution of Indian blood that would attend intermixture ‘with. the ‘vastly' more :numerous whites, Indians, in Morgan’s view, would eventually be overwhelmed-—and effectively "vanished." While there were, then, reformers proposing racial intermixture, such a perspective represented a minor and fringe element. Furthermore, advocating intermixture did not necessarily alter the true objectives of assimilation. Instead, the kind of assimilation proposed by Morgan promised a more thorough elimination of Indians. 171 at best euphemisms used to disguise the true objective of the language policies: cultural extermination. In its 1880 annual report, the Board of Indian Commis- sioners rather ruefully acknowledged two crucial facts regarding the state of Indian affairs: Indians were surviving and policies of genocide were increasingly unacceptable. The Indian population taken as a whole, instead of dying out under the light and contact of civilization, as has been generally supposed, is steadily increasing. The Indian is evidently destined to live as long as the white race, or until he becomes absorbed and assimilated with his pale brethren. We hear no longer advocated among really civilized men the theory of extermination.l3 Thus those concerned with the fate of the emduring Indian population turned their energies toward education and.its more acceptable form of extermination--cultural "assimilation. " Besides, as succinctly put by the Reverend Lyman Abbott, "it costs less to educate an Indian than it does to shoot him."14 Yet military confrontations with Indians and the cultural conflict within Indian education are less distinct than they might appear. In fact, Prucha asserted that "the conscious goal of both military and civilian officials" during Indian wars was "the destruction of the Indians’ traditional way of 13Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commission- ers (1880), 7-9, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 193. 14Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian (1888), 11-16, reprinted in Prucha, Americanizing, 212. 172 life"--not physical extermination.” Although the methods shifted from those of forced marches and cavalry charges to those of forced school attendance and blOWS'With.braSS studded rulers, cultural extermination by means of education repre- sented not a dramatic change in policy objectives, but a continuation. Substantial military involvement in Indian education--barracks were converted into instructional facili- ties and.military officials themselves engaged in administra- tion and teaching--attests to the veracity of this assertion. Similarly, the fact that Captain ZRichard Henry’ Pratt--a veteran of the Indian Wars who accompanied Apache prisoners of war first to Fort Marion, Florida, and then to the Hampton Institute--became the father of the Indian education program further’ demonstrates the connection. between :military’ and education concerns. Moreover, military and education approaches both framed the "Indian Problem" in terms of an elemental dichotomy of extinction and subjugation. In confrontations with Indians, the military was utilized to impose white interests. If fatalities occurred, they were seen by whites merely as the inevitable and unfortunate result of futile Indian resistance to unyielding white civilization. Education of the Indians displayed the same duality. For many assimilationist reform- ers, there was no middle ground: Indians had to be forced to adopt white civilization or face extinction. ‘Even.the seminal 15Prucha, Great Father, 549. - JI- 173 Civilization Fund had laid this out concisely, prescribing the means to provide "against the further decline and final extinction of the Indian tribes . . . and for introducing among them the habits and arts of civilization."16 Ultimately, the goal of both military and educational conflicts with Indians was control. The United States hoped through war or school to subordinate the Indian population and eliminate the sources and sustenance of continued Indian defiance. In fact, assimilation represented the coalescence of military and education efforts to control Indians” This is especially demonstrated by the evidence that the military and the government both explicitly encouraged the selection of students for Carlisle from tribes and families most likely to cause trouble, a tactic intended to extort good behavior from those Indians whose children attended. the. distant ‘white boarding schools.17 In this concerted effort to control Indians, reformers demanded that traditional Indian ways of life go the way of the thousands of Indian warriors and non-combatants who had been killed in conflicts with whites. Furthermore, as in the 16United States Statutes at Large, Vol. III, 516-17, as cited in Fletcher, Education, 163. 17Eastman, Pratt, 78; and Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1882, xvii, and CIA Report 1880, vii, as cited in George:R.IMcMullen, "Federal Policy in Indian Education, 1870- 1938," 27-28, 28 n. 19. The extortionist intent behind the selection of Indian pupils was recognized by the Indians themselves. CIA .Report 1900, 33, as cited in JMcMullen, "Federal," 40. .--.. 174 case of ndlitary conflict, education involved dangling the sword of physical extermination over Indian heads. The rhetoric of conquest remained intact. Thus Thomas J. Morgan threatened that "Indians must conform to ‘the white man’ s ways’ . . . or be crushed by [them]."18 Nowhere is the direct relationship between survival and acceptance of white domina- tion more clearly insisted upon than in the act authorizing the withholding of subsistence rations from Indians whose children did not attend school.19 In the equation laid out by reformers, adoption of white culture equaled survival; resistance was tantamount to courting extinction. In terms of this threat of physical extermination, assimilation brought nothing new to Indian policy. Indian resistance to whites always involved the risk of death, whether military or education tactics represented the pre- ferred means of imposing white interests. Inn the case of assimilation, however, even full Indian acquiescence promised a form of annihilation. This was not true of military confrontations between whites and Indians. If Indians acceptednwhite:demands,‘military'conflictnwaS'usually'avoided. Furthermore, military approaches allowed those Indians who were subdued to continue practicing much of their traditional cultures--and thereby to preserve and perpetuate Indian 18ARCIA, 1889, 3. 1927 Stat. 612, 628, 25 Congress, 283, as cited in Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law, 119. 175 identity. Assimilation was designed to do precisely the opposite: efforts to indoctrinate Indians in white culture were intended to obliterate Indian cultures, eliminate Indian identity, and thereby effectively eliminate Indians. Senator Ingalls of Kansas expressed both the hope and intent of the new emphasis of Indian policy, declaring "civilization destroys the Indian."20 Seen in this light, assimilation represented. a more sinister and inimical policy than a strictly military one. Ironically, even the most truculent expression of intimidation and hostility toward Indians and Indian cultures often entailed ascension to the heights of professed benevo- lence and paternalism. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel Taylor declared. that 'whites ‘would "soon. crush [Indians] out from the face of the earth, unless the humanity and Christian philanthropy of our enlightened statesmen shall ll21 interfere and rescue them. The oft-pugnacious Commissioner Morgan believed.that educating Indians was simply the virtuous path for white civilization to select "in dealing with those 'whom it might easily crush, but whom it is far nobler to adopt II22 as a part of its great family. Such beliefs--rampant in 20Congressional Record IV, 3953, as cited in Priest, Stepchildren, 243. 21Letter to W.T. Otto, July 12, 1867, Senate Executive Document no. 13, 40 Congress, 1 session, serial 1308, 5-6, as cited in Prucha, Great Father, 488. 22Morgan, Indian Education, 20. 176 the dialogue of late nineteenth century Indian policy reform-- denied the profound Indian strength to successfully resist assimilation and assert their own interests, and also further inflated the ethnocentrism of whites. Yet the statements of both Taylor and Morgan serve as concise characterizations of the sentiments upon which the Indian language policies were founded: backed by the threat of the United States government and military, reformers forged an education program intended to eliminate all that to them was Indian and, under the flag of benevolence, labeled it the Indians’ best interest. There were those reformers who recognized the harmful ramifications of the language policies for Indians. But most-—like Taylor and Morgan—-genuinely believed in the benevolence of teaching Indians to practice white culture exclusively, even if that required severe measures of coer- cion. For all reformers engaged in defining Indian policy, however, the immediate objective of the language policies remained the extermination of Indian languages and the substitution of English. Whatever grievances or tributes Indians might in the future utter regarding life in the United States would have to come in the language of their white neighbors. For reformers looked with impatience toward that time in the not so distant future when they could look upon the individual Indian--distinguishable only by the color of his skin--as he sat on the front porch of his little house on his small plot of land, hands tucked into the pockets of his 177 trousers, dreaming, it was hoped, of working hard and acquir- ing more private property--and expressing such longings in the familiar sounds of English. 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Correspondence-on the Subject of Teaching the Vernacular in Indian Schools, 1887-88. Washington, 1888. van Dijk, Teun A. Communicating Racism: Ethnic Prejudice in Thought and Talk. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications, 1981. Weatherford, Jack. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1990. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. .7.:'J._ ,x-._. . 1..” . . .u'. $35.12: .I .L V . ~... «. urn‘1'l a? ‘ $.13 . '|‘: ...~. . ‘..' 7r . rr. .:~- .-.-.~ . .I p-r“.‘-‘V-i"fl~ r 31'... f‘...’ .. . : .~. .. 1:1... .11 .1 ”1.1-1...- ..I - . x. . .. .1». n ”.1; 21 y i) r. ""‘"”". mm; _,_ , I- ”whim . ”1:. -"’1 IrI ». ,_ .... . 7. .. . a- «.ni,.1.... M,- ‘szhxca -5.” E _. ..I.‘y .1... J. -.- .f. ”5;: u... ~75. . 5.3241}. .4 ~. ...T.‘. ......- 5"".1'“ .. . .51-..- ~. ”1 .I ”mu-.72 . 3...}. MI r-_I:I -. .1...;_.~f :- - . 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