Native American Boarding Schools History and Legacy

Vocabulary and key concepts highlighting the policies, institutions, figures, and historical events surrounding Native American boarding schools.

Assimilation Policy

A U.S. government initiative during the boarding school era designed to strip away Native American culture, language, and traditions under the mindset to "kill the Indian and save the man."

Basque Redondo

A barren reservation on the present-day Texas-New Mexico border where the Navajo were force-marched and nearly 2,000 Navajo died.

1868 Treaty with the Navajo

An agreement that allowed the Navajo to return to their homeland and included a provision requiring Navajo children to attend school.

Dawes Act of 1887

Federal legislation passed in 1887 that reinforced the reservation system and encouraged assimilation policies.

Carlisle Indian Boarding School

A prominent Native American boarding school founded in Pennsylvania in 1879 at a former military site.

Richard Henry Pratt

Superintendent of Carlisle Indian School who previously experimented on Native American captives in Florida and expressed the philosophy of killing the Indian in the man to save him.

Haskell

An institution in Lawrence, Kansas, founded in 1884 as the United States Indian Industrial Training School for 22 students, now known as Haskell Indian Nations University.

Sherman Indian High School

An institution started as the Paris Indian School in 1892 in Paris, California, before being moved to Riverside in 1901.

Manuelito

Navajo leader who agreed to uphold the 1868 treaty requiring American education by sending his sons to Carlisle Indian Boarding School.

John Collier

Commissioner of Indian Affairs who wrote in 1923 that federal Indian administration was a disgrace intended to rob Indians of property, destroy culture, and exterminate them.

Merriam Report

A 1928 report that documented widespread abuses within the Indian administration and boarding school system and proposed corrective recommendations.

Phoenix Indian School

A boarding school in Arizona dating from 1891 until its closure in 1990.

Intermountain Indian School

A boarding school in Brigham City, Utah, converted from a World War II military hospital, operating from 1950 to 1984.

Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968

Federal legislation passed in 1968 amid civil rights movement initiatives addressing Native American rights.

Indian Self Determination and Education Act of 1975

A 1975 federal act passed by Congress that granted tribal communities increased control over their own education and affairs.

Santa Fe Indian School

A school in New Mexico owned and operated by the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico to educate native youth under tribal self-determination.

Joseph Abeta

The administrator chosen by the Pueblo Council as the first superintendent of the Santa Fe Indian School.

Navajo Code Talkers

Native military personnel who used their native language during World War I and World War II to transmit military communications that enemies could not break.

Ira Hayes

Pima tribe member and Phoenix Indian School alumnus who participated in the World War II flag raising on Iwo Jima.

Jim Thorpe

Carlisle student who achieved global recognition as an Olympic and professional athlete, widely acknowledged as one of the world's greatest athletes.

Louis Tiwanema

Hopi distance runner and Carlisle attendee who won an Olympic silver medal in 1912.

Alan Hauser

Renowned sculptor, painter, and illustrator who attended the Santa Fe Indian School and later taught at Intermountain Indian School.

Billy Mills

Lakota Sioux distance runner from Pine Ridge Reservation who attended Haskell Institute and won the 1964 Olympic gold medal in the 10,000 meter event.