Boarding Schools History – Pratt – Philosophy
As an esteemed military officer, Richard Henry Pratt had extensive experience with Indians. He was appointed to take a group of 72 Indian prisoners to Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Florida. While there during the years of 1875 - 1878, he began a transformation of these prisoners through the use of explanation and persuasion, according to Pratt. This would later be the model used for all Indian Boarding Schools, in particular, the one that he established in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Resistance dissipated. Haircuts, uniforms, and English language instruction was at the core of the model. Local women who were former teachers, volunteered to instruct the English language to the prisoners.
While there, the prisoners began working by finding and polishing sea beans (shells) that tourists enjoyed. At first, they sold these shells to dealers but later began their own sales to the public. Additionally, they began to govern themselves, to keep order. After time, Pratt engaged the local community by having the Indians go out and work. He stated, “Although the race has never been numerous within our limits, it has throughout all our intercourse, been treated as an inimical and alien to our interests and it has never been admitted to the opportunities to become the useful fellow citizens we extend to the immigrating races.”21 The Indian prisoners picked and packed oranges, handled baggage at the train station, lumber at the sawmill, and provided manual labor to build wells.
In a 1872 speech Pratt delivered, he stated, “A great general has said the only good Indian is a dead one,” “In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”22 His belief was evident in this work with the Indian prisoners. Over time, as a result of Pratt’s efforts and others’ reports to the government and public, the Indians were released as prisoners to be educated at schools, which interested benefactors supported through funding. General Samuel Chapman Armstrong at the Hampton Agricultural School for Negroes agreed to them attending his institution mainly due to funding that would accompany them. Both Armstrong and Pratt had similar beliefs in regard to providing opportunities for minorities (African Americans and Indians) to become skilled in a trade to be self-supportive.
Pratt encouraged off-campus work to integrate the Indians into American society. In conversations with Hampton, Pratt spoke of his “dissatisfaction with systems to educate the Negro and Indian in exclusively race schools and especially - need to include them in the community. He stated, “Armstrong and I talked much about the future of these young men and the need for them to become Americanized. As our Indian system contemplated that all Indians should become farmers, I urged that during vacation they have privileges among our farmers to gain practical knowledge for managing their own farms.”23
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