In his speech “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, Richard Pratt states the goal of the Carlisle Boarding School and its ambition to help the native peoples of America. As shown through Pratt’s speech, it was common by many Americans to think of the native’s way of life as savage; as it was so much different than that of the white American’s way of life. In this way, many people like Pratt were able to convince Americans that the natives should be pitied for having to live in the conditions that they do and that they would be better off adopting American customs. They thought that they were being quite charitable for freeing the native Americans from the way of life that kept them in such rugged poverty.
Contrary to this image painted by Pratt and the Carlisle Boarding school, Zitkala-sa, a former student of the boarding school, paints a different image of life as a native American; one that would have been quite startling to most Americans at the time. In Zitkala-sa’s account of her childhood, before her time in the Carlisle boarding schools, she did not paint a painful and struggling image. On the contrary, she describes a childhood that I believe many white Americans would have been able to resonate with as being normal and pleasant. In Zitkala-sa’s account, she describes her childhood memories as being filled with playing and often being at her mothers’ side. In the article, Zitkala-sa tells a story she remembers about her aunt and her mother and how they had a special relationship. While Zitkala-sa describes her mother as quiet and soft-spoken, she states that when her aunt was around, she “forgot her accustomed quietness, often laughing heartily at some of my aunt’s witty remarks” (Impressions of an Indian Childhood). This idea of a warm, friendly, household filled with laughter and jokes paints a much different image to the reader than what may have been expected at that time.
In her later articles, Zitkala-sa addresses her time spent in the boarding school, as well as its effects on her later in life. By doing this Zitkala-sa shows the lasting impact the Carlisle boarding school had on her life. One of the ways that Zitkala-sa’s narrative shows the long-term effects of this boarding school was through the experiences she had when the boarding school cut her long hair. Zitkala-sa uses her narrative to subvert the ideas of Pratt by showing the violent nature of how these boarding schools “civilized” native people. In the second passage, Zitkala-sa learns that the school is planning on cutting her hair as part of their process. Zitkala-sa feels terrible about this as in her culture she had been taught that it was a bad thing to have one haircut off by another and that only cowards have their hair cut off. In this way, she is seeing the school, quite literally, cut away her identity from her. I think this part of the passage sets the foundation for her feelings throughout the rest of the articles. It was when she was strapped to that chair and felt the cold metal blade of the scissors hit her neck that she understood what her life in the school was going to be like. It was at this point she realized that she no longer had her mother, that she understood that she was truly all alone. She was, as she describes, one of many little animals driven by a herder” (The School Days of an Indian Girl) In this quote, Zitkala-sa is showing that she realized this school had no intentions of letting her remain who she once was. This school was intent on transforming her and shaping her into what they deemed fit for a young native girl. This event changed the way that she looked at anything the school did and led her to question the school more.
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Great work here, Dan. I look forward to seeing you integrate Pratt’s language with your reading of Zitkala-sa for the Institutional Mission Analysis assignment.
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Hey Dan! Here’s a quote from Zitkala-Sa’s piece that you could use to directly quote her experience.
“In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.”
And here’s a quote from Pratt that discusses some of the goals of the Carlisle school:
“The school at Carlisle is an attempt on the part of the government to do this. Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. It has preached against colonizing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them. It has demanded for them the same multiplicity of chances which all others in the country enjoy. Carlisle fills young Indians with the spirit of loyalty to the stars and stripes, and then moves them out into our communities to show by their conduct and ability that the Indian is no different from the white or the colored, that he has the inalienable right to liberty and opportunity that the white and the negro have.”
(You definitely don’t have to use these it’s just a suggestion lol)
-Laramie 🙂
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Great connections with the text! For your IM analysis you may want to consider this quote form Pratt’s text (towards the end of his speech): “When we cease to teach the Indian that he is less than a man; when we recognize fully that he is capable in all respects as we are…”
I think this quote will be great because it shows how Pratt contradicts himself in his vision of Indian “civility.” He constantly says that native peoples are equal to everyone and capable of making their own choices, yet in Zitkala-sa’s personal narrative, she exposes how Indian boarding schools constantly took away choices for Indians (such as as when they forcibly cut Zitkala-sa’s hair).
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