Indian school children at the Carlisle Indian School, in 1885
The first headmaster of this school,
a man named Richard Pratt, coined the term, "Kill the Indian and
Save the man." Many of the Indian students arrived as
refugees from the wars on the western plains. The school's
main objective was to enforce a policy of assimilation of Indians
into white society by removing the characteristics that made them
Indian. The students were dressed like white children,
prohibited from speaking their native languages, coerced into
strict obedience by means of corporal punishment, and taught to
read the King James Bible.
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Scores of
Indian children either died or ran away from the school, but this
did not dampen the enthusiasm among Methodists and
Congregationalist missionaries for accomplishing the goal of
assimilation. The federal government turned the care of
Indians over to the Methodists during this period, and by 1880 more
than 7,000 Indian children had been abducted from their families
and tribes and imprisoned in Indian schools like
Carlisle.
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