Indian students 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 Carlisle's first students arrived as
refugees from the Indian Wars on the western plains. The
school's main objective was to enforce assimilation of Indians into
white society by removing the characteristics that made them
Indian. They 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
Bible.
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Many of the children either died or
ran away, but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of Methodists and
Congregationalist missionaries for accomplishing their goals.
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.