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Captain Richard Henry Pratt’s “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, and his development of the Carlisle Indian School

“Kill the Indian, save the man,” is what became Captain Richard Henry Pratt’s mission with the assistance and support of the federal government in committing the cultural genocide of American Indians. Known as the founder of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, PA, in 1879, Captain Pratt created his notorious motto “Kill the Indian, save the man” as the basis for establishing the school. He also justified his motto by claiming that he was saving the lives of many Native Americans by offering them an education of proper American demeanor (“Americanizing”) (History Matters, 1998).

Pratt, who grew up in Rushford, New York, with his widowed mother and two younger brothers began his military career in 1861 at the age of 21. After serving his first four years of enlistment, Pratt separated for two years and attempted to run a hardware business store. But since he wasn’t achieving much success, he decided to join the military again as a commissioned officer. It was in 1867 that Pratt entirely commenced his flourishing career as a military leader, and eventually completing almost 41 years of military service altogether (Pratt, 1964). In 1904, Pratt retired from the military as Brigadier General. Taking part in many historical war affairs prior to establishing the Carlisle Indian School, the two most significant events that he contributed to were the Washita Campaign (1868-1869) and the Red River War (1874-1875) (Wikipedia, 2009). Subsequently, following the Red River War, Captain Pratt was put on an assignment to maintain 72 Apache prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida in 1875. With this detail, Pratt came up with the idea of teaching the prisoners how to read, write, and speak English.

Within the era of the “Tragedy of the Plains Indians” (1860-1900) (Mintz, 2007) and before the development of the Carlisle Indian School; there was a series of Indian Wars that led Captain Pratt to come up with the scheme of teaching Native American children how to be “civilized” and not “savages” (Lin, 2000, History Matters, 1998, Pratt, 1964, and Mintz, 2007). From all the brutal wars that ended with numerous deaths, Pratt believed that the only way to keep anyone else from dying was to forcibly teach the Native Americans how to cope with white civilization. However, he was met with opposition from Native Americans, so there was more atrocities and bloodshed. Among those wars was the Thirty Years War from 1860 to 1890 in which the Plains Indians and the Government clashed over the launch of reservations. Following this war campaign, the Sand Creek Massacre happened on the Arapaho-Cheyenne reservation in 1864, where 700 American soldiers shot and killed 150 unarmed men, women, and children. Next, the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1874 on the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota resulted with victory for the Sioux since less than 100 warriors were killed. One of the last standoffs was the Nez Perce in 1877, whom Chief Joseph eventually surrendered with only 87 men, 184 women, and 147 children (Mintz, 2007). As a result of all of this bloodshed and loss of life, whether Native American or White, Captain Pratt regarded these unfortunate events was more of an “Indian Problem” (Lin, 2000) and used this line of reasoning as his motive to create the Carlisle Indian School with federal funding.

Also part of Captain Pratt’s request for the institute was his experiment with the Apache prisoners. Following the Red River War, 72 Apache men were unjustly detained for murdering several white men. After being transferred to the St. Augustine Prison in Florida under the command of Captain Pratt, the Apache men were reluctantly taught the English dialect, Christian Religion, art, craftsmanship, and guard duty. Out of the 72 men who were taught, only 22 prisoners had successfully learned a majority of Pratt’s lessons and were transferred to the Hampton Institute in Virginia where many freed slaves were allowed to go to school. Claiming these 22 men as successful proof to his experiment and resolution to the whole “Indian Problem”, Captain Pratt developed his infamous motto to “Kill the Indian, save the man” (Wikipedia, 2009).

After the Indian Wars that led to vicious conflicts, numerous killings, and false imprisonment; Captain Pratt’s solution to the whole “Indian Problem” was to convert all Native American children into real citizens of the United States by exterminating their native, traditional, and cultural identities. He brought forward the techniques of manipulating the children to be “good Indians”, rather than “bad Indians” (Keoke and Porterfield, 2003); moreover, beginning his crucial mission to cultural genocide. His interest in ‘savin’ and educating Native American children was the impetus for Pratt to establish the Carlisle Indian School for Native American children in 1879, which also ushered in the era of government Indian Boarding Schools throughout the United States (Keoke and Porterfield, 2003).

In his book, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools”, Ward Churchill asserts that Captain Pratt’s motto ultimately assimilates “genocide” into the definition of the motto. First, Churchill argues the definition of genocide to mean, “1) the destruction of [such] a group, and 2) preventing its preservation development.” Primarily, though, Churchill emphasizes Captain Pratt’s motto to mean “cultural genocide: includes all policies aimed at destroying the specific characteristics by which a target group is defined, or defines itself, thereby forcing them to become something else” (Churchill, 2004). Assigned as head of the “education for extinction” (Churchill, 2004) by the government, Captain Pratt was given the job to “exterminate the Indian but develop the man” (Churchill, 2004) of every single Native American child/student. In accomplishing this goal, Captain Pratt began his mission by forcibly intruding the homes of Native Americans and kidnapping all children. From there, the children were transferred to an old barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to be “rid from their heathen ways” (Lin, 2000).

The education at Carlisle Indian School consisted of various methods of torture and cruelty in order to brainwash the children. The first children who were placed in the school were from the Lakota, Kiowa, and Cheyenne tribes. After much resistance and deliberation, Chiefs Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and American Horse (all of the Sioux tribe) were all deviously convinced by Pratt that their children would be saved if they learned the ways of the white people. On the other hand, the Hopi people opposed this misguided education and sacrificed many of their older men to be placed in the Alcatraz prison instead (Musser, 2007, Pratt, 1964, Churchill, 2004, Lin, 2000, and Wikipedia, 2009). Since a majority of tribes such as the Hopi, were adamantly opposed to the forced removal of their children, many of their children were kidnapped by military force. Other methods of taking children from their parents consisted of the government holding back on food and clothing to oppressed tribes, public humiliation such as choking the chiefs of tribes, and threatening to murder and scalp anyone who stood up to the soldiers (Churchill, 2004, Wikipedia, 2009). Upon arrival at the school, boys were forced to dress in military attire while the girls were forced to wear European dresses. Girls were threatened to have their hair cut off if they attempted to break the rules, whereas, all the boys had to get their hair-cut regardless. Anyone who spoke their native language or practiced cultural sacraments were punished by being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused; such as beatings, forced hard labor, starvation, criticism, manipulation, rape, or even scrubbing of the mouth with soap. Children were also encouraged to believe that their culture, traditions, and language were all wrong and to hate the “Indian way”. Instead, the children were forced to learn Bible verses, English, math, history, art, composition, music, craftsmanship, housekeeping chores, and even to practice deceitfulness amongst each other (Keoke and Porterfield, 2003, Davis, 2002, Pratt, 1964, Wikipedia, 2009). In addition to such awful mistreatment, many children suffered from diseases like tuberculosis, small pox, trachoma, malnutrition, and separation anxiety (Pratt, 1964). The Carlisle Indian School was a school of cultural annihilation against Native American tribes, and led to the development of similar government boarding schools that carried out the notion of cultural genocide and “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” (Churchill, 2004).

Within 23 years, the Carlisle Indian School managed to force 12,000 students from 140 different tribes to experience a traumatic identity transformation appointed by Pratt and his faculty. In 1902, the Carlisle Indian School was used as a foundation for 26 other Indian Boarding Schools that were built throughout the nation, and Pratt even became the Superintendent of BIA Boarding Schools. Eventually, though, Pratt was pushed out of his place in 1904 due to his inflated radicalism for Native American conquering. The Carlisle School was then turned into a college becoming admired for their extracurricular activities, such as football (Wikipedia, 2009). The most famous American Indian football player (and track and field star) to come out of Carlisle was Jim Thorpe. “Thorpe gained nationwide attention for the first time in 1911. As a running back, defensive back, placekicker, and punter for his school's football team, Thorpe scored all of his team's points — four field goals and a touchdown—in an 18–15 upset of Harvard. His team finished the season 11–1” (Wikipedia, 2009). Other than Thorpe, there were few American Indians who were successful in higher education, due to the BIA methods of punishment and brainwashing.

Subsequently, other federally sanctioned forms of oppression and assimilation methods were carried out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) , the governmental agency responsible for administering and managing lands held in trust by the federal government for Indian people (BIA, 2009). Historically, the BIA oversaw federal boarding schools where American Indian students were expected to become “white” through various draconian measures. • In 1903 Indian Affairs issued the Short Hair and Citizenship Dress Order that made it illegal for men to wear long hair or the use of native dress by any Indian (Lomawaima, 2000). • The mandatory education of American Indian children in federal day schools or federal and mission boarding schools, where only the white culture and customs were taught (Lomawaima, 2000). • Various researchers have documented a litany of traumatic events experienced by American Indians in their educational experiences, as they were beaten, placed in solitary confinement, their mouths “washed” with bar soap, being forced to have their hair cut, having to dress and behave like white people, and being forced to stand for hours holding stacks of books on their heads for speaking their Native language (Szasz, 2005, Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006).

Captain Pratt’s motto to “Kill the Indian, save the man” are the basis of these historical examples of sanctioned oppression and they illustrate the distrust built between tribal culture and the majority White culture. Because of such a traumatic history, many Native American tribal nations have endured a variety of soci-economic ills, such as high rates of high school drop-outs and unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and the decline and loss of indigenous values.