Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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All of these teaching techniques were codified in 1901 with the publication by the superintendent of Indian schools the Uniform Course of Study for the Indian Schools of the United States, a treatise that assumed Indian children were “too dull” to excel intellectually and could only be trained to be shoemakers or sewers of domestic clothing. The goal of the federal government was to create a docile, regimented group of Indians who would follow orders.¹⁸

Repression came in a variety of ways. If a student spoke his native tongue, or refused to adopt “civilized” English names, he or she would have their mouth washed out with “a bar of yellow soap” or get a “kerosene shampoo” and receive corporal punishment.¹⁹ Homesick children would often become “runaways,” either attempting to go home, or more often, finding solitude in the empty spaces that could be found within the educational compound. Some girls even held peyote meetings in their dorm rooms. Again, if discovered these students would be hand delivered to the Guardhouse for punishment, or if a boy, would have to run the “belt line.” Sadistic dorm advisers would misuse their authority and inflict cruel punishment on their charges.²⁰