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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But the ultimate form of repression was contagious diseases, especially tuberculosis, trachoma, measles, and influenza. The crowded conditions at the boarding schools without disinfectants and where hand towels, drinking cups, schoolbooks, and musical instrument mouthpieces passed freely among school children presented particular problems. As the Commissioner of Indian Affairs noted in 1916, after observing the brutal fact that Indian children in the boarding schools were being ravaged by disease, “We can not solve the Indian problem without Indians.”²⁴ Cemeteries at Carlisle and elsewhere testified to the sorrowful outcomes for many at the boarding schools. As Lawrence Webster, a Suquamish student at Tulalip Indian School in Puget Sound said in 1908, “Death was the only way you could get home … . It had to be a sickness or death before they’d let you out of there very long.”²⁵

In the final analysis assimilation at best was incomplete. Some scholars would prefer the word “integration” to “assimilation” in that, certain cultural traits of the majority culture, e.g., English language or the sport of football, were added to the traditional characteristics of the minority or Indian culture.²⁶ In seeking out their “private” spaces, many students spoke their native language and participated in tribal rituals, dances, and ceremonies. Sometimes these activities were disguised from the authorities by being performed at times that were American holidays or memorial occasions. If a student were thinking of his or her family or a traditional tribal event his or her thoughts would be formed in the native languages. Likewise, if the idea was part and parcel of the majority culture the speech would be in English.