WS 43105310 Class notes

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WS 4310/5310Class notes

• October 30, 2007

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Our place here at TTU

• In The Problem of Being Indian One
  Mixed-Bloods Dilemna, Janice Gould reminds us
  that there is not a university in this country
  that is not built on what was once native land.
  We should reflect on this over and over, and
  understand this fact as one fundamental point
  about the relationship of Indians to academia
  (81-82).

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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Comanche Nation College

• TTUs 47th pathway agreement

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Comanche Nation of Okla.

• The Comanche Nation, located in Southwest
  Oklahoma, has approximately 13,806 enrolled
  tribal members. We are striving to keep our
  ancestors traditions alive in the Twenty-First
  century.
• http//www.comanchenation.com/Education/history.ht
  ml

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For small group discussion

• What did you learn about Native peoples in
  elementary and secondary school?
• What have you learned at TTU?
• What are the images of Native people,
  particularly Native women, we see on tv, in
  movies, in commercials, etc.?

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Brief review of colonization

• What are the periods Daly lays out in her article
  and what are the major U.S. policies impacting
  Native peoples in those periods?

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The Indian Residential School System

• In both the U.S. and Canada, Native children were
  taken from their homes and their communities and
  placed in boarding schools.
• The idea was to save the children by
  assimilating them into the dominant culture.

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David Adams Education for Extinction American
Indians and the Boarding School Experience,
1875-1928.

• Established for the sole purpose of severing the
  childs cultural and psychological connection to
  his native heritage, this unique institution
  figured prominently in the federal governments
  desire to find a solution to the Indian
  problem, a method of saving Indians by
  destroying them (x - xi).

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Carlisle Indian School

• Col. Pratt opened his own school in old Army
  barracks at Carlisle, PA, Nov 1, 1879
• 60 boys and 24 girls from Rosebud and Pine Ridge
  reservations in Dakota Territory

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Chiricahua Apaches, 1886

• Arriving at Carlisle 4 months later

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Students at Carlisle
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Pratts philosophy

• Kill the Indian, save the child
• In Indian civilization, I am a Baptist, because
  I believe in immersing the Indians in our
  civilization and when we get them under, holding
  them there until they are thoroughly soaked -
  1883

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And the Indians got soaked

• Off-reservation schools opened at
• Chemewa, Oregon 1880
• Chilocco, Oklahoma 1884
• Genoa, Nebraska 1884
• Albuquerque, NM 1884
• Lawrence, KS 1884
• Grand Junction, CO 1886

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• Santa Fe, NM 1890
• Fort Mojave, AZ 1890
• Carson, Nevada 1890
• Pierre, SD 1891
• Phoenix, AZ 1891
• Fort Lewis, CO 1892
• Fort Shaw, MT 1892

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• Flandreau, SD 1893
• Pipestone, MN 1893
• Mount Pleasant, MI 1893
• Tomah, WI 1893
• Wittenberg, WI 1893
• Perris, CA 1893
• Greenville, CA 1895

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• Morris, MN 1897
• Chamberlain, SD 1898
• Fort Bidwell, CA 1898
• Rapid City, SD 1898
• Riverside, CA 1902

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Indian Residential Schoolsin Canada
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In both the United States and Canada

• children died in great numbers from disease,
  accidents, and neglect
• the discipline was harsh
• the food was usually poor and never sufficient,
• many children suffered cultural, emotional,
  physical, and sexual abuses

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Johnstons account of work at residential school

• ploughed, seeded and harvested potatoes, beans
  and other produce milled the wheat and corn and
  baked the bread forged the shoes and shod the
  horses mixed the paints and painted the
  buildings measured planks and repaired floors
  cut the hides and made shoes

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• cut the bolts of textiles and tailored shirts and
  pants and pyjamas fed and tended cows, horses,
  sheep and swine and even slaughtered them and
  swept, dusted and polished floors and furniture
  (26).
• As he notes, there was little in the entire
  institution that was not done by the inmates
  (26).

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Testimony of Emily Rice

• Emily Rice was raised on one of the Gulf Islands
  of British Columbia and spoke little English
  when, at the age of 8, she and her sister Rose,
  age 11, were taken from their Gulf Island home by
  a priest to attend residential school

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• I clung to Rose until Father Jackson wrenched her
  out of my arms. . . . I searched all over the
  boat for Rose. Finally I climbed up to the
  wheelhouse and opened the door and there was
  Father Jackson, on top of my sister. My sisters
  dress was pulled up and his pants were down. I
  was too little to know about sex but I know now
  he was raping her.

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• He cursed and came after me, he picked up his big
  black Bible and slapped me across the face and on
  the top of the head. I started crying
  hysterically and he threw me out onto the deck.
  When we got to Kuper Island, my sister and I were
  separated. They wouldnt let me comfort her.
  (47)

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• Rice also describes her treatment by a nun,
  Sister Mary Margaret, who was angry with her for
  resisting the nuns advances She took a big
  stick with bark on it, and rammed it right inside
  my vagina. . . . She told me to say Id fallen on
  the stick and that she was just trying to get it
  out (48).

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• Rice in later years had to have reconstructive
  vaginal surgery and also suffered permanent
  hearing loss from beatings received at the
  residential school

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Impact on Native language use

• In the words of residential school survivors

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• In wanting to replace Indian ways with white
  ways, the top priority was to teach the Native
  students English.
• Learning to speak, read, and write English would
  civilize the savages and change their thought
  patterns.

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In the residential schools

• Children were forbidden to speak their native
  languages
• Musqueam Nation former chief George Guerin gives
  his own testimony about his experiences at Kuper
  Island Residential School (British Columbia,
  Canada)

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George Guerin

• Sister Marie Baptiste had a supply of sticks as
  long and thick as pool cues. When she heard me
  speak my language, shed lift up her hands and
  bring the stick down on me. Ive still got bumps
  and scars on my hands. I have to wear special
  gloves because the weather really hurts my hands.
  

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George Guerin

• I tried very hard not to cry when I was being
  beaten and I can still just turn off my feelings.
  I still understand my language 150 per cent, but
  I cannot speak it. Ive even seen a psychologist
  to find out why I cant voice those words any
  more.

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• And Im lucky. Many of the men my age, they
  either didnt make it, committed suicide or died
  violent deaths, or alcohol got them. And it
  wasnt just my generation. My grandmother, whos
  in her late nineties, to this day its too
  painful for her to talk about what happened to
  her at the school. (61-62)

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They could not use their Native names

• When a nun asks Seepeetza her name, she answers,
  my name is Seepeetza. Then she got really made
  like I did something terrible. She said never to
  say that word again (18).
• We dont use our Indian names much. My parents
  know we would get in trouble at school if we used
  them there (78).

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Children used their languages in secret

• That Indian children used their Native languages
  in secret can be seen as a site of resistance.
• As Neal McLeod (Cree) reminds us, Every time a
  story is told, every time one word of an
  Indigenous language is spoken, we are resisting
  the destruction of our collective memory (31).

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In Seepeetza RevisitedSterling asks

• In a system which separated families, how did a
  child gain a sense of her cultural identity or
  family role?
• How did total, blind obedience prepare a child
  for a life in any society outside of a military
  one?

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• how such a system is supposed to prepare a child
  for citizenship in a society from which she is
  removed?
• How does a silenced group learn to voice opinion
  and guard democracy when blind obedience and
  prison-like conditions prevail?

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• Most importantly, who stands to benefit from the
  assimilation of First Nations children?
• How does the present education system contribute
  to on-going colonialist initiatives?
• How can we best combat the type of racist
  thinking which put together the residential
  schools? (12-13)

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Importance of understanding the IRS experience
today

• Native authors writing today inherit a legacy
  marked by the ideology and practices of the
  boarding schools.
• Their own experiences and understandings of
  colonization, oppression, and resistance are
  marked by this legacy.

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• The abilities of indigenous peoples to speak
  their tribal languages are marked by the
  experiences of the generations sent to
  residential schools.
• Understanding the history, ideology, and legacy
  of the residential school system enriches our
  understanding of tribal communities and issues
  today.

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Works cited

• Sterling, Shirley. My Name is Seepeetza.
  Toronto Groundwood Books, 1992.
• ---. Seepeetza Revisited An Introduction to
  Six Voices. Centre for the Study of Curriculum
  and Instruction, UBC. http//ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/pub
  lication/insights/online/v03n01/sterling.html
  4/29/2005.

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• Fournier, Suzanne Ernie Crey. Stolen From Our
  Embrace The Abduction of First Nations Children
  and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities.
  Vancouver Toronto Douglas McIntyre 1997.
• Johnston, Basil H. Indian School Days. Toronto
  Key Porter Books, 1988.

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• In what ways does the ideology behind the Indian
  residential school system continue in the
  policies of child welfare systems, Indian
  education, etc.?

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Discuss words of

• Paula Gunn Allen (76)
• Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (76)
• Linda Hogan (77)
• Carol Sanchez (77)
• Rayna Green (77)

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Paula Gunn Allen

• What does a feminist
• perspective bring to Native Studies?
• What does she say about the oral tradition?
• What can we learn from the different readings of
  the Yellow Woman story?

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Winona LaDuke

• Mothers of Our
• Nations
• How does LaDuke
• use discourse of
• motherhood as a
• political tool?
• Nation as a political term?

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LaDuke (cont)

• The Earth as our Mother
• We are not populations nor minority groups. We
  are peoples and nations of peoples. Under
  international law we meet the criteria of nation
  states. . .but indigenous nations are not
  allowed to participate in the United Nations
  (525)

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LaDuke (cont)

• Who has power to make decisions?
• How does she tie it in with a predator/prey
  relationship?
• What does she explain about environmental racism?
• How are the problems that emanate from
  mistreatment of the earth reflected in the
  devastation of the health and well-being of women?

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• Kathryn Shanley (Assiniboine) reminds us that
  nothing defines indigenous peoples more than
  belonging to a place, a homeland. No single
  political issue has been more important to
  indigenous peoples than the effort to retain land
  bases, recover lost territories, and hang on to
  hunting, water, mineral and other rights
  associated with living in a particular place
  (3). But, as she also explains, the home
  indigenous people are struggling to
  maintain/regain is also a place of self-esteem .
  . . self-governance, cultural maintenance,
  revitalization, and sovereignty (3).