Those of us who were raised in the eastern U.S. often know very little of the history of how the American Indian people were treated by our government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs did things that we would find to be abhorrent today.
Indian children were forcibly removed from their parents and relocated to distant "Indian Schools" where they were to be educated, trained, and "made into Americans". These children were strongly discouraged from speaking their native language or following their native customs. Thus the discouragement from long hair and body painting.
From Wikipedia article on "Native American boarding schools":
"In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) founded additional boarding schools based on the assimilation model of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. [Located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania]
Children were usually immersed in European-American culture through appearance changes with haircuts, were forbidden to speak their native languages, and traditional names were replaced by new European-American names. The experience of the schools was often harsh, especially for the younger children who were separated from their families. In numerous ways, they were encouraged or forced to abandon their Native American identities and cultures.[2] The number of Native American children in the boarding schools reached a peak in the 1970s, with an estimated enrollment of 60,000 in 1973. Especially through investigations of the later twentieth century, there have been many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse occurring at such schools.[3] Since those years, tribal nations have increasingly insisted on community-based schools and have also founded numerous tribally controlled colleges."
Here's a link to the 1900 student body at the Carlisle Indian School: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlisle_pupils.jpg
The faces of these children says it all.
The tombstone bore the name of Wade Ayres, a Native American boy who died at a government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania more than a century ago and was thought to have been buried on the grounds of what is now a U.S. Army base.Those of us who were raised in the eastern U.S. often know very little of the history of how the American Indian people were treated by our government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs did things that we would find to be abhorrent today.
Indian children were forcibly removed from their parents and relocated to distant "Indian Schools" where they were to be educated, trained, and "made into Americans". These children were strongly discouraged from speaking their native language or following their native customs. Thus the discouragement from long hair and body painting.
From Wikipedia article on "Native American boarding schools":
"In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) founded additional boarding schools based on the assimilation model of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. [Located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania]
Children were usually immersed in European-American culture through appearance changes with haircuts, were forbidden to speak their native languages, and traditional names were replaced by new European-American names. The experience of the schools was often harsh, especially for the younger children who were separated from their families. In numerous ways, they were encouraged or forced to abandon their Native American identities and cultures.[2] The number of Native American children in the boarding schools reached a peak in the 1970s, with an estimated enrollment of 60,000 in 1973. Especially through investigations of the later twentieth century, there have been many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse occurring at such schools.[3] Since those years, tribal nations have increasingly insisted on community-based schools and have also founded numerous tribally controlled colleges."
Here's a link to the 1900 student body at the Carlisle Indian School: File:Carlisle pupils.jpg - Wikipedia
The faces of these children says it all.