—A difficulty in prosecuting the work among the Indians in British Columbia is found in the fact that the tribes speak distinct languages. Not less than seven different dialects are used in the range of country embraced by missionary effort.
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF WORK AT CARLISLE.
BY CAPT. R. H. PRATT.
In compliance with your request I herewith furnish you with a brief history of the Carlisle School, and some account of its industrial features. It originated in the sending to Florida from the Indian Territory of 74 Indian prisoners in the spring of 1875. At the instance of General Sheridan I was selected by the War Department and placed in charge of those prisoners, they having been under my care at Fort Sill. They were from the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Kiowa and Comanche tribes and were selected for this banishment because of well-known offenses against the peace of the frontier. Some of them were guilty of the most outrageous crimes. Years of army service among the Indians and observation of their treatment had led me to change my views for opinions in favor of giving to the Indian a broader chance and a desire that he might be brought more in contact with the peaceful and industrious side of civilized life, and so before the prisoners were started from Fort Sill I wrote to my superiors urging that they be educated and trained industrially during their imprisonment. Soon after reaching St. Augustine I wrote repeatedly to the War Department urging that some locality with more industrial surroundings be selected and the prisoners be transferred. This was denied, and I then set to work to make the best use of the elements to be found in the sleepy old Spanish town. With no means, I was forced to seek the co-operation of charitable and missionary folks. Miss S. A. Mather, Miss Perit, Mrs. King Gibbs, Mrs. Couper Gibbs, of St. Augustine, and Mrs. Dr. Caruthers of Tarrytown, N.Y., winter resident of St. Augustine, volunteered to teach and did teach the classes of those grown Indian men for two years and a half, giving them about one hour’s instruction daily. Industrially there was little practical opportunity, but numbers were placed for different periods to work on saw mills, at picking oranges, as hostlers, grubbing the land, boating and whatever could be found in connection with their own necessities and comfort in the old fort. Twice we boated pine logs from a distance and constructed log houses within the fort, riving the clap-boards, building stick chimneys, chinking and daubing that they might learn to construct their own homes. Some of them advanced rapidly in acquiring literary, English speaking and industrial knowledge. Others were very stupid. The greatest success in the labor line was in placing five men to grub five acres that had intimidated other laborers both white and black. The undergrowth and roots to be removed were of the most dense and appalling kind, and yet the Indians stuck to it until they had made a complete success of it.
Another of the best evidences of the success of our labor efforts was a petition signed by a very considerable number of laborers and others of the community asking that I be estopped in the putting of the Indians out to labor in competition with other classes, as I was taking bread from the mouths of those who were dependent upon such labor for their living, etc. In the spring of 1878 the authorities at Washington determined to release the prisoners and permit them to return to their homes. There were 22 of them who preferred to remain East and get a better knowledge of civilized life and more education before going home. The expenses of these 22 young men were undertaken by different charitable people. Gen. S. C. Armstrong, of the Hampton Normal Institute, received 17 into his institution, while four went to Paris Hill, near Utica, N.Y., under the immediate charge of Rev. J. B. Wickes, an Episcopal clergyman, encouraged by Bishop Huntington, all the expenses being undertaken by Mrs. Burnham. One was taken to Tarrytown, N.Y., in Dr. Caruther’s own family. Hampton Institute being an industrial school, furnished the most seasonable and practical education of any institution I was able to find. The remainder of the party were returned to their respective agencies, and such was the effect of their training in Florida during their three years’ absence, that they at once became the best element for progress in their tribes. At this time, while a few have gone back to the blanket condition, most likely from necessity, because no other way was open to them, there is abundant testimony in the reports of their respective agents during the past four years that they are still a useful and leading industrious element among their people.
A few weeks after the arrival of the party at Hampton Institute, General Armstrong was so favorably impressed by the conduct and progress of the 17 he had undertaken, that he was willing to increase the number by adding 50 more, and including girls. Mr. Schurz and Mr. McCrary, then Secretaries of the Interior and War Departments, accepted the proposition, and I was sent, in the fall of 1878, to Dakota, and brought away 49 children from six different agencies of the Sioux, Gros Ventre, Mandan and Arickeree tribes. These, together with the former Florida prisoners, were placed under training in all the varied systems of literary and industrial pursuits. Hampton Institute provides liberally for its colored students, and side by side with those colored pupils the Indian boys and girls, in perfect harmony with the new life, demonstrated their capacity to hold their own in improving the best of chances. It was very much desired by the friends of this new movement, and particularly General Armstrong, that I should remain with it, and a clause was introduced in the army appropriation bill, which passed Congress in the spring of 1879, for the detail of one officer, not above the rank of captain, for duty with reference to Indian education.
It was a plan which I had urged for several years that to get the best results in our educational work among Indian children as many as possible should be removed from reservation and tribal influences and placed in the atmosphere of civilized life, and to this end I had urged the use of vacant military posts and barracks as furnishing, without much cost in changing and improving buildings, places to make a beginning, and I proposed to the Interior and War Departments that I would undertake the education of 250 or 300 children at the old military buildings at Carlisle. This proposition was accepted, and after many preliminaries I was sent in September, 1879, to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Agencies in Dakota and brought away 84 children, and immediately after went to the Indian Territory and from the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Pawnee and other tribes brought 52 more. To these were added 11 from the Hampton Institute of the young men who had been with me in Florida. The school was opened on the first of November with 147 students. To these were added from time to time children from various Western tribes, and at the end of July, 1880, we numbered 239 children, about one-third of whom were girls. At the end of the second year, October, 1881, we had increased to 295. At the present writing we number 379—132 girls and 247 boys. From the beginning our principle has been to place the most emphasis on industrial training, next English speaking and then literary training. To accomplish the first we very early in the work established shops for mechanical instruction in carpentry, blacksmithing, wagon-making, harness-making, tailoring, tinsmithing, shoemaking, printing, baking and on our farm of 115 acres gave some scope for agricultural training. We have avoided theory in our industries and adhered to practice, being governed to a great extent by the old apprentice system. We have at the head of each branch a skilled mechanic as practical instructor, and as nearly as possible we pursue the methods of trades people in their instructions to apprentices. We give half of each day to work and the other half to school, and have found that our progress is proportionately greater in each than it would be if the attention was directed to either the one or the other for the whole time. Under this system we have in training as carpenters 13 boys; as wagon-makers and blacksmiths, 15; as harness-makers, 15; as shoemakers, 19; as tailors, 12; as turners, 11; as printers, 5; as bakers, 3; and every boy not engaged at some trade is required to work during the season upon the farm. Such products of our labors as we are not able to make use of for the school are purchased by the Indian Department and shipped to agencies. We think our boys as forward in capacity for receiving instruction on each of the several branches as the average white boy. In the blacksmith shop our apprentice boys after two years’ instruction, are able to iron a wagon, repair a plow, shoe a horse, etc. In the wood-working department able to get out all the different wood parts of the wagon ready for the blacksmith. In the tin-smithing to construct coffee pots, buckets, pails, pans, cups, etc. In the harness-making to cut out and manufacture harness. In the tailoring to cut out and manufacture clothing. In shoemaking to repair and manufacture boots and shoes. In printing to set up and distribute type and make up forms. In baking we have no other help than Indians. We give to our girls instruction in the various industries of the sex and find no general lack. In cooking, sewing, house work, laundry work, etc., they are apt pupils.
One of the most useful features of our work has been the placing of our boys and girls in private families, principally among farmers, where they perform the same kind of labor and are subjected to the same home and labor influences that white children of their own ages receive. This has the most beneficial results. The children take on English speaking and the industries of civilized life very speedily. During vacation we place out all we can spare from our own work, and during the winter we allow a considerable number to remain and attend the public schools in the several neighborhoods, they being required to do such work mornings and evenings as they are capable of and so pay for their board and clothes. By this course we are enabled to carry a very considerable number more pupils than we are allowed appropriation for. It is plain that the real hindrance to Indian progress is found in their being kept entirely separated from the other masses of our population, and by every act of our government and every sentiment of its people, societies, missionary and others, made to feel that they are a separate people and must so remain forever. Through their education in separate schools, their home life upon prison reservations with their liberty of coming and going abridged to these reservations, with all their aspirations and ambitions so limited, there can be no healthy growth. To overcome these difficulties the Indian mind and the mind of the public as well as Congress must be educated to grant to them the enlarged privileges accorded to all other races. The boy will never learn to swim until he goes into the water, and the experiences of industrial life and civilized life through its associations and competitions will determine for the Indian and white the true status. We have had quite enough of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, etc., as Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, etc. We can end their existence among us as such separate people by a broad and generous system of English education and training, which will reach all the 50,000 children and in a very few years remove all our trouble from them as a separate people and as separate tribes among us, and instead of feeding clothing and caring for them from year to year, put them in condition to feed clothe and care for themselves. Our experiences in many individual cases in the last few years make it very evident that not only may we fit the Indian to take care of himself in his own home, but may fit him to go and come and abide in the land wherever he may choose, and so lose his identity.
