“Our Colored and Indian Charges Furnish So Much Amusement for Us”: Catholicism, Assimilation, and the Racial Hierarchy in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1883–1918

Abstract

ABSTRACT While the history of White reformers’ attempts at assimilation has been studied in the American West and South, their role in the American Northeast still remains largely unexplored. This article examines the role of Catholic missionaries in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. These White missionaries worked with students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as well as African Americans at St. Katharine’s Select School. By comparing and contrasting Catholic work with these two ethnic groups, this article examines the racial hierarchy within the assimilation process at the turn of the twentieth century.