Fundamental Considerations: The Deep Meaning of Native American Schooling, 1880-1900

Abstract

In the mid-nineteenth century, U.S. policymakers held two conflicting visions of the Indian's future: one, that Indians as a race were doomed to extinction, and two, that Indians were capable of being "civilized" and assimilated into White society. By the end of the century,in light of the Indians' loss of land and traditional ways of life, policymakers under-took an intense campaign to assimilate Indians through schooling. David Adams argues that to see this process of schooling simply as a means of assimilating the Indian into White culture is to rob this historic fact of its deeper meanings. Adams examines three perspectives and fundamental considerations that were at work at that time: the Protestant ideology, the civilization-savagism paradigm, and the quest for land by Whites, and explores how these translated into concrete educational policy. In the end the author argues that these three perspectives reinforced each other and were essential factors in the history of Indian schooling.