Our Spirits Don T Speak English: Indian Boarding School
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Captain Richard Henry, who was the famous founder of the Carlisle Industrial Indian School. This school was the Boarding School for the Indian students, and intent to changed the Native students value and culture as the White American way. Although he knew this action would destroy the Indian culture, he still insisted his motto “ Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Actually, this boarding school did not teach too much the White Americans culture. Instead, the school taught more hard work, which intended to cultivate more cheap labor for the White people. Base on the lecture we learnt, these schools taught the men mechanical and farming skills and the women homemaking and domestic skills (Davis lecture 2.3). Obviously, the essence of the Carlisle…show more content… So Captain Richard Henry always insisted his motto, and he believed this action is not only can speed up the assimilation progress for the Indian students, but also provided a stable and convenient govern for future America. Nonetheless, this case did not achieve as Pratt plan. According to the video “Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School”, I found the impact of boarding school education system is mostly negative. In the film, Andrew Windy Boy shared his memory of childhood in tear and expressed disgusted with such a boarding school system. In addition, the compulsory education system and forbidden action of speaking native language, led the Indian students lost their identities and value of life. I also found the common from Newspaper Rock, which stated “Our Spirits Don't Speak English" masterfully moves you from disbelief through outrage to resolve as it focuses the light of truth on one of darkest periods of cultural genocide in American history.” Perhaps Captain Richard Henry wished his educational reform would improve the quality of Indians life, but actually it became a different type of battlefield between the Indians and White Americans. Besides, the action of Captain Richard Henry is a good example for us, and it showed assimilate a nation by eliminating it’s culture was…show more content… Meanwhile he even was seen as the Hero of saving Indian Nation, and the evident can be found in the article by Robert A. Trennert, Jr, he mentioned that “if the entire rising generation could be taken at once and placed in such institutions, kept there long enough to be well educated, and then, if such as chose to do so were encouraged to seek home among civilized people, there would be no Indian problem”. From this sentence, we can find that United States government was tired to counterwork and govern the Native people, so the brainwashing education program was created. Once implement a policy, the impact would occur in the society. Pratt’s measure disturbed the link between two generation and caused many nation customs lose. Certainly, this is an inestimable damage for people to study the Indian Culture, and it was a non-humanitarian behavior that deeply hurt one generation. Moreover, there is the reason why the boarding school system cannot live for a long time. For instance, an article from Seminar Members stated, “Much to the dismay of Pratt, many returned to their reservations, only to find that the world they left as a child was no longer “home”.” Regrettably, although Pratt invested lots of human and material resources, the racial discrimination was never change in the society. Most of Indian students could not find a respectable work in white society and hard to