Indian School: Teaching the White Man's Way

Cooper (The Double V Campaign: African Americans and World War II) delivers a well-documented and sobering depiction of the late-19th-century military-style boarding schools established to instruct children of various Indian tribes in ""the white man's way."" The author sets the stage in 1879 when Captain Richard Pratt, an officer in the U.S. Army, arrives to take the first trainload of ""students"" from their respective reservations to the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania. With the Battle of Little Bighorn and the loss of the Black Hills fresh in their memory, Spotted Tail, White Thunder and other Sioux leaders heed Pratt's warning of the dangers of illiteracy. Carlisle, a grueling institution run by Pratt, would become the most prominent Indian School and a model to others, but White Thunder's son would not survive the experience. A caption beneath a stark photograph of Carlisle's rows of gravestones notes, ""Most BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] schools had their own cemeteries because so many students died."" Quotes from former students at Carlisle and other such schools describe what it was like to forcibly have their hair cut (the Sioux cut their hair only as a sign of sadness or shame; for the Hopi, long hair symbolized fertility), to be removed from their families and to be forbidden to speak their language. Anecdotes about teachers who helped realize the dreams of some youths and the remarkable feats of the schools' athletic teams plus an impressive selection of archival photos (including one of a four-year-old student) round out this wrenching account. Ages 9-up. (Sept.)