Nancy Broadway

30 April 2004

To Assimilate or to Resist:

Historical Events That Put Pressure on the American Indian

Introduction

            It has been said that those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it.  Of course, Mark Twain also said “it is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible” (qtd. in twainquotes.com). Hopefully, Twain is wrong.  Regardless of one’s view of the past, the study of history does give insight into the present.  Last semester I completed a course with Dr. Alisa V. Petrovich called “Texas and the Borderlands.”  This course, History 4035, covers the establishment of missions by the Spanish and their eventual dismantlement by the Spanish and Mexican governments.  The missions greatly impact the lives of the American Indian, and the consequential closing of these institutions put additional pressure on them.  Because I find the subject very interesting, I want to explore the past pressures felt by the American Indian to assimilate; so I will be covering the following events: the establishment of the mission, the slaughter of the buffalo, and the establishment of the government boarding schools.  Aspects of these past events will relate to objective 4, the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance, and will also touch on the related objective 3b, loss and survival.  Also, I will include a brief biography of Zitkala-Ša, who is a former government boarding school student, and then I will consider some  passages from her book that reflect upon the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance. 

Establishing the missions

            Before covering the establishment of the missions in Texas and the borderlands, it is important to acknowledge that since the American Indian had no written documents of this time period, the source of the information regarding the early days of the Spanish conquest is from the Spanish and these sources naturally have a bias.  Moreover, from 980 to 1492, Spain has been fighting the Moors and years of war “creates a warrior society” (Petrovich) as well as depletes the royal treasury.  These two facts help explain the attitudes and actions of the Spanish when they arrive in the Americas.  Additionally, Spain has a rich body of literature that is a lot like science fiction, and it tells of fountains of youth, cities of gold, and women warriors; consequently, many came looking for proof of these common myths (Petrovich). In 1513, Ponce de Leon arrives in Florida looking for the fountain of youth because of the influence of what he had read.  And it is in 1521 that Cortez, with the help of 500 soldiers, horses, and 1000 Indians, break Spanish law by conquering the Aztecs.  King Phillip of Spain is very angry about this aggression until five ships, loaded with gold, arrive in Spain (Petrovich).  Of course, when these early explorers arrive, they find the lands already occupied.  Strangely enough, the Spanish government debates on whether the Indian is human or animal; when it is decided that they are human, the Indians of America are made citizens of Spain (Petrovich).  However, there is a lack of trust between the Spanish and their new citizens, and this lack of trust makes the area very unstable.  To bring stability, it is thought that the Indians need to be Hispanicized and Christianized (Petrovich).  In fact, the Spanish think that they are doing the Indians a favor; plus, if the Indians become Christians, that will pay God back for removing the Moors from Spain (Petrovich).  In Texas, the missions are far apart and few in number, but the Spanish missionaries are highly trained—they know the Indian language and are proficient in animal husbandry and farming (Petrovich).  Interestingly enough, the average age of the Spanish missionary is 74, and these elderly monks know that the end of their lives is near.  They come willingly to serve in the borderlands because they believe they will avoid purgatory if they should die a martyr.  The missionary is accepted because the Indians can relate to the Spanish missionary since their shamans are also celibate; furthermore, the missionary will use syncretism, the combining of paganism with Catholicism, to help them teach the Indians about God (Petrovich).  With the coming of the missions, the Indian is faced with a choice—to assimilate or resist. Consequently, some do choose to live on the mission, farm the mission lands, tend the mission cattle, and learn from the missionary (Petrovich).  However, others prefer not to live on the mission but choose to live in the surrounding areas so they can receive gifts from the missionary and can rustle the mission cattle.  Still, there is a third group of Indians who will choose to totally resist assimilation by having nothing to do with the mission (Petrovich).  And just as the coming of the missions has brought changes to the Indian culture, the closing of the missions will have an even greater impact.

Closing the missions

            During the mission era, some of the Indians choose to start fighting for the land, the animals, and their way of life; others choose not to fight and move west, while others join and reside with the Spanish (Petrovich).  Regardless of their choice, the Indian way of life is forever changed by the arrival of the Europeans.  Meanwhile, Spain is struggling to retain the colonies she has established, but distance and lack of funds make this difficult.  In order to save money, Spain orders the consolidation of the missions.  This makes the missions easier to protect and to supply; however, these steps only prolong the inevitable dismantling of the missions.  In 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Spain, and by 1821, war-torn Spain feels that Mexico is not worth keeping.  Mexico is given her freedom, but she also has no money. (Petrovich). Lacking the funds to support the missions, Mexico orders the remaining missions to be deconsecrated and the lands sold.   Adding to the current situation is the fact that there is a severe drought. People are starving, and they start moving around as water sources dry up (Petrovich).  This increases the likelihood of a conflict between the Indian and the white man.  Meanwhile, tensions have been growing because of the closing of the missions, and there is new unrest among the Indians.  When a mission is closed, the mission building is deconsecrated and the lands and cattle are sold.   So what happens to the mission Indians when the missions close?  They lose everything.  For example, the Indians lose access to the land they have been farming for up to three generations because they do not have the funds to buy it.  Likewise, there is no priest to marry them, to baptize and educate their children, and to care for the dying.  This is especially important considering that there are smallpox epidemics in 1821, 1825, 1831, and 1835 (Petrovich).  Plus, once the priest is gone, there is no one to act as mediator between the Indians and the white man (Petrovich).  Additionally, the closings eliminated gifts from the monks.  This really hurts the Indians because they have come to depend on these supplies.  It is helpful to understand that in terms of 1995 dollars, Mexico spent over four million dollars annually for gifts and supplies to the Indians; Mexico simply could no longer afford to spend over half their annual budget on these gifts (Petrovich).  Forced to leave the mission, the Indian resorts to fur trapping and trading.  He may take on some menial jobs like being a cart man, or he may have to resort to stealing. The mission Indian is an outcast with no place to go and no means of obtaining food and supplies.  In his article “That Art of Coyning Christians': John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts,” Kenneth Morrison explains why the mission Indian has become an outcast: “[The] mission experience required that the Indian repudiate not only his unconverted brethren but often extended to a total alienation from family and tribal tradition” (85).  The Indians feel hurt because of the closing of the missions, and “when you take away tradition you will have revolution” (Petrovich).  Without the monks, the Indians lose their education, their religion, and their medical provisions. Because of this, the Indians form bands and go back to the old tradition of raiding for the things they need (Petrovich). The betrayal felt by the Indians over the closing of the missions, plus the rapid influx of people, causes the Indians to rebel.  At this point, they choose to fight for their land and their way of life.  However, more changes are on the way, and the Indian will continually have to make the choice to assimilate or to resist.

The horse

            In his book, Plains Warrior: Chief Quanah Parker and the Comanches, historian and chair of the history department at Yeshiva University, Dr. Albert Marrin tells about the transformation of the Plains Indian from farmer to hunter.  Prior to the arrival of the Spanish and their horses, the Indians of the southwest lived in the valleys for centuries and only starvation could bring them out into the plains to hunt the buffalo (Marrin 16).  The buffalo were huge animals—the bulls weighing 2,000 to 2,600 pounds and the cows weighing 1,200 to 1,500 pounds (Marrin 13).  The buffalo had poor eyesight but a keen sense of smell, and the slightest scent from a man would send the buffalo stampeding off at thirty miles per hour.  The Indians could not follow because they had no other means of transportation other than their legs and their pack dogs (Marrin 15).  However, all this changed with the introduction of the horse.   Marrin chronicles the assimilation of the horse into the various tribes of the plains:  “The Kiowa were riding by 1682, the Pawnee by 1700, the Crow and Lakota (Sioux) by 1742.  The Ute had introduced their Comanche cousins to the horse by 1714, before they began feuding.  By 1784, tribes from Mexico to Canada were mounted” (19).  The introduction of the horse radically changed the culture of the Indian.  Former valley dwellers and farmers now became known as “horse Indians” and buffalo hunters, and they became a part of what is “proudly remembered as the golden age”—the years between 1700 and 1875 (Marrin 19). The introduction of the horse can be compared with the white man’s steamboat, railroad, or automobile—for the horse revolutionized travel by allowing the Indian to travel in one day what would take a week on foot.  The Indians could now follow buffalo herds, “which in turn put an end to hunger, causing [the Indian] population to rise” (Marrin 19). What makes this sweeping change different from the closing of the missions is that the assimilation of the horse into the Indian culture was a choice; whereas, the changes brought about by the closing of the missions was not chosen nor welcomed.

Buffalo slaughter

            Meanwhile, as the Indian is becoming more mobile and more populous, more settlers start coming into the spreading Indian Territory.  Conflict is inevitable because both peoples “could never see each other as fully human, with rights and feelings like themselves.  Both had different ways of life and lived in different mental worlds” (Marrin 41).  No longer able to coexist, both groups engage in a war for survival and for the land.  Nevertheless, some of the Indian tribes are “peaceful” and choose not to fight for their land.  However, other tribes are warriors, and they choose to resist the coming of the white man into their territory.  This attitude of resistance can be heard in the voice of Sitting Bull, Chief of the Oglala Sioux:

                          I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in his sight. It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows. We are poor . . . but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die . . . we die defending our rights. (qtd. by Brunner)

Just as the Indian is determined to fight for his survival, Marrin reports that after the Civil War, President Grant is convinced “that the southern Plains tribes must be crushed” (103) and the ultimate weapon in this war against the Indians is the extermination of the buffalo (134).  After all, the buffalo provides the Indian with their food, their clothing, their shelter, and their tools.  The buffalo not only is essential to the physical well being of the Indian, the buffalo also is a part of the spiritual life of the Indian.  According to Marrin, the buffalo is worshipped as a guardian spirit, and during religious ceremonies, a puff of smoke from the sacred pipe would be blown into a buffalo skull along with a prayer of thanks (23).  Realizing the importance of the buffalo to the Indian, the government makes a tactical decision to cut off the Indian’s supply line.  So to this end, army leaders oppose the conservation of the buffalo and actually encourage its continual slaughter.  To understand the extent of this slaughter, consider the magnitude of the shipments from just one railroad station located in Dodge City.  During the years of 1872 to 1874, this station alone ships 7 million pounds of buffalo tongue and 1.5 million hides (Marrin 133).  From these figures, it is very apparent that millions of buffalo had been slaughtered and their carcasses left to rot in the plains.  When the American people complain about the awful slaughter and waste of the buffalo, Congress passes a conservation law, but President General Grant vetoes it (Marrin 134). The killing continues and the once immense herds start to shrink.  In a short time, only the buffalo in Texas remain, and although it is illegal for the hide hunters to hunt there, they pursue the herds to Texas.  The link between the survival of the buffalo and the survival of the Indian is well understood because the Texas Kiowa have a narrative that states in part that the Great Spirit gave the buffalo to them, but “…in the day you shall see them perish from the face of the Earth, then know that the end of the Kiowa is near” (Marrin 135).  And the beginning of the end was near.  The Plains Indians valiantly fight for their way of life, but all is lost.  The War for the Buffalo is over and the Indians are forced to enter the reservation.  When the news reaches the buffalo hunters that the formidable Comanche are penned up, the last great buffalo hunt is triggered.  In less than two years, millions of animals are killed, and by the spring of 1878, all the herds are gone (Marrin 156).  It may seem at this point that the Indian will vanish, but one Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, is determined to help his people survive.

Marrin observes that Quanah is a highly intelligent man who is able to operate in the world of the Comanche and in the world of the white man; he can be considered to be a cultural broker, that is, a middleman between two very different peoples (155).  Because of this skill, Quanah successfully negotiates to sell reservation grass to local ranchers.  According to Marrin, “in 1885, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache were earning $55,000 per year, rising to about $232,000 by 1900” (159).  Instead of becoming the vanishing Indian, Quanah proves that the Indian can and will survive.  Marrin attributes Quanah’s success in this area to his ability to know “when to give in and when to dig in his heels” (155).  Quanah Parker is a perfect example of an Indian who chooses to sometime assimilate and sometimes resist because he is able to follow “the white man’s road for the good of his people, while skillfully protecting their heritage” (Marrin 155).  Quanah even sends his children to the Carlisle Industrial School for an education. Even though Quanah is a strong defender of the Comanche culture, he insists that it is all right to “borrow the white man’s material things” (Marrin 164).  According to Marrin, Quanah sends his children off to get an education because an “education seemed the only way for the Comanche to survive as a people” (164).

Carlisle Industrial School

            The Indian on the reservation may feel that the war for survival is over; however, there is one more battle to be fought.  In Marrin’s words, “It was to be a quiet war, a kindly war, but a war nevertheless” (160).  This final war is a war against the Indian culture.  In other words, everything that made an Indian an Indian had to go—the language, the clothing, and the religion.  Forcing assimilation on a captured population is not a new tactic.  In 605 B. C., this tactic is recorded in the Old Testament book of Daniel.  As a young man, Daniel is removed from his Hebrew culture and taken to a foreign land.  In this new location he is taught the Babylonian language, he is given a Babylonian education, a Babylonian diet, and a Babylonian name (Dan. 1.1-6).  Now, the same thing is being done in the government boarding schools for the Indians in the 1800’s.  One such boarding school is the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.  According to the internet article, “The Carlisle Industrial School History,” the school is started by a former officer of the 10^th Calvary in 1879 (Landis).  As founder Richard Henry Pratt begins to formulate his ideas on how to “civilize” the Indian, he expresses his philosophy in a letter to a convention of Baptist ministers in 1883 in which he writes:  “In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization, and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked” (Landis).  Pratt plans are to take Indian children from their homes, remove tribal influence, and then transform them.  Located in a former army barracks, the school motto is as follows: “Kill the Indian to save the man” (Marrin 163).  The “quiet war” continues as the students not only learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, but the Indian children are “taught to despise their heritage” (Marrin 163).

Zitkala-Ša     

            According to the article, “The Challenges and Limitations of Assimilation Indian Board Schools,” the number of government boarding schools in 1902 is twenty-five and there is a total enrollment of 6,000 students (Brown Foundation).  Some of these students are forced to attend the schools but some do come voluntarily.  One such student is Zitkala-Ša.  In the foreword of American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Ša, Dexter Fisher gives a brief biography of her life.  Zitkala-Ša is born in 1876 to a Sioux mother and a white father, but her father abandons her mother before her birth; consequently, she is raised totally in the ways of the Sioux.  Named Gertrude Simmons, Gertrude changes her name to Zitkala-Ša which means Red Bird (Fisher ix).  At the age of eight, she insists on leaving with missionaries to go to a boarding school in Indiana, and she does not return home until the age of eleven. When Zitkala-Ša does return, she feels alienated from her mother; she stays for four more years before leaving again to go back to school (Fisher x).  According to Fisher, Zitkala-Ša’s mother feels that Zitkala-Ša “had abandoned, even betrayed, the Indian way of life by getting an education in the white man’s world” (viii).  Zitkala-Ša uses her skills in writing to express the life-long struggle she experiences between tradition and acculturation.  In fact, Zitkala-Ša is an early Indian writer who attempts “to make the transition from written to oral form and to bridge the gap between tradition and assimilation” (Fisher v).

            In a reprint of her articles, American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Ša recounts her boarding school experience.  When she arrives at the school as a young child, she is frightened and bewildered.  She says the following: “I no longer felt free to be myself or to voice my own feelings” (45). Tears run down her cheek, but there is no one to wipe those tears away (51).  According to most boarding school policies of assimilation, Zitkala-Ša’s Indian heritage is systematically removed from her.  She tells how her blanket is “stripped from her shoulders” (52).  And after her “soft, quiet moccasins” are exchanged for “squeaky shoes,” she learns that her “long, heavy hair” will be cut (54).  She is determined to resist and hides under a bed, but she is found, tied into a chair, and forced to submit.  Zitkala-Ša says the following about the experience: “I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids.  Then I lost my spirit” (56).  After changing the Indian’s appearance, the next thing to go is the language.  And to that end, most Indian boarding schools have an English only policy, and the children are not allowed to speak their native languages.  Zitkala-Ša reports that she is able to use broken English within the year. Overall, Zitkala-Ša feels that the boarding school experience is dehumanizing.  She states: “I have many times trudged in the day’s harness heavy-footed, like a dumb sick brute” (66).  After Zitkala-Ša returns home, she continues to feel torn between the Indian world and the white world.  She expresses this internal conflict: “I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one” (69).  After being home for four summers, Zitkala-Ša returns back to school at White's Institute in Indiana. Yet, she does not fit in white world either.  She makes no “friends among the race of people [she] loathes” (97). Instead, she feels like an uprooted tree—“uprooted from [her] mother, nature, and God” (97). After her schooling, Zitkala-Ša goes to the Carlisle Industrial School.  She teaches there from 1898 to 1899, and it is during this period that she publishes “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” (viii).  This story explores the cost of assimilation.  In the story the grandmother and father map out a plan for the young Sioux—encouraging him to be a warrior, a hunter, a husband.  Prophetically, he is “sorely troubled with fear lest [he] should disappoint them” (111).  However, the young Sioux spends the next nine years at a mission school, and he does not fulfill the future that was designed for him.  He is then sent back home as a Christian missionary to his people.  The soft-hearted Sioux describes his return: “Wearing a foreigner’s dress, I walked, a stranger, into my father’s village” (112). Because the young Sioux has been trained that it is wrong to kill, this training prevents him from finding food for his father before he starves to death.  Through this story, Zitkala-Ša is expressing that the white man’s education and religion is not suitable for the Indian way of life.  Her writings show the dilemma that faces the Indian—is it better to resist or is it better to assimilate?  Zitkala-Ša is somewhat like Quanah Parker in that they both retain their Indian ways while taking advantage of the white man’s education. 

Closing of boarding schools     

            The Carlisle Industrial School had a life span of thirty-nine years.  It is interesting to note  that during that time period over 10,000 children attended the school and most returned to the  reservation (Landis).  In her essay, “Assimilation through Education: Indian Boarding Schools  in the Pacific Northwest,” anthropologist Carolyn J. Marr states: “By the 1920s the Bureau of  Indian Affairs had changed its opinion about boarding schools, responding to complaints that  the schools were too expensive and that they encouraged dependency more than self-sufficiency.”  Also, during the 1930’s there is a shift in education philosophy that encourages the classroom lessons to reflect the diversity of Indian cultures and most of the boarding schools were closed at this time (Marr).

Conclusion 

            When the children of Israel went into the Promised Land, they are given a set of dietary laws.  These laws make the Israelites choose everyday between clean and unclean.  There is always a choice that needs to be made.  Likewise, the American Indian has to continually choose whether he will assimilate or resist.  Looking for this theme as I did my research helps me to see that every historical event, big or small, creates a moment of decision for the American Indians.  Obviously, when the term Indian is used, it encompasses a variety of people, with a variety of cultures, and a variety of languages.  Therefore, it is interesting that not all Indians make the same choice.  When Quanah Parker chooses to be a part of both worlds, he was unpopular with some of his own people.  According to Marrin, “they called him a ‘half-breed,’ a ‘half-blood,’ and a ‘white man’s Indian’” (155).  Although Quanah chooses to live in a house, he refuses to get rid of some of his wives and keep only one.  At home, Quanah wears the traditional breechcloth and moccasins.  However, when Quanah travels with his wife, To-nar-cy, they always wear stylish American clothes.  Marrin shares that “a San Antonio paper reported that Mrs. Parker wears high-heeled shoes, has diamonds on her fingers, and carries a gold watch” (171)  Quanah learns to speak English quite well, but when he is asked to cut off his braids by an official, he asks if “whites did not wear their hair as they wished”(165).  It is also interesting that both Quanah and Zitkala-Ša choose to work on behalf of their people.  Similarly, they both choose to reject Christianity—Zitkala-Ša calls herself pagan and Quanah starts the Indian religion that uses peyote.  Comparing and contrasting how Quanah and Zitkala-Ša choose to assimilate and how they choose to resist would be fascinating project.  Also, I still have a lot of questions about Zitkala-Ša’s personal life.  She is engaged to marry a man she meets at Carlisle, but he dies of the measles.  Later, she is engaged to marry Carlos Montezuma but distance and personal philosophies caused them to break it off.  For one thing, Montezuma was a big supporter of Pratt.  Her letters to him are available, and I think they would make an interesting study.  Zitkala-Ša does eventually marry and has one son.  I read on one site that she was considering sending her son to a boarding school—I wonder if that could possibly be true?  Anyway, I would like to know more about her.                                                                                               

Also, I came across a website detailing the 100^th Anniversary of the release of the Hopi Indians from Alcatraz.  They are imprisoned for a year for refusing to send their children off to a boarding school.  I think that would make a great research project.  Lastly, it might be informative to look at the lives of the American Indians in the 21^st century.  I ran across an article that details research on the social and emotional distress of the American Indian and a current study on the American Indian would compliment the study I have completed.

As a teacher, what I have learned from this project will certainly help me. Obviously, what I have learned historically will be of great value. Furthermore, learning about the culture of the American Indians and the problems they face will make me a more sensitive teacher towards all minorities.  I now see that students may be struggling with inner turmoil that may affect their behavior.  For example, Zitkala-Ša is not necessarily being disobedient when she hides under the bed; she is resisting a cultural change.  What may not be important to me may be very important to my student. Additionally, I now realize that there may be strife between the generations. Knowing this will help me when I deal with the parents.  I will do my best to incorporate and celebrate cultural diversity in the classroom, so all students will have access to an excellent education.

Works Cited

Brown Foundation. “The Challenges and Limitations of Assimilation Indian Board chools” The Brown Quarterly 4.3 (Fall 2001): 6 Jan. 2002. 12 April 2004

            <http://brownvboard.org/brwnqurt/04-3/04-3a.htm>.

Brunner, Borgna. American Indian Quotations. Sitting Bull (1831?–1890): Oglala       Sioux Chief,   n.d. 2000-2003 Pearson Education, Inc. 20 Apr. 2004         <www.factmonster.com/spot/aihmquotes.html>.

The Holy Bible. King James Version. New York: Cambridge University Press, n.d.

Landis, Barbara. Carlisle Indian Industrial School History. 1996. 4 April 2004             <http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html>.

Marr, Caroline. Modern American Poetry. “Assimilation through Education: Indian     Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest.” 12 April 2004   <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/marr.htm>.

Marrin, Albert. Plains Warrior:  Chief Quanah Parker and the Comanches. New York: Smon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 1996.

Morrison, Kenneth M.  "`That Art of Coyning Christians': John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts."  Ethnohistory.  21.1 (Winter 1974): 85.

Petrovich, Dr. Alisa V. History 4035, “Texas and the Borderlands.” Class notes from fall, 2003.

Twain, Mark. www.twainquotes.com. Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions. 18 Apr. 2004<http://www.twainquotes.com/History.html>.

 Zitkala-Ša.  American Indian Stories. 1921. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.