"KILL THE INDIAN TO SAVE THE MAN" 

            During the constant Westward migration in America, the opportunity to "add souls to the rolls" of Christian converts was not to be lost at any cost – even death.  Of the more than 400 Indian Boarding schools, most were run by the government; but at least 150 were run by Catholic or Protestant churches.  This was not Johnny Appleseed extolling the Native Tribes to accept Christianity and lay down their arms to live in a peaceful coexistence with their white saviors.  The Indian Schools all over North America. where young Native boys and girls were sent and forced to learn to be “whites,” were about the same as prisons with psychological and physical abuse directly resulting in trauma, pain, and sometimes, horrible death.  Such horrendous disclosures have been news for years, but are mostly ignored by a majority of the white population as quaint and superfluous data.

         All Indian schools were operated in a similar despotic way in the act of cultural cleansing to remove the vestiges of “Indian-ness" from the child.  For Native children and their families, it was a living Hell.  White authorities felt that such treatment would assist the assimilation of Native People into White society.  Instead, it attempted to force them to go where they did not want to go and were not welcome.  The outcome of the experiment with Forced Indian Education was a colossal failure.  Some children got educated in white thinking but at what cost to their culture and human rights?  Forced education was a monument to white cultural ignorance. Of course, while Churches and the US Government get the blame, the consequences really are a reflection on the character of those who make up those institutions -"we the people."

            The operators of the Indian Schools were guided by the an erroneous premise that debasement, disorientation, regimentation, and denial of their heritage would transform Native children into “White-thinking,” cooperative, but invisible, minions.  They thought the "What to do with the Indians" problem would go away.  It was only a problem because we made it a problem; and it did not go away.  Our real problem was that we wanted the land and the resources for ourselves alone.  We rationalized that if the land was not being used the way we thought it should, it should be ours by divine right or the right of conquest.   Whatever the reasoning, we took advantage of people we should have protected equally.

              The wording of our Peace Treaties said in general that the conditions and agreements in a Treaty would be perpetual and remain effective "as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow."  The words were clever, flowery, and persuasive but turned out to be outright lies at the expense of people who were unfamiliar with Euro-American ethics and greed.  At first opportunity, we took the land, dammed the rivers, and plowed up the grass.  That was then; this is now.  Federal and State governments are dealing with people who sought education rather than having it stuffed down their throats with no choice in the matter.  They see through the promises that have been broken for hundreds of years.  No one values education more than those who sincerely seek it.  So even today, official government agreements with the various tribal governments come into question if oil, minerals, uranium, or water rights are found within the borders of the reservations and coveted by those who live elsewhere, outside the tribal lands.  It is a situation that has been going on for 400 years.  I don't expect the problem to resolve itself or disappear soon.  Cultural change moves at an incredibly slow pace, one generation at a time. 

             In October of 2024, at the Gila River Reservation in Arizona, President Joe Biden offered an official and full apology to all Native Americans for the role of the Federal Government in the inhumane and unconstitutional separation of Native Children from their families against their will and the subsequent debasement, abuse, and deaths of children during their forced imprisonment by Indian Schools. 

       Admissions of guilt and declarations of apology were offered on behalf of the Catholic Church by Pope Francis for abuse and crimes committed against Indigenous people by the Catholic Church in North American Indian Schools.  He also repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery" used by governments to seize and occupy native lands.  

        Those acts of contrition were offered 150 years too late but they were offered with the knowledge that the government and the Catholic Church had overstepped their boundaries and ignored their responsibilities in the mistreatment of innocent fellow human beings.  Offering apologies is only a small step in the redress of inhumane  treatment.  We still have a long way to go to get rid of such racism.