The Devastating Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools

Abstract

The Legacy of Americanization The boarding school system was implemented to eliminate the Native Americans, and today, it is seen as a brutal exercise. In the 1830s, the American government forced the Native Americans to move to the west of the Mississippi to make room for America's expansion. Still, the actual aim was the removal of the Native Americans from their territories. During the following years, the white population grew, and they were forced to inhabit the areas to which the Native Americans had settled. The government needed to come up with ways of creating new lands. Unfortunately, there were no more lands to the west to push the native Americans, and the only option left was to assimilate them, and it was at this point that Hiram Price, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, came up with the idea that it was cheaper to give the native Americans education than to fight them and the idea of boarding schools was born (Reyhner, 2018) In schools, students became susceptible to diseases, which resulted in deaths. The disease resulted in many deaths, facilitated by the schools' overcrowding nature, underpaid staff, and irregular medical care. The schools left a devastating legacy, and the idea of eradication of the Native American cultures they had hoped to do away with did not materialize. The implications were that many young children lost their lives, and the survivors were left with permanent marks for the rest of their lives. The brutality in these schools mainly left the Native Americans with a negative attitude toward Christianity since most of these schools were led by the Christian institutions that tried to civilize them into adopting the new light (Gregg, 2018). It turned out that the project backfired on the American government, whereby the assimilation of...