In this week's blog, Erica Elbers presents a history of federal Indian boarding schools in the United States, dissecting the role that uniforms played in the forced assimilation of Native Americans. Through unpicking the characteristics of the uniforms alongside the associated political history, Erica reminds us of the importance dress plays in identity and cultural heritage, and how this can be weaponised.
In June 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland Newland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which was established to recognize the legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies to address their ‘intergenerational impact’ and shed light on the traumas of the past. (Newland, 1) This investigation was into Indian boarding schools that operated from 1819 until the mid-1970s where the United States implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of federal Indian boarding schools was to ‘culturally assimilate the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian’ children by ‘forcibly removing them from their families, communities, languages, religions, and cultural beliefs.’ (Newland, 1) In this report, it was estimated that there was, in the span of 150 years, 408 Indian boarding schools. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, one of the more popular institutions, was founded in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Like the other schools that were either government or church operated, Carlisle’s main goal was to “civilize” the Native American. As previous years were wrought with wars and mass murders, these operations shifted towards integrating Native Americans into American culture through education and religion.
The Federal Indian boarding school can be traced back to Richard Henry Pratt, the architect of these programs. With the Civilization Fund Act of 1819 that authorized funding for organizations to run schools on Native American reservations, Pratt used this to authorize the establishment of boarding schools-thus began the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.[1] It first operated as a recruitment system to bring in children to the school. Pratt went to nations and told Native chiefs that their loss of land and lost wars in which they fought was a result of lacking a proper education. Pratt’s unofficial motto was ‘kill the Indian in him, save the man.’ (Lomawaima, 81) After the children were brought to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, they were forced to change their name and were then forced to change their manner of dress. The boys' long hair was cut short and were required to wear school uniforms of button up shirts and trousers and the girls were given dresses. Among the groups of children that were removed and brought to Carlisle, they were from Sioux, Pueblo, Cheyenne, and Apache nations to name a few. It should be recognized that as each nation had diverse traditions and dress of their own, these garments were important visual markers of cultural heritage. This dress was subsequently stripped away and replaced with an entirely new identity to force assimilation. It bears discussion to assess what the removal of Native dress meant to heritage and identity of Native children and what Richard Henry Pratt, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and the other boarding schools had intended with these actions. By inspecting the boys’ uniforms issued at Carlisle, it may become clear as to what these intentions were.
The uniforms that were issued to the boys upon their arrival were buttoned down the front and usually made of wool. They had brass buttons and a looped motif stitched at the hems of either sleeves with either regular or braided thread. Stamped on the buttons on one uniform archived in the National Museum of the American Indian reads ‘god helps those who helps themselves.’ What seems to be most evident upon looking at the boys’ uniform is that they strongly resemble men’s American military uniforms. The overall design of the uniforms with the buttons straight down the front is the most noticeable resemblance, but upon further inspection the stitching motifs on both the military and school uniform are quite similar. Pratt was well-known and respected for his military service and fought not only in the Red River War, but at the start of the Civil War enlisted in the Ninth Indiana Infantry and was later elected corporal. It could be surmised that due to Pratt’s military background, he sought to integrate certain aspects into the school program from personal experience. However, it begs the question that if these young boys were being dressed in the same image as American military soldiers while attending a school created to integrate Native Americans into a predominant Anglo-American society, what does this tell us about the workings of creating the ideal American citizen?
The uniform, in many ways, can represent the control that the architects of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School sought to gain over the students. Uniforms can be powerful tools that portray a certain level of authority. However, uniforms can also be used to reinforce a distinct separation between those in power and those who are powerless. As the children were forced to change their traditional ways of dress and wear the school uniforms, they were exposed to a traumatic experience of a forced erasure of their identity. In doing this, the further instructions to change their names only solidified this transformation and ensuring complete control over the body. The uniforms modeled after those worn by men in the military brings up just how the school was run and how the two operated together. In the years following its establishment, Carlisle was celebrated as the ‘prototype for federal off-reservation boarding schools.’ Some features of the school’s structure ‘clearly stamped the mold of later schools: military discipline; G.I. (government issue) military and school uniforms; strict segregation by gender and age; the integration of academic instruction and trades training.’ (Lomawaima, 86) Scholars of Native American boarding schools have gone on to define Pratt’s endeavors to be that of ‘authoritarian paternalism’ in which the methods used were strict and harsh for the purpose of fostering a progression from “uncivilized” to “civilized” through cultural assimilation. This progression was constantly operated through the façade of “improving” and “helping” the Native people to conform, which can be seen in even the smallest of details not unlike the button on the boys’ uniforms. (Lomawaima, 86) While Native Americans were not legally recognized as American Citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Carlisle operated, in the eyes if its creators, as an experiment to find a more advantageous way of conquering the Native American that they believed would not result in war or bloodshed. It did, however, leave a significant and damaging impact.
Sources:
Craik, Jennifer. Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression. Dress, Body, Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2005.
Fear-Segal, Jaqueline and Susan D. Rose. Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 2016.
H Newland, Bryan. 2022. “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs.”
Lomawaima, K. Tsianina and Jeffrey Ostler. “Reconsidering Richard Henry Pratt: Cultural Genocide and Native Liberation in an Era of Racial Oppression.” Journal of American Indian Education 57, no. 1 (2018) 79-100.
Stein, Gray C. “The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.” New Mexico Historical Review 47, no. 3 (1972): 257, 258.
To read about a breadth of topics across costume history, check out our past blog posts.
