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The First Anniversary of Hampton
At the last anniversary of Hampton,
Secretary Schurz remarked in his speech "One day, soon, a very interesting
sight will be seen here and at Carlisle. It will be the first Indian
School-visiting Board. Within a few days twenty-five or thirty Sioux chiefs,
among them some warriors whose hands were lifted against the United States
but a few days ago, Red Cloud and others, will go to Carlisle and come here
to see their children in these schools."
Last May, accordingly, this "Indian
School-visiting Board" reached Hampton. The
meeting between them and their young
relatives would have convinced the most
skeptical that the heart of man answers to
heart as face to face in water, whatever the
skin it beats under As the Gros Ventre and Ree chiefs gathered the children
of their own tribes around them for a special talk, Son of the Star beckoned
one of the older girls to the front, and searching some mysterious depths of
his blanket, drew forth a dirty little coil of string about two feet long,
unwound it, straightened it carefully, and let it hang from one hand to the
floor, with the other outlining some little form about it, bringing
quick-flitting smiles to the face of the girl, while the whole ring looked
on with evidently intelligent interest, though not a word was spoken.
Handing the string over to the girl, he dived into his blanket once more,
producing this time a little worn pair of baby shoes. But at this his
watcher broke down entirely in a flood of tender tears; for the whole silent
pantomime had been a letter from home describing the growth and beauty of
the little sister she had left winking in its cradle basket two years
before. Son of the Star was a fine specimen of an old chief of
powerful proportions. Poor Wolf, in full Indian costume, and glory of
porcupine quills and eagle feathers, had put a finishing touch to his
dignity by an incongruous and ludicrously solemn pair of huge gold-bowed
spectacles, which made him look like a caricature of Confucius. The Gros Ventre were particularly anxious to see
Ara-hotch-kish, the only son of their second chief, Hard Horn, who had been
prevented by some accident from accompanying the expedition. They found the
little fellow in the workshop painting pails, and pressed around him in an
admiring group. Ara's dignity was fully equal to the occasion. He worked
away with an air of superb indifference, vouchsafing the old chiefs no
notice whatever, except to elbow them aside, when his pail was done, to set
it up and get down another, only aside glance now and then through his long
lashes, and the shadow of a demure smile around his firm-set lips, betraying
that he was taking in everything, and enjoying his honors. All the chiefs were delighted spectators at the merry
games of the evening "conversation hour." In an evil moment, however, the
15-14-13 puzzle was explained to Confucius by some of his young Gros Venues,
and he proved his common origin. with white humanity by succumbing instantly
to its spell. For the rest of the evening his gold-bound goggles bent over
the maddening squares as if they were the problem of his race, set,
according to its white brethren's favorite arrangement, with thirteen facts,
fourteen experiments, and fifteen theories in hopeless reversion. A visit from Bright Eyes, the eloquent young advocate
of the Ponca, was a very powerful stimulus to the girls, as showing them
what one of their own race and sex might become. After she left, one of the
older girls said to me, with a pretty, timid hesitancy, "Miss Bright Eyes-I
wish I like that." Her own soft bright eyes shone with a soul in them as she
added: "When I came to here, I feel bad all time; I want go home; I no want
stay at Hampton. Now I want stay here. I not want go home. I want learn
more, then go home, teacher my people." A few weeks after, on the visit of the chiefs from
Dakota, this girl, at her own urgent request, stood up before the whole
conclave and the school, and with flushed cheeks and downcast eyes told her
people's. rulers what the school was to her, and begged them to send all the
children to learn the good road. Her speech, which, in order to reach all
the chiefs, had to be translated by two interpreters, passing through
English on the way, was listened to with respectful attention. The most important result of Bright Eyes's visit to the
school was to rouse in her own heart the desire to make use of her hold upon
public sympathy for he permanent benefit of her Indian sisters. With this
desire she offered her services to speak at
the East in behalf of a project of some
Northern friends of the school to enlarge
its work by erecting a building for Indian
girls, to cost, complete and furnished,
$15,000. A beautiful site adjoining the
school premises, and now enclosed in them, was given as a generous send off
by a lady friend. It will give room for the training of at least fifty
more Indian girls at Hampton, thus effecting the desired balance of
the sexes. The Secretary of the Interior has signified his readiness
to send them from the agencies with the same appropriation as for the
boys, of $150 per year apiece. There is every assurance of their
readiness now to come. It is for the friends of the Indians to decide
whether Hampton's work for them shall be thus rounded and established,
and the timid prayer be heard, "I wish I like that."
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Little Indian girl in her room.
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Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, like Hampton, Virginia, is classic ground in American
history. Under the shade of its unbroken forests Benjamin Franklin met
the red men in council. A British military post in the Revolution, and
falling into the hands of the Continentals, the Hessian - built
guard-house is still shown as once the place of Andro's confinement,
before his greater disaster. The last and greatest change of fortune, which has
filled the empty
armories with ploughshares and pruning-hooks, and the soldiers' quarters
with a government school for Indian children-as if the spirit of the
earliest and sacredest of Indian treaties still lingered in the groves
of Penn--was brought about through a bill introduced in the winter
of 1879 in the House of Representatives, entitled "A bill to |
| increase educational privileges and
establish additional industrial, training
schools for the benefit of youth belonging to such nomadic Indian
tribes as have educational treaty claims upon the United States. "It
provided for the utilization for such school purposes of certain
vacant military posts and barracks as long as not required for
military occupation, and authorized the detail of army officers by the
Secretary of War for service in such schools, without extra pay, under
direction of the Secretary of the Interior. The House Committee on Indian Affairs, in favorably
reporting upon this bill, urged that the government had made treaty
stipulations specially providing for education with nomadic tribes,
including about seventy-one thousand Indians, having over twelve
thousand children of school age; that the treaties were made in 1868,
and in ten years less than one thousand children had received
schooling. It was further urged that "the effort in this direction
recently undertaken and in successful progress at the Industrial and
Normal Institute of Hampton, Virginia, furnishes as striking proof of
the natural aptitude and capacity of the rudest savages of the plains
for mechanical scientific, and industrial education, when removed from
parental and tribal surroundings and influences"; and that "the very
considerable number of agents, teachers, missionaries, and others
engaged in educational
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Harness-Making Apprentices, Carlisle
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work who have visited and witnessed the
methods of Hampton, join in commending them as just what the Indian
needs, while the intercourse between the youth at Hampton and their
parents has produced extraordinary interest and demand for educational
help from these tribes." The importance of this measure was so recognized that
even in anticipation of subsequent favorable action upon it by
Congress, with a wise cutting of red tape, the "War Department turned
over Carlisle Barracks to the Interior, and Captain Pratt was detailed
to bring children from the Northern agencies before the frosts came,
which would have delayed it another year. The transfer of the post was
effected on the centennial anniversary of the battle of White Plains,
eliciting from Secretary McCreary a felicitous remark upon the
coincidence which on such memorial day gave up to Indian education a
post for eighty years used as a training school for |
| cavalry officers to make war chiefly upon
Indians. Taking with him Hampton's godspeed, and two of his most
advanced Dakota boys for interpreters and "specimens," the captain
started for Dakota in September, 1879, returning in a few weeks with
eighty-four.
All but two of the St. Augustines from Hampton also
accompanied their captain to Carlisle, to form a starting-point of
English speech and civilization. One of these young men, a Kiowa, with
a companion who had been under instruction at the North went on alone
to Indian Territory in advance of Captain Pratt, and by their own
influence they gathered forty-two children and youth from their own
agency for Carlisle. These, with some more from other agencies in the
Territory, were brought by the captain to the school and it opened
with one hundred and forty-seven children on the 1st of November,
1879.
The President's next Message and the report of the
Secretary of the Interior again commended to public attention the
importance of the -work at Hampton, with the new efforts to which its
"promising results" had led at Carlisle and at Forest Grove, Oregon,
where arrangements were made for a similar training at a white
boarding-school of a number of Indian boys and girls belonging to
tribes on the Pacific coast, under charge of Captain Wilkinson, who is
making it quite successful under many difficulties.
Additions and changes from time to time have brought
the number at Carlisle up to one hundred and ninety-six at the present
time, fifty-seven of whom are girls. Besides the Sioux and St.
Augustines, there are in lesser numbers other Cheyenne, Arrapaho,
and Kiowa; also Comanche, Wichita, Seminole, Pawnees, Keechi,
Towaconie, Nez Percés, and Ponca,
from Indian Territory; Menomonee from Wisconsin; Iowas, Sacs, and
Foxes from Nebraska; Pueblos from New Mexico; Lipan from old Mexico;
to which will probably be added fifty Utes from Colorado, the first of
the tribe ever in a school. Many of the number are children of chiefs
or head-men; among others, of White Eagle, head chief of the Ponca;
Black Crow, American Horse, and White Thunder, noted chiefs of the
Sioux. The famous old chief Spotted Tail had four boys there and a
daughter, with two more distant relatives, but, on his visit to them,
took umbrage at finding his half-breed son-in-law no longer needed as
interpreter, and went off in a huff, with all his little Spotted Tails
behind him. For this hasty action he was called to account,
immediately on his return, by his people, who
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A Class Room
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| could not understand why, if Carlisle was a bad place, he
should not have brought their children away too, and on hearing the
other side of the story from the chiefs who had accompanied him, asked
to have him deposed for "double talking." One of the indignant
parents, with the mild name of Milk, in writing upon the subject to
Captain Pratt, says, with some lactic acidity, "Spotted Tail has been
to the Great Father's house so often that he has learned to tell lies
and deceive people." It is pleasant to add that a judicious letting
alone had the due effect, and he has requested the government's
permission to send his children back to Carlisle. Many visitors go to Carlisle to see the Indians. Some
of them, it must be acknowledged, are disappointed. After alighting at
the commandant's office, and being courteously received by Captain
Pratt or one of his assistants, the spokesman of the party asks
politely if they may "first look about by themselves a little."
Cordial permission given, they set forth, but in the course of half an
hour are back again with clouded brows, and the appeal, "We thought we
might see some Indians round; can you show us some?" A smile and a
circular wave of the hand emphasize the assurance that a score or two
of noble red men are within easy eye-range at the moment. Following
the gesture with a glance over the green where the boys and girls are
passing, perhaps, to their school-rooms, the shade of unsatisfaction
deepens, and they explain: "Oh, but I mean real Indians. Haven't you
some real Indians-- in blankets, you know, and feathers, and long
hair?"
A little allowance must be made for sentiment in human
nature, and if these easily disappointed visitors stay long enough
they may be gratified with an occasional "real Indian" dance of a
gentle type, or without much trouble the well-named maiden Pretty Day
might be persuaded to attire herself, as becomes a high-born princess
of the plains, in her cherished dress of finest dark blue blanket,
embroidered deer-skin leggings, and curiously netted cape adorned with
three hundred milk-white elk teeth, each pair of them the price of a
pony.
Aboriginal picturesqueness is certainly sacrificed to a
great extent in civilization. One who is willing to relinquish the
idea, however, of a menagerie of wild creatures kept for exhibition,
will not regret to find instead a school of neatly dressed boys and
girls, with bright eyes and clean faces, as full of fun and frolic as
if they were the descendants of the Puritans.
The barracks stand on a knoll half a mile from the
town. From the upper piazza of the commandant's quarters the eye
sweeps over a beautiful landscape. Spurs of the Blue Ridge circle it
in front and rear, from five to eight miles away,
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Slate of Little Sioux boy after seven months' training at Carlisle.
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the old town lies
down in the hollow, green fields stretch between, and the little "Tort
Creek" winds its very tortuous way round the post grounds and through
a grove of old trees. Beyond the flag-staff in front of the house is
the parade-ground, where the boys drill and the girls play. A pretty
sight it is to see the merry little crowd enjoying a game of ball, or
with heads up and toes trying to turn out, taking off the boys'
"setting-up drill," with shouts of laughter, finishing all up properly
with the difficult achievement of touching fingers to toes without
bending the knees.
Long brick buildings, ranged in a hollow square `with
double sides, are variously occupied by schoolrooms and
quarters for students and teachers, offices, dining room, kitchen,
hospital, etc. The large stables of the garrison have been, for the
most part, converted into workshops and a gymnasium. A little wooden
chapel has been put up for the school, simply a long room, well
lighted and furnished with settees but this has been all the building
needed. So many substantial edifices, in tolerable order to start
with, have been a great advantage. This is especially noticeable in
the school building, two stories high like the rest, the upper half of
which affords four school-rooms, each fifty feet by twenty-four, and
two recitation-rooms of half the length. All are furnished with
comfortable desks, blackboards, and all the conveniences of a
well-ordered school. The lower story, containing the same room, allows
for doubling the number of students, which is the captain's desire. |
A walk through these pleasant classrooms is of great
interest. Each contains from thirty to forty pupils, under the
constant care, for the most part, of one teacher, who, as may be
imagined, hasher hands full to keep all busy and quiet, but who does
it, somehow, to a remarkable degree. As at Hampton, the great object
is to teach English, and then the rudiments of an English education,
and the methods employed are similar. The results possible can not be more fairly shown than
by a slate not fairly shown
than by a slate not gotten up for the occasion, but filled with the
day's work of one of the pupils--not the best offered, but chosen
because it was the work of a little Sioux boy of twelve or thirteen.
who, seven months and a half before, had never had any schooling in
any language, and did not know a word of English, nor how to make a
letter or a figure. He evidently did know how to make
pictures, as most of his race do. The blackboards of an Indian
recitation-room are usually rich in works of art
illustrative of the clay's doings, or memories of home life.
| The industries, agricultural and mechanical, are under,
the charge of master-workmen; a skilled farmer, carpenter,
wagon-maker, and blacksmith, harness maker, tinner, shoemaker, baker,
tailor, and printer. All the boys not
learning trades are required to work in turn on the farm. Twelve acres
of arable land belong to the post, and twelve more have been
rented--two hundred could well be used. The articles manufactured in
the shops are taken by government for the agencies. Under this wise
encouragement they have already turned out wagons and farm implements,
dozens of sets of harness, hundreds of dozens of tinware, and numbers
of pairs of shoes, besides doing all the mending, and making all of
the girls' clothing and most of the boys' underwear. |
Tinner's Apprentice, Carlisle
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| The amount of
students' work on these varies. No-waste is allowed; the masterwork
men do the cutting out and planning for the most part, but the
apprentices are brought forward as fast as possible, and the masters
say they are up to any apprentices. Indeed, the enthusiastic
master-tinsmith put a challenge into a Carlisle paper, which was not
taken up, offering to back Roman Nose, one of the St. Augustines,
against any apprentice with no longer practice, for $100 a side. One
of the Young Sioux shoemakers took his father's measure when he
visited the school, and sent him by mail, after he went home, a
pair of boots made entirely by himself. The two printer apprentices are practiced chiefly upon.
the monthly "organ" of the school, the Eadle-Keatah-toh (Morning
Star), a very interesting little sheet. One of the bays, however,
Samuel Townsend, a Pawnee from Indian Territory, prints a tiny paper,
the School News, of which he is both editor and proprietor, writing
his own editorials and correcting his owls proof.
The girls' industrial room makes as good showing as the
boys'. Many have learned to sew by hand, and some to run the
sewing-machine. Virginia, daughter of the Kiowa chief Stumbling Bear,
made a linen shirt, with bosom, entirely by herself, washed and ironed
it herself, and sent it to her father. Two Sioux girls have made
calico shirts for their fathers. Mending is very neatly done. At
Carlisle, as at Hampton, the tender maidens sweeter industry with
sentiment, and carefully rummage the darning basket for the stockings
of the boys they like the best.
The young St. Augustine from Hampton who went to Indian
Territory to collect pupils for Carlisle, took wise advantage of
the opportunity to bring back a sweetheart for himself.
His naive account of the affair to the captain makes a good companion
piece to the Hampton love-letter.
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Cook and his Daughter Grace
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"Long time ago, in my home, Indian Territory, I hunt
and I fight. I not think about the girls. Then you take us St.
Augustine. By-and-by I learn to talk English. I try to do right.
Everybody very good to me. I try do what you say. But I not think
about the girls. Then I go Hampton. There many good girls. I study. I
learn to work. But I not think about the girls. Then I come Carlisle.
I work hard; try to help you. By-and-by you send
me Indian Territory for Indian boys and Indian girls. I go get many
fifteen. I see all my people, my old friends. But I not think about
the girls there. But Laura, she think. She tell me she be my wife. I
bring her here, Carlisle. She know English before. She study and sew.
Now Laura's father dead, since come here. Now I think all the time, I
think who take care of Laura? I think, by-and-by I find place to work
near here; I work very hard. I take care of Laura."Besides
this frank damsel, who "thinks" to so much purpose, he brought with
him a bright little sister of his own, and several brothers and
sisters of the other St. Augustines, all of whom are among the |
most promising of the
Carlisle pupils.
Carlisle, like Hampton, has met with much sympathy from
its neighbors. It is illustrated, with other points, in an item which
appeared in a Carlisle paper during the visit of the Sioux chiefs: "A
few mornings since we noticed one of the young Indian men passing in
the direction of the post-office, and at his side a comely Indian
maiden. The day being warm, the young man carried a huge umbrella to
shield them from the sun. Only a short distance in front of them
several Indian chiefs were stalking along, wrapped in blankets, and
bare-headed. The contrast was so striking that it attracted the
attention of many persons on the street. And the conclusion was
irresistibly forced upon all who noticed the incident that the Indian
school is proving a great success." The visit of the Sioux chiefs to Carlisle was prolonged
to eight or ten days, and, with the exception of Spotted Tail's
uncomfortable episode, was pleasant and profitable to all.
Accompanying the party was one Indian named Cook, who,
not being a chief, had not been invited to come at government expense, so he
came at his own expense, all the way from Dakota, to see his little girl at
the Carlisle school. He was greatly pleased with her surroundings and
progress, and the day after he arrived went out into the town and bought her
a white dress, a pair of slippers, and a gold chain and cross. Arrayed in
these gifts, he took his precious "Porcelain Face" out with him to have
their photographs taken to carry home.
Both Hampton and Carlisle afford
excellent opportunity for study of race character. The chief
conclusion will be that Indian children are, on the whole, very much
like other children, some bright and some stupid, some goad and
solve perverse, all exceedingly human. The untamed shyness, so much
ill the way of their progress, seems to be as marked in the
half-breeds as in those of full blood, unless they have been brought
up among white people. It wears off fastest in the younger odes, in
constant meeting with strangers, and association with new
companions. A certain self-consciousness and sensitive pride is left
which is not a bad point in the character. A quick sense of humor is
its correlative, perhaps, and both may result from the trained and
inherited keenness of observation which appreciates both the fitting
and the incongruous.
The pupils at Carlisle and Hampton are in constant
receipt of letters from their parents and friends, written some in picture
hieroglyphics, some in Sioux, and some, through their interpreters, in
English, but all expressive of earnest desire for their progress in school.
Abort a hundred of theca letters were sent to the Indian Department by
Captain Pratt, forty of which were referred to the Senate in answer to
Senator Teller's resolution against compulsory education for the Cheyenne.
Indian sentiments on education expressed by themselves, and the real effect
upon Indian parents of sending their children to a white man's school, no
one need question who reads the following specimens of these letters;
translated from the Sioux:
"Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota, April 15, 1850.
"My Dear Son,
I send my picture with this. You see that I had my War Jacket on when
taken, but I wear white man's clothes, and am trying to live and act
like white men. Be a good boy. We are proud of you, and will be more
so when you come back. All our people are building houses and opening
up little farms all over the reservation. You may expect to see a big
change when you get back. Your mother and all send love.
"Your affectionate father,
"Cloud Shield." |
"Rosebud Agency, January 4, 1880
"My Dear Daughter,
Ever since you left ate I have worked hard, and put up a good house,
and am trying to be civilized like the whites, so you will never hear
anything bad from me. When Captain Pratt was here he came to my house,
and asked me to let yon go to school. I want you to be a good girl and
study. I have dropped all the Indian ways, and am getting like a white
man, and don't do anything but what the agent tells me. I listen to
him. I have always loved you, and it makes me very happy to know that
yon are learning. I get my friend Big Star to write.
If you could read and write, I should be very happy.
Your father,
Brave Bull |
"Why do yon ask for moccasins? I
sent you there to be like a white girl, and wear shoes."
A small Indian girl who wanted to exhibit her knowledge
of a good big English word, announced that she had come East to be "
cilyized." I hope I have shown sufficiently that it is the effort of Hampton
and Carlisle not to sillyize the Indian. Let us not, on the other hand,
sillyize ourselves. One great lesson of the missionary work of fifty years
has been to work with nature and not against nature; the next must be to be
content with natural results. We forget that we our ourselves but the saved
remnant of a race. I can not do better on this point for both schools than
to quote from an address of General Armstrong: " The question is most
commonly asked, Can Indians be taught? That is not the question. Indian
minds are quick; their bodies are greater care than their minds; their
character is the chief concern of their teachers. Education should be first
for the heart, then for the health, and last for the mind, reversing the
custom of putting the mind before physique and character. This is the
Hampton idea of education."
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