In this episode of the Clements Bookworm, Dr. Veronica Pasfield discusses her continuing research to understand the full purpose and force of federal Indian boarding schools. She asserts that the creation story of Carlisle Indian School must be rooted in missionary schools founded to prepare Kanaka Maoli for wage labor on their own Hawaiian homelands as well as in the captivity of Native children in the Southwest by a U.S. Army desperate to bring about the submission of Western tribes by any means necessary. While administrators touted assimilation as a benevolent enterprise, the archives show that Indian children were used as hostages to secure the extraction of tribal resources, and "schools" were used as an instrument for transforming indigenous peoples into a permanent underclass in their own homeland.
Books and resources discussed in the program are listed at https://conta.cc/3DzcaYj
The Clements Bookworm is a webinar series in which panelists and featured guests discuss history topics. Inspired by the traditional Clements Library researcher tea time, we invite you to pull up a chair at our [virtual] table.
This episode was generously sponsored by the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan.