lewis indian school in colorado, which operated from 1892 to 1911. it purpose was to assimilate indigenous children into mainstream american society by separating the children from their families. >> so good evening, my name is eric carpia with history colorado. i'm here with tonight's featured guest speaker, dr. majel boxer, offered by history colorado el pueblo history museum, fort garland, the trinidad history museum. before we begin tonight's program in the spirit of healing and education, we acknowledge the 48 contemporary tribes with historic ties to the state of colorado. these tribes are our partners. we consult with them when we plan exhibits, collect, preserve, and interpret artifacts, do archaeological work and create educational programs. we recognize these indigenous peoples as the original inhabitants of this land. as always, i'd like to thank the crystal national heritage area and colorado state university pueblo for their continued support of the series. if you'd like to join in spot of our border land projects, we'd invite you to support the initiative at coloradogives.org, and we'll drop the link in the chat box later this evening. as you know our borderland series is offered on a donation basis only, so your support will allow us to continue and expand on events like tonight's. at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce tonight's featured guest, dr. majel boxer. an associate professor of native american and indigenous studies in durango, colorado. welcome, we're excited to have you here this evening. i believe you're on mute. >> thank you, eric, thanks for the warm welcome. let me first begin by gearing up my screen for the presentation tonight. my talk tonight was brought together through the efforts of eric carpio and those working behind the screens, and so i want to give a thank you for the opportunity to present my work tonight. my name is dr. majel boxer, and i am an enrolled member of the fort peck sin boy yan and sioux tribes of montana. i also would like to begin with a land acknowledgment, fort lewis indian school located first at pagosa springs and then hespress, colorado, and also its current campus in durango, colorado, sits on the traditional homelands of the pueblo peoples including their ancestors whose homelands encompass present day southwest colorado. i'd like to also acknowledge the ute peoples whose creation placed them amongst the mounts. i'd also like to acknowledge the da na people whose emergence centered them among the sacred mountains, including big mountain sheep in the north, what we know today as mount hespress. my comments tonight and my work is situated on the concept of the absent presence, and i cite the work of mila vicente carpio, indigenous history is the absence presence in american history, deliberately erased or radically transformed to maintain the master narrative. the process of colonization have created this absence in the american historical memory, which shapes how indigenous history, space, or place have been and continue to be renamed, redefined and destroyed. i think of this concept whenever i enter campus from the front hill, and i'm greeted by the sign that you see in front of you where it says fort lewis college was founded in 1911. for me, fort lewis indian school history and then indigenous student experiences while at school is erased when the college notes that its founding date as 1911 when i know that the college that fort lewis indian school existed prior to the college and was established in 1992. i first began with giving a context that there existed the federal indian policy of assimilation and the height of this policy of assimilation was between the years 1880s and through the 1920s. at this time, the south proclaimed friends of the indian had a goal. their goal was to assimilate indigenous peoples into mainstream american society. their hope was to solve the indian problem, to find a way to finally put an end to this problem that plagued the united states for several centuries, since the founding and even before the united states was a nation. these friends of the indian promoted two policies. the first was the removal of indian children to boarding schools, and i'll focus my comments tonight on that, but i also want us to be aware of allotment, that the friends of the indian, these reformers from the east, thought that the best way to compel native people to assimilate was to break up their reservation homelands. these reservation homelands were already vestiges of traditional homelands, and so the breakup of these lands was meant for native people to see the land as private property, to transform their labor so that they would become farmers and that they would through generations assimilate and be part of the body politic. this was accomplished through the passage of the general allotment act. here just to give you a brief overview, fort lewis indian school is part of nearly two dozen off reservation boarding schools. the first was carlo indian industrial school in carlo, pennsylvania, that was established in 1879. and then fort lewis somewhere in the middle of this list on the bottom, fort lewis indian school opened its doors in 1892, and several more off reservation boarding schools would begin operations during this period of time. geographically, fort lewis indian school of course is located in southwest colorado, but this map here details the number of off or non-reservation boarding schools. carlisle over in pennsylvania being the first of these schools, and then several others to follow as we saw. many of these off reservation boarding schools had the goal of taking in native students but doing so at a far distance from their homelands. for many of those behind federal indian schools, the hope was that the children would never return, that they would spend the entire school term at boarding school, and then in the summer months that they would participate in what was called the outing program. and so for many superintendents, many of those eastern reformers, they had hoped that this would be the final push for native people to become fully assimilated through the education of their children. by the numbers this an ewe report of the commissioner of indian affairs noted the increase of the number of students attending some type of boarding school whether that was federal or church run boarding school and also that was a day school. early records were not as well kept, and so the attends in 1877 amongst the first wave of students numbered just over 3,500 students. by 1900 over 21,000 students would be enrolled in some type of school, whether it was a day school or boarding school, we could see that there were some differences between those two. this brings me to a brief overview of fort lewis indian school. it's important to note that fort lewis was a u.s. army post, first located at pagosa springs in 1878, and then it relocated several miles west of pagosa to the town of hespress in 1880. the army post would be decommissioned and then in 1892 fort lewis indian school began its operations. there is a one thing i wanted to know is that part of my talk comes from the records that are kept inned center of southwest studies and also records at the national archives so my primary documentation comes from the years 1904 and 1905, and at this time the superintendent was william w. peterson. at all times in my research i wanted to include the names of students so that their presence isn't erased and wherever possible i include their experiences and their names in my comments. of. recordkeeping was pretty spotty. if you'll notice in 1901 and 1902 and also in 1908 that there were no attendance reports kept. now, that's not to suggest that no attendance was taken but that these records did not survive and that they -- that there is no information from those years. in a letter from the u.s. indian inspector, c.c. duncan to the secretary of interior, he wrote, this school is organized march 1892 has not been the present -- has not to the present time been a success, but the school has been small and now contains only 128 pupils and 41 of these have been transferred from the santa fe school, and if returned upon the opening of that school, we'll leave the fort lewis school with but 87 pupils. it seems to me that this school could be supplied with scholars from the southern utes, and i think there are at least 150 children of that tribe of school age, a large proportion of whom could be brought into that school. he also continues that he would be authorized to use some compulsion to compel the attendance of children of this tribe. he's speaking of the southern utes. he finally writes most of the children in attendance being in the order named from the mescalaro apaches, white mountain apaches, san carlos apaches, pimas, here he uses the word diggers, which is a derogatory word in describing california native people, navajos and utes. there being no school on the reservation, it occurs to me that the rule of preventing the removal of indian children from the reservation should be relaxed and these children given the benefit of an education by being forced into the fort lewis school. there are countless times where the superintendent of fort lewis indian school writes about compelling or enforcing or even coercing native parents, especially southern ute parents to send their children to school. the indian inspector also continued to say i recommend that at least 50 of the brightest children of the southern utes be taken without the consent of their parents and be placed in the fort lewis school. i organized the rest of my talk then into several themes based on the type of information i was able to uncover about indigenous students at school. the themes i will talk on are the themes of school life, well-being, the denigration of spiritual and cultural practices, guardianship, and paternalism, and then finally parent and child relationships. it's no mistake that fort lewis indian school was patterned after a military school. of course it came and used the buildings that were part of fort lewis army post, but the school day itself was highly regimented. the superintendent william peterson wrote to the assistant matron of the small boys that these small boys were to have role calls as follows. so roll call begins at 6:25 a.m., 7:20, 8:20, 11:55, 12:50, 1:10, and a final roll call at 5:25. the superintendent said that roll call was for each company before bedtime, an inspection of beds after all have retired. any unexcused or unaccounted for child would be reported to the industrial teacher. part of the original architect behind federal off reservation boarding schools was captain richard henry pratt. pratt was a military man himself. he served during the civil war, and he even oversaw the imprisonment of 74 cheyenne and kiowa prisoners at fort marion in st. augustine, and so pratt was that architect behind federal indian boarding school, and because of that, he really implemented that military lifestyle in the lives of school children. fort lewis indian school was well regarded for its large marching area in front of the schools and also that school aged children would be marched up and down those lawns regularly. the curriculum at the school was devoted to english along with math, superintendent peterson would write to estelle reel, who would serve as the superintendent. in teaching the children to speak english, and i assure you you will have my cooperation of this school. peterson would also request that children be instructed to sing what he called the national airs and also to play instruments, and so fort lewis indian school had a marching band. peterson requested that band sheet music as above, and he laid out music for the cornet, clarinet, tenor clarinet, alto, et cetera, to include the star spangled banner, america, the red white and blue, dixie, and then a song called hail columbia. so not only was the daily school regiment highly militarized but one that promoted english, speaking of english, reading and writing of english, and then alongside their curriculum, students were supposed to engage in the vocational training, and that included farming and gardening. peterson would write i wish to say that every effort is being made to have the farm idea permeate the school room work to as great an extent as possible. number work and language work are based upon the subject as far as practical, and regular instruction is given using golf and main's text. this textbook was titled first principles of agriculture. peterson promoted the idea of school gardens. he wanted school gardens to be made by all the primary pupils under the direction of the primary teacher, and the girls will have their individual plats under the charge of the girls matron. attendance will be given to the proper instruction concerning the plants and their growth, and an earnest effort will be made to have each garden produce results. in addition to school work, children also would face illness and the spread of disease and things even such as lice amongst themselves. illnesses that plagued indian school was noted by william peterson. he noted that a very small, thin little boy was brought into school last fall by a man who gave his name nakida nanez and who said his home was in the village. the boy is not at all well. he is not sick in bed, but he is very listless, and he can't be roused up to anything if they want to take him home. i shall be glad to have them do so. peterson also noted that shea lillibee and a little girl from the two grey hills area had pneumonia. shea is well, and i think the other girl will be soon. annie antonio is a little sick but not much. she will sit up tomorrow. when i looked at these comments made by peterson, especially the son of naki de nanez where he showed signs of listlessness, for me it goes back to that sense of wellbeing, it's not enough that the school had a physician on hand to treat sick children but that children also had to thrive while at school and that many and some of them did not thrive. because of the close living arrangements, the dormitorys that -- dormitories that young girls and boys were assigned to, the spread of lice did occur amongst young children. peterson, again, had his attention called to the issue. he writes, my attention was called this afternoon to the condition in which the little girls' heads were found. he will at once see personally that the small girls' heads are made clean and that they are kept so, and since the heads of the little girls with short hair were found to be in the worst condition, it is evident that haircutting is not a remedy, and for that reason, no more girls will have their hair so cut. he made a final recommendation that weekly inspections and fine combs are to be requisitioned. i find it interesting that for peterson he did not at all once mention lice. he also did see that haircutting did not save young girls and even boys from contracting lice and spreading lice from amongst each other, so for him, his recommendation that little girls hair not be cut was based on that assumption that it didn't help the spread. for me, i was concerned on why cultural practices and the cultural notions of long hair were not also part of that consideration, but for peterson, it was a health issue. there's another story regarding the health of laura pete, the daughter of sosen bega. here peterson writes that she has gone down very rapidly and that he wanted word of her illness to go to her father. peterson says, it seems impossible to find out what is the matter with her. in some respects her trouble resembles tuberculosis and other respects not at all. our physician who has given her every attention is unable to decide. there is no doubt, however, but that her trouble was aggravated by their singing over her last summer as she has never been really well since her return to the fort. this story tells me that peterson was concerned definitely about the health of the young girl, but he was also finding that what aggravated her illness, he said was their singing over her last summer. so to me this suggests that the cultural practices and spiritual practices that involved native ways of healing, that that was cited as aggravating her health condition and not at all any other -- any other explanation for her illness. there are moments where peterson writes in a derogatory way about native spiritual and cultural practices. that was one example, but unrelated to fort lewis indian students, school students, peterson was asked to identify a ceremonial pipe found in, quote, an aztec ruin. and so peterson responded the utes do not use pipe at all. if they did use them, it would not be likely one would be buried in an as aztec ruin. he definitely notes that assimilation was well underway with ute peoples because he notes that they do not use pipes at all now. that's less of an indication that spiritual practices and cultural practices were waning, but rather when he wrote this in 1904, the indian crimes code had already been well-established since 1883, and so 20 years plus native people had been prohibited from is more of a reflection of federal indian policy that made it a crime to possess ceremonial pipes, made it an offense if one were to be found with a medicine bag or if one was found to be a medicine man, and finally, peterson doesn't necessarily understand reasons why native people avoid placing like these aztec ruins. for him, you know, it suggests maybe some, quote, backward practices, but again, it's the respect native people have for those places and for the ancestors who lived and then left those places. my next theme i wanted to discuss is that of guardianship and paternalism. of course guardianship and paternalism characterized the relationship the superintendent had with indigenous pupils at fort lewis indian school. but also guardianship and paternalism extended even over ute peoples, people who are not at all students of fort lewis indian school. one of the ways that guardianship manifested itself is that superintendents had an inordinate amount of power in deciding whether or not a student were to stay in school and to deny parent requests for their child to be returned. peterson would write i will not say that fermania -- let me start again, i will say that ferminia will not say whether she wants to go home or not. in any event, she could not go home before school closes on june 23rd. here he's writing to a mr. j.p. gallegos at san lewis, colorado. peterson continues, i wish to say further that i have been appointed her guardian by the courts of this state, and that she will have to remain under my legal charge until she is 18 years of age. peterson also relates that william spear, a navajo boy will be carried as an outing pupil belonging to this school. even in his language and as he describes this outing program that william spear belonged to this school, and so children were seen as perhaps even like property, belonging to a school under the guardianship of the superintendent. william spear, peterson said, is an excellent boy, industrious and trustworthy and will i hope make a good indian citizen someday. guardianship and paternalism would extend to whether or not children would stay at school. peterson says, you know, of course, it is contrary to the regulations of the indian office to allow pupils of a non-reservation school to return to their homes before the end of the terms for which they have entered. of course from the school's standpoint, it is not a good thing for them to go home at all. they forget more in the vacation than they will learn in twice the time they spend at home. to say nothing of their getting so dirty and full of parasites, that it is as much work to clean them up as it is when they first come in. i can not say that our civilization is 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