In 1890, Indian affairs in the United States were administered i- the Interior Department by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a political appointee. At this time, one of the goals of the federal government was to “civilize” American Indians by having them assimilate into mainstream American society. One important “civilizing” force in assimilation was education.
The purpose of education was to strip all vestiges of Indian culture from the Indian students: they were to speak only English; they were to dress in the American style, they were to eat American foods, they were to worship the Christian gods, they were to live in American-style houses.
With regard to the emphasis on Christianity in the government-run Indian boarding schools, Hopi historian Matthew Gilbert, in his chapter in Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: An Anthology of the American Indian Holocaust, writes:
“The necessity to include Christianity in the overall objective for Indian education largely stemmed from the government’s desire to create Indian students who would reflect a Protestant America.”
Destroying Indian cultures, particularly Indian religions, was seen as a critical step in assimilating Indians into mainstream American culture. Matthew Gilbert reports:
“The government intended for students to learn about Jesus Christ, Christian doctrine, and the Bible.”
Law researcher Steven Newcomb, in an article in Indian Country Today, writes:
“One of the things U.S. boarding schools beat into American Indian children was patriotism toward the American flag and devotion to the Bible, in part by working to make Indian children ashamed of their own Native spirituality.”
In 1890, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs announced that the 8th of February was to be celebrated as Franchise Day. It was on this day that the Dawes Act was signed into law, and the Commissioner felt that this:
“…is worthy of being observed in all Indian schools as the possible turning point in Indian history, the point at which the Indians may strike out from tribal and reservation life and enter American citizenship and nationality”
The purpose of the Dawes Act was to break up communally owned reservation lands, assign allotments to individual tribal members, and declare “surplus” lands open for non-Indian settlement.
Also in 1890, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs published a detailed set of rules for Indian schools which stipulated a uniform course of study and the textbooks which were to be used in the schools. The Commissioner prescribed the celebration of United States national holidays as a way of replacing Indian heroes and assimilating Indians. According to the Commissioner:
“Education should seek the disintegration of the tribes, and not their segregation. They should be educated, not as Indians, but as Americans.”
Schools were to give Indian students surnames so that as they became property owners it would be easier to fix lines of inheritance. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered Indian names on the reservations to be changed so that each Indian was given an English Christian name and surname. Surnames were to be translated to English and shortened if they are too long.
The new names were to be explained to the Indians. Historian Virginia Cole Trenholm, in her book The Arapahoes, Our People, writes:
“One wonders what reasons the agent could give for changing such colorful names as Lone Bear to Lon Brown, Night Horse to Henry Lee Tyler, or Yellow Calf to George Caldwell.”
On some reservations, Indians were given names such as “Cornelius Vanderbilt” and “William Shakespeare.” In commenting on the practice of giving Indians names from Euroamerican history and literature, Frank Terry, in his 1897 article in American Monthly Review of Reviews. reports:
“The plan resorted to in some quarters of discarding the Indian names altogether and fitting the Indians out with names that are purely English has not worked well, for those selected in many cases are names illustrious in American history, and this has caused the Indians to become the butt of many a vulgar joke.”
On the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, the Indian agent reported that:
“Now every family has a name. Every father, mother; every husband and wife and children bear the last names of these people; now property goes to his descendant.”
The Indian agent also reported:
“During my administration I took a census of over two thousand names and had them all change, though it took over two years to accomplish the task.”
In noting that Indians often changed names in response to events in their lives, Frank Terry, the Superintendent of the Crow Boarding School, writes:
“Hence it will be seen that the Indian names are nothing, a delusion, and a snare, and the practice of converting them into English appears eminently unwise.”
Frank Terry also notes that the requirement to give Indians American-style names has not been uniformly carried out:
“While some have made earnest efforts to carry out the wishes of the Department in this particular, others have treated the matter as one of little or no concern. In many cases no attempt seems ever to have been made to systematize the names of the Indians, and in many others where such attempt was made the correct names for want of attention on the part of officers in charge, have been forgotten or permitted to fall into disuse.”
More American Indian histories
Indians 201: Carlisle Indian School
Indians 101: The Chemawa Indian School
Indians 101: The Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School
Indians 101: The Genoa Indian School
Indians 101: From Boarding School to University
Indians 101: The Smithsonian and the Indians in the 19th Century
Indians 201: Renaming Indians
Indians 101: Choctaw Education After Removal
