Resistance Story Classroom Resource - Abby Woodward

The Harmful Nature of Native American Boarding Schools

The Historical Perspective

The Fight for the Culture Today

Native American Perspectives

A False Narrative

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Artistic Resistance

The First Opera in a Native American Language

"How Musicians Use Native Languages to Revitalize Their Cultures"

Children's Storybooks: Reclaiming Education

Musical Resistance

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Perspectives from relatives of boarding school attendees and modern boarding school attendees

Perspectives from children of boarding school attendees and boarding school attendees (focuses on language loss)

Emotional impacts of the boarding schools

Press the Symbols

Historical Perspective

Press me!

With further industrialization, like the construction of railroads, United States' officials did not want any more "pushback" from Native American peoples about the land. They wanted to acquire control over the Native populations. This led to the development of boarding schools with the goal of "assimilation" (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014, pg. 151). "Indigenous children were prohibited from speaking their mother tongues or practicing their religions, while being indoctrinated in Christianity" (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014, pg. 151). Today, many Native langauges are now extinct, and Native people are fighting hard to retain their culture. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Beacon Press.

Reservations and Schools

Reservations could be thought of as places the United States gave Native people to go that could be just theirs - places given out of the goodness of their heart. Really this was about control of both the Native peoples and their land. Schooling was given to Native peoples. This could be thought of as helpful, a pathway to adjust to the "new" times. Really, this was a pathway to the erasure of culture. Consider the excerpt from G. Kaplan's article on the left - the link will take you to the full article.

Learn about a nonprofit organization fighting to keep Native American language alive.

Learn about the fight to save Alaskan Native languages.

Learn about other ways Native peoples are fighting for a renewal of their culture.