20,000 Pages of Historic Documents Relating to Indian Schools to be Made Available Next Spring

It was recently announced that some 20,000 records dealing with Indian boarding schools run by the Quakers will be made available through the recently created National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive. That archive is a project of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, with support from various benefactors, the federal government, and institutions holding historic records. The Indian boarding schools were run by the government or various religious groups, including, in addition to the Quakers, the Catholic church, Episcopalians, and Methodists. Many who ran these schools undoubtedly thought they were doing good, but the schools were terribly damaging to the children and their communities, were often unkind to the children and contemptuous of their parents, and displayed an arrogance of cultural superiority commonly held toward America's natives during the schools' day.

The dates of these records range from 1852-1945, when most of the schools were opened. At the time, the West was being “won,” that is, taken from its native inhabitants who were being shunted off to reservations. That part is well-known. Not as much a part of the common knowledge is that many of their children were forcibly removed from their homes and families to be taken to the Indian boarding schools. There, they were taught the ways of the white man, and the religion of the white man. They were, in effect, being turned into white boys and girls, as this was seen as a path to assimilating them into the general population. It was a way to effectively eradicate the Indians without physically harming them (though there were significant numbers of deaths in some schools).

According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, they have identified 523 Indian Boarding Schools. This was no small issue for the Native Americans. It was a massive stealing of their children.

In recent years, Native Americans, some of whom attended these schools, have called for the release of the schools' records. They want to find out more about what and why these actions were taken to their people. Some of those who operated these schools or hold their records, to their credit, have agreed to make the records available to the tribes, and apologized for the wrongs they did. The Quakers, who operated nine Indian schools, are one of them. The records have been housed at Swarthmore and Haverford colleges, which are now scanning the documents so that they will be available.