Thesis
More than meets the eye: the Shoshone-Bannock response to education at Fort Hall, Idaho 1904-1946
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2018
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100568
Abstract
The establishment of Carlisle Indian School in 1879 and the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887 ushered in more than fifty years of federal assimilationist policies toward American Indian people. At the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southeastern Idaho, Shoshone-Bannock parents and their children confronted education policies aimed at absorbing them into the dominant, non-Indian, mainstream society. There responses to this assault were multifaceted. This thesis examines the Shoshone-Bannock experiences in and responses to reservation schools between 1904 and 1946. The actions of Shoshone-Bannock parents and adults without children in the schools contradicted the claims that American Indians did not value education. They developed strategies which allowed them to exercise influence over aspects of educational policies which they opposed. They demanded equal time for classroom instruction and industrial and domestic training. They lobbied for the construction of schools at specific locations on the reservation. They criticized excessive after-school labor, and they objected vigorously to abuse meted out to students by school personnel. These proactive responses contradicted the stereotype that American Indian people categorically and uniformly rejected federal education policies. Research materials for this study came primarily from Record Group 75, the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the National Archives I in Washington, D.C. These records include Letters Received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (1881-1907), the Fort Hall Agency records in the Central Classified Files (1907-1957), and the Fort Hall Superintendent's Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports (1907-1937). Materials from the Shoshone-Bannock Library and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Museum at Fort Hall, Idaho, provided additional important research information, including materials from the Boarding School Collection and the Catherine Creasey Collection. Federal government documents include the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1868-1904) and the Institute for Government Research's 1928 Meriam Report.
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Details
- Title
- More than meets the eye
- Creators
- Laura Lynne Briere
- Contributors
- Orlan J. Svingen (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525111101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis