Boarding School Voices is both an anthology of mostly unpublished writing by former students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and a study of that writing. The boarding schools' ethnocidal practices have become a metaphor for the worst evils of colonialism, a specifiable source for the ills that beset Native communities today. But the fuller story is one not only of suffering and pain, loss and abjection, but also of ingenious agency, creative syntheses, and unimagined adaptations.
Although tragic for many students, for others the Carlisle experience led to positive outcomes in their lives. Some published short pieces in the Carlisle newspapers and others sent letters and photos to the school over the years. Arnold Krupat transcribes selections from the letters of these former students literally and unedited, emphasizing their evocative language and what they tell of themselves and their home communities, and the perspectives they offer on a wider American world. Their sense of themselves and their worldview provide detailed insights into what was abstractly and vaguely referred to as "the Indian question." These former students were the oxymoron Carlisle superintendent Richard Henry Pratt could not imagine and never comprehended: they were Carlisle Indians.
Boarding School Voices is both an anthology of mostly unpublished writing by former students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and a study of that writing. The boarding schools' ethnocidal practices have become a metaphor for the worst evils of colonialism, a specifiable source for the ills that beset Native communities today. But the fuller story is one not only of suffering and pain, loss and abjection, but also of ingenious agency, creative syntheses, and unimagined adaptations.
Although tragic for many students, for others the Carlisle experience led to positive outcomes in their lives. Some published short pieces in the Carlisle newspapers and others sent letters and photos to the school over the years. Arnold Krupat transcribes selections from the letters of these former students literally and unedited, emphasizing their evocative language and what they tell of themselves and their home communities, and the perspectives they offer on a wider American world. Their sense of themselves and their worldview provide detailed insights into what was abstractly and vaguely referred to as "the Indian question." These former students were the oxymoron Carlisle superintendent Richard Henry Pratt could not imagine and never comprehended: they were Carlisle Indians.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. “I talk white nicely”: The 1890 Letters of Returned Students
from Carlisle
2. “I have always liked to write”: Selected Writings of Mike Burns
(Hoomothya)
3. “I am interested in my life”: Further Words from Former Students
of Carlisle
4. “One of the most trusted members of the faculty”: Siceni Nori,
Some “Successful” Carlisle Indians, and the 1914 Congressional
Hearings
Appendix: Carlisle Students Named in this Book
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Arnold Krupat is a professor emeritus of global studies and literature at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of numerous books, including All That Remains: Varieties of Indigenous Expression (Nebraska, 2009) and “That the People Might Live”: Loss and Renewal in Native American Elegy. He is the editor of Companion to James Welch’s “The Heartsong of Charging Elk” (Nebraska, 2015).
"Boarding School Voices is a much-needed addition to the
scholarship on Carlisle that has appeared in recent years. By
accounting for the successes and the frustrations that Carlisle
graduates dealt with, Krupat's study is a testament to their
stunning endurance, adaptations, innovations, and mobility. It
extends the crucial work of Dickinson College's archivists to make
this rich archive of Indigenous writing accessible, while offering
a useful model for how to contextualize and interpret Indigenous
writings that emerged from American Indian boarding schools. For
any reader exploring these understudied archives, Boarding School
Voices is an indispensable work."—Frank Kelderman, American
Historical Review
"Students of the boarding school era in particular may find
Boarding School Voices to be a wonderful research companion, with
its straightforward contribution, powerful photographs, and
accessible writing—replete with a helpful appendix of those
referenced by name in the book."—Sarah Whitt, American
Indian Culture and Research Journal
"This is a highly valuable book for those who are interested in
boarding schools, labor, allotment, federal policy, Indigenous
agency, and family history."—Savannah Waters, South Dakota
History
"Krupat's work stands as a significant contribution to our
understanding of Carlisle, its students, and American Indian
boarding schools."—Geoff Hamilton, American Indian
Quarterly
"This work gives new perspectives to the Native American boarding
school era and a rare glimpse in the linguistic development of
English in Indigenous cultures. The voices of the Carlisle Indian
Industrial School graduates are illuminated by the preservation of
these letters and, in turn, they open opportunities for expanding
this field of study beyond historical accounts."—Meghan
Nguyen, Chronicles of Oklahoma
“Recovering the Native American voices in this book is an important
undertaking to understanding Native American intellectualism and
activism in the long history between the nineteenth century and
today. . . . Boarding School Voices is written in such a readable
way that any [person] simply curious about Native
American history and literary production may be interested in
reading it.”—Lionel Larré, editor of Tales of the Old Indian
Territory and Essays on the Indian Condition
“The letters and other student-authored texts this book makes
accessible are an untapped resource for scholars and students
working to challenge the restrictive assimilationist-resistance
binary that has dominated narratives of the boarding school
experience.”—Jacqueline Emery, editor of Recovering Native American
Writings in the Boarding School Press
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