What does the 1887 Secretary of interior's Congressional Report on Indian Affairs say?

Answer 1

Secretary of Interior's Congressional Report on Indian Affairs (1887)

By 1887, the U.S. government was changing its policies toward the Native American peoples.

The Dawes Severalty Act divided up tribal lands and distributed them to individuals, greatly

reducing the amount of land owned by Native Americans (much of the land was actually sold to

whites). The government hoped that this action would "civilize" the Native Americans, in part by

abolishing the traditional tribal system. In addition, some government officials felt it was

necessary to force Native Americans to adopt the English language. These views are presented

in the excerpt below.

Longer and closer consideration of the subject has only deepened my conviction that it is a

matter not only of importance, but of necessity that the Indians acquire the English language as

rapidly as possible. The Government has entered upon the great work of educating and

citizenizing the Indians and establishing them upon homesteads. The adults are expected to

assume the role of citizens, and of course the rising generation will be expected and required

more nearly to fill the measure of citizenship, and the main purpose of educating them is to

enable them to read, write, and speak the English language and to transact business with Englishspeaking people. When they take upon themselves the responsibilities and privileges of

citizenship their vernacular will be of no advantage. Only through the medium of the English

tongue can they acquire a knowledge of the Constitution of the country and their rights and

duties thereunder.

Every nation is jealous of its own language, and no nation ought to be more so than ours, which

approaches nearer than any other nationality to the perfect protection of its people. True

Americans all feel that the Constitution, laws, and institutions of the United States, in their

adaptation to the wants and requirements of man, are superior to those of any other country; and

they should understand that by the spread of the English language will these laws and institutions

be more firmly established and widely disseminated. Nothing so surely and perfectly stamps

upon an individual a national characteristic as language. So manifest and important is this that

nations the world over, in both ancient and modern times, have ever imposed the strictest

requirements upon their public schools as to the teaching of the national tongue. Only English

has been allowed to be taught in the public schools in the territory acquired by this country from

Spain, Mexico, and Russia, although the native populations spoke another tongue. All are

familiar with the recent prohibitory order of the German Empire forbidding the teaching of the

French language in either public or private schools in Alsace and Lorraine. Although the

population is almost universally opposed to German rule, they are firmly held to German

political allegiance by the military hand of the Iron Chancellor. If the Indians were in Germany

or France or any other civilized country, they should be instructed in the language there used. As

they are in an English-speaking country, they must be taught the language which they must use

in transacting business with the people of this country. No unity or community of feeling can be established among different people unless they are brought to speak the same language, and thus

become imbued with the like ideas of duty.

Deeming it for the very best interest of the Indian, both as an individual and as an embryo

citizen, to have this policy strictly enforced among the various schools on Indian reservations,

orders have been issued accordingly to Indian agents. . . .

It is believed that if any Indian vernacular is allowed to be taught by the missionaries in schools

on Indian reservations, it will prejudice the youthful pupil as well as his untutored and

uncivilized or semicivilized parent against the English language, and, to some extent at least,

against Government schools in which the English language exclusively has always been taught.

To teach Indian school children their native tongue is practically to exclude English, and to

prevent them from acquiring it. This language, which is good enough for a white man and a

black man, ought to be good enough for the red man. It is also believed that teaching an Indian

youth in his own barbarous dialect is a positive detriment to him. The first step to be taken

toward civilization, toward teaching the Indians the mischief and folly of continuing in their

barbarous practices, is to teach them the English language. The impracticability, if not

impossibility, of civilizing the Indians of this country in any other tongue than our own would

seem to be obvious, especially in view of the fact that the number of Indian vernaculars is even

greater than the number of tribes. Bands of the same tribes inhabiting different localities have

different dialects, and sometimes can not communicate with each other except by the sign

language. If we expect to infuse into the rising generation the leaven of American citizenship, we

must remove the stumbling blocks of hereditary customs and manners, and of these language is

one of the most important elements. . . .

But it has been suggested that this order, being mandatory, gives a cruel blow to the sacred rights

of the Indians. Is it cruelty to the Indian to force him to give up his scalping-knife and

tomahawk? Is it cruelty to force him to abandon the vicious and barbarous sun dance, where he

lacerates his flesh, and dances and tortures himself even unto death? Is it cruelty to the Indian to

force him to have his daughters educated and married under the laws of the land, instead of

selling them at a tender age for a stipulated price into concubinage to gratify the brutal lusts of

ignorance and barbarism?

Having been governed in my action solely by what I believed to be the real interests of the

Indians, I have been gratified to receive from eminent educators and missionaries the strongest

assurance of their hearty and full concurrence in the propriety and necessity of the order.

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