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Starting in the late 19th century, the government began opening boarding schools across the country for Native American children. The goal of the schools was the forced assimilation of these children into Euro-American culture, and to gain control of Native Tribes. The slogan was "Kill the Indian, save the man." The first of these schools was the Carlisle Indian Industrial school, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Around 1,000 kids were enrolled in the first year, and were forced to cut their hair, change their names, convert to christianity, and stop speaking their native languages. It was a extraordinarily harsh system, that included corporal punishment and solitary confinement for those who misbehaved or resisted. The children seen below were the students enrolled at Carlisle in 1900. You can see that they all have short hair, and are wearing the strict uniform. You can also see the large range of ages, with kids as young as six in the front.

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These child-sized handcuffs, donated to Haskell Indian Nations University’s Cultural Center and Museum in 1989 by Shane Murray, whose grandmother was a Native American in Oklahoma, are suspected to have been used to discipline children in Native American boarding schools across the country. While some Native American families willingly sent their children to boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in hopes they would better assimilate to white American culture, many children were taken away from their families by force by school and government officials. Richard Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, convinced the untrusting parents of the first children to attend by saying that the learning of white American culture would help their children better communicate with and trust white Americans. After Native Americans realized the atrocities committed at the school, it became mandatory for parents to send their children to the Carlisle School and others like it. Handcuffs like these were used to restrain and discipline children being taken away from their homes and families.

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Upon arriving at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, children's heads were shaved, stripping them of the hair they took pride in and which held cultural and spiritual significance to their tribes they were taken from. This particular chair was displayed at the exhibit "Remembering Our Indian School Days: The Boarding School Experience" at the Heard Museum,  though the boarding school from which it came is not disclosed. The Carlisle School likely used a similar chair for this process.  Children were often tied to these chairs as their hair was cut. Hair cutting was an integral step in the processes these schools used to assimilate and strip Native Americans of their identities. Children became more subservient after this humiliation, and short hair looked more uniform with white American standards. Conversely, short hair was a sign of mourning in many Native American cultures.

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When the children arrived at school, almost every aspect of their physical identity was changed. School officials wanted to make the students look and dress just like white Americans. The children were forced to have their haircut, as seen in the previous stop. Any personal or tribal clothing or moccasins were taken away and rarely returned. Students were forced to abandon any items that had significance to their culture, such as family belongings, medicine bags, jewelry, or ceremonial rattles. There was a strict uniform for boys and girls wore long victorian dresses. No native Languages were allowed to be spoken, and each child was assigned a new English name. School officials took “before and after” photos of students to demonstrate these changes. The photos are often drastic, such as this one, and even the students' skin seems to be whiter. These pictures were used by supporters of assimilation as propaganda, to prove the effectiveness of these practices. Now, looking back, they are a sad reminder of the trauma Native American children were forced to endure in these schools.

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This map, taken from the Carlisle School Digital Resource Center, depicts the school facilities at the school's close in 1918. Outside of the Carlisle School academic curriculum, students were taught trade and work skills and made to build new facilities, classrooms, and dormitories for the school. Children were required to attend at least 8 Christian church services each week, many taught at the in-school chapel seen on the map. Students were also expected to participate in various extracurricular activities. The school's sports teams, the "Carlisle Indians", were successful on the national level, regularly competing against distinguished and Ivy League schools. The "Carlisle Indian" school band was also internationally recognized. During the summer, over half of students participated in the Carlisle Summer Outing Program, which arranged for students to work in businesses, farms, or as domestic servants.

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This letter, written in 1907 from the superintendents of the Carlisle School to the United States Department of Indian Affairs, details the capture of 3 boys in Chicago who had escaped from the Carlisle Industrial School facility in an attempt to return to their homes. These students were not alone: an estimated 20% of Carlisle School students ran away because of the trauma of being separated from their homes and families, but most were caught, died of exposure, or were never able to find their way home (not surprising, considering children all around the country, hundreds to thousands of miles away were recruited). Sick children were sometimes sent home but got lost or died on their way. Many of these students' families were never updated on their fates, and many deaths and "disappearances" inside of the schools were reported to a local Indian agent rather than the children's families.

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The mortality rate at Carlisle was incredibly high. The unsanitary conditions at the school, such as overcrowding and poor diets, propagated sickness and disease. The school became over-run with diseases like tuberculosis, influenza, whooping cough, measles and smallpox. In addition, students were malnourished because the diet at the school consisted mostly of bread and water, despite the presence of a farm that produced fruits and vegetables. Because of the high number of deaths, the school built a cemetery, pictured below. Many of the graves are marked as "unknown" or only have first names. The school often wouldn't inform the families of students who had died of their deaths. Records show an estimate of around 200 deaths of Carlisle students, but hundreds more deaths went unrecorded, and the school would cover up deaths by routinely sending sick students to die at their homes rather than at the school.

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This timeline is a brief overview of the boarding school era. It starts with President Grant formalizing the boarding school system in 1869. Then in 1879, the Carlisle school opened, which as you all ready know, was the first Native American Boarding school. In 1889, Sherman Indian Boarding School was opened, one of the few that are still open today. The school has been heavily reformed, and is now a place where Native Americans can learn together and celebrate their culture. In 1934, the Indian reorganization act was passed, which shifted the government's goal from assimilation of Natives, to the celebration and strengthening of the tribes and their cultures. By 1940, most of the off-reservation boarding schools had closed, and reformation was starting in the ones that remained. In 1976, the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, which stopped the forced removal of Native American children from their parents. Finally, by 1978, all the boarding schools had been closed or seriously reformed.