Assimilation by Marriage: White Women and Native American Men at Hampton Institute,
1878-1923
Author(s): Katherine Ellinghaus
Source: The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 108, No. 3 (2000), pp. 279-303
Published by: Virginia Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249851
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Women
White
and
tural
to
to an ideology
for unselfish
according
motivation
Although
to cater
1868
Armstrong,
to any other
ruled
love,
a white
Hampton
These
young
American
Native
the
1878
next
three
students
decades.
the
instruct
newly
the gospel
by three
principles:
of Protestant
and the doctrine
Institute
men
had
humanitarian,
of people,
group
a
with
a U.S. Army
officer
burgeoning
him to change
his philosophy.
convinced
in April
students.2
and
Normal
Hampton
freed
African
American
founded
Armstrong
in
Institute
1878-1923
Ellinghaus*
by Katherine
Chapman
a decade
that
Agriculchildren
of work,
Christianity.1
the school
Pratt,
Henry
American
reform,
of Pratt's
because
Mostly
Native
American
seventeen
first
the
time,
Hampton
the
Richard
in Native
in off-reservation
educated
intended
never
later
interest
accepted
were
among
During
at
Men
American
Native
Institute,
Hampton
Samuel
MARRIAGE
BY
ASSIMILATION
of
many
urging,
male
of
thousands
boarding
pursued
* Katherine
schools
an
in
active
Ellinghaus is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, University of
Melbourne, Australia, where she also teaches American history.
1 Francis Greenwood
Peabody, Founder's Day at Hampton: An Address in Memory of Samuel
Chapman Armstrong, January 30, 1898 (Cambridge, Boston, and New York, 1898), pp. 13-26. For a
comprehensive exploration of Samuel Chapman Armstrong and his work, see Robert Francis Engs,
Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute,
1839-1893 (Knoxville, 1999).
2 These
Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho men had been taken hostage by the U.S. Army after an
uprising in Indian Territory. They were part of a larger group who had been imprisoned for three
years in Fort Marion, Florida, under the command of Pratt, who, on his own initiative, had done
more than simply keep them under lock and key. He had cut their hair, made them discard their
traditional clothing in favor of military uniforms, taught them to read and write, introduced them to
Christianity, and encouraged them to produce various hand-made items, which he sold to locals at
a substantial profit. When the government released them, most captives returned home to their
families, but a number agreed to continue the education they had begun. Pratt lobbied hard on their
behalf, personally securing placement for some of them in eastern agricultural and labor schools, and
convincing Armstrong to take the rest at Hampton. Later in 1878 Pratt recruited another forty-nine
students, nine of whom were young women, from Dakota Territory. In 1879 Pratt broke his ties with
Hampton to establish a school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the first eastern boarding school founded
exclusively to educate Native American children. Pratt and Carlisle were trailblazers in the area of
Native American education; reformers followed their example for decades. For more information
about Pratt's career, see Richard Henry Pratt, Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the
American Indian, 1867-1904 (1964; Lincoln, Neb., 1987) and Elaine Goodale Eastman, Pratt: The
Red Man's Moses (Norman, Okla., 1935).
THE VIRGINIA
MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
2000 - Vol. 108, No. 3
AND BIOGRAPHY
280
The Virginia Magazine
Courtesyof Hampton UniversityArchives
west to find potential
strategy,
regularly
sending
representatives
and receiving
subsidies
for
the
of each of them.
tuition
government
A number
of historians
have
role in the
explored
Hampton's
leading
of
schools
to
assimilate
Native
nineteenth-century
using
boarding
practice
recruiting
students
Americans.3
these
scholars
Recently,
schools
played
in
the
have
coercive
examined
in
detail
the
crucial
assimilationist
program
this
Studies
have
government
during
period.
such
as
students
procedures
haircutting;
renaming;
forbidding
their languages
or practice
their religions;
military-style
discipline;
United
tion
States
in reading
and
and
and the teaching
writing;
as tools with which
reformers
agriculture
in the white
way of life at institutions
communities.4
One aspect
of boarding
been
the
explored:
importance
3 For
far
of white
methods
instructed
removed
school
white
from
education,
authorities
part
by the
identified
run
to
speak
instruc-
of farming
Americans
Native
their
homes
however,
placed
has
and
not
on
general surveys of the Native American students at Hampton and the implications of their
presence at a predominantly African American institution, see Mary Lou Hultgren and Paulette
Fairbanks Molin, To Lead and To Serve: American Indian Education at Hampton Institute, 1878-1923
(Hampton, 1989); Donai F. Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, 1877-1923, (Urbana, 111. and
Chicago, 1995); and Joseph Tingey, "Indians and Blacks Together: An Experiment in Biracial
Education at Hampton Institute, 1878-1923" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1978).
4 For a detailed discussion of the methods of assimilation
practiced at boarding schools in the
late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see David Wallace Adams, Education for Extinction:
American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 (Lawrence, Kan., 1995), pp.
95-206.
Assimilation
281
by Marriage
Courtesyof Hampton UniversityArchives
as practiced by institutions
This pair of photographs
captures the essence of assimilation
in the late nineteenth
that educated Native Americans
century. In the photo on the facing
Institute in 1878 pose for
some
of
the
first
Native
Americans
to
arrive
at
Hampton
page
of
same students, taken in
William
Above
is
a
of
most
the
Larrabee.
photo
photographer
1880. Gone are the traditional blankets and long hair, replaced by the suits and short hair
of Victorian white America.
students'
choice
and
between
did
occur.
of spouse.
Marriages
and
Americans
Native
Native
staff
Hampton
Americans
to white
of the
former's
The
which
this
history
to examine
period.
Hampton
relationships
and
riages
Native
Not
accepted
spouses,
of white
absorption
of Hampton
whites
between
African
Americans,
the
of
marriage
such
unions
judging
culture.
but
it was
campus,
between
formed
commingling,
men.5
The
long
of color,
people
while
infrequent,
Hampton-educated
to be an indication
a unique
from
vantage
point
interracial
mainstream
toward
during
marriage
opinions
did
of
three
cultural
on
the
members
mingle
groups
only
Institute
offers
also
the
students,
site
and,
history
especially
intriguing
of
strong
between
question
and
white
women
which
number
of
interracial
two
remarkably,
female
teachers
white
most
social
is exactly
a
of
between
an engagement
that occurred
three
American
men. These
extraordinary
Virginia's
and
unions
took
restrictions
legal
and
aspects
5 For histories of
legal and social controls of interracial relationships
African
of the
place
on
marand
despite
racial
American
environment
in colonial Virginia, see
The Virginia Magazine
282
3E?
Hampton, Va.
HamptonNormal and AgriculturalInstitute.
The Wigwam Indian Boys Dormitory,
VirginiaHistorical Society
known locally as
This postcard shows the Native American men's dormitory at Hampton,
"the Wigwam." Here, far from their homes, students were expected to learn the norms of
to serve as examples
of proper
so-called civilized society and return to the reservations
behavior.
at Hampton
Institute
the
lies far beyond
vaunted
allowed
boundaries
by humanitarian
chosen
by Native
spouse
assimilationists.
For
these
once
of
reformers
Americans
a student
interactions
to take
the
in
school
and
the
who
had
the
they placed
educated
by
importance
had
been
graduated,
The
place.
assimilation
the
race
of
his
answer
policy
on the
white
or her
Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power
in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill and London, 1996), pp. 187-211; David D. Smits, '"Abominable
Mixture': Toward the Repudiation of Anglo-Indian Intermarriage in Seventeenth Century Virginia,"
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (hereafter cited as VMHB) 95 (1987): 157-92; and A.
Leon Higginbotham and Barbara Kopytoff, "Racial Purity and Interracial Sex in the Law of Colonial
and Antebellum Virginia," Georgetown Law Journal 11 (1989): 1967-2029. For a detailed discussion
of legal and social attitudes towards miscegenation and the complex interrelations of Native
and early
Americans, African Americans, and whites in Virginia during the late-eighteenth
nineteenth centuries, see James Hugo Johnston, Race Relations in Virginia & Miscegenation in the
South, 1776-1860 (Amtierst, Mass., 1970), pp. 165-314. For a complete history of Virginia's
nineteenth-century anti-miscegenation statute, see Walter Wadlington, "The Loving Case: Virginia's
Antimiscegenation Statute in Historical Perspective," Virginia Law Review 52 (1966): 1189-1223 and
Peter Wallenstein, "Race, Marriage, and the Law of Freedom: Alabama and Virginia, 1860s-1960s,"
Chicago-Kent Law Review 70 (1994): 371-437. For a detailed analysis of the way in which the
philosophy of racial equality at Hampton was received by the wider community in the earlier twentieth
century, see Richard B. Sherman, "The Teachings at Hampton Institute': Social Equality, Racial
Integrity, and the Virginia Public Assemblage Act of 1926," VMHB 95 (1987): 275-300.
Assimilation
Winona
Lodge housed many
female
Native American
ton's
283
by Marriage
of Hampstudents.
Their
admission
to the school was designed to encourage what Victorian sensibilities considered
beproper deferential
havior
male
Native
American
among
students. These women also helped create
a pool of eligible spouses for male pupils,
that
administration
concerns
reflecting
lessons learned at Hampton
not be unstudents
by former
choosing
marry "uncivilized"
partners.
to
done
VirginiaHistorical Society
became
spouse
level
spouse's
Interracial
ton
ality
educational
in
less
important,
of assimilation.
were
relationships
white
administrators.
Institute's
before
far
marriage
institution
would
operating
some
reformers'
an enormous
cause
Late-Victorian
have
caused
intense
this period,
during
the prospect
of
than
minds,
of concern
attitudes
concern
but
that
to Hamptoward
sexuat
coany
at a school
where
was the
miscegenation
cause
of significant
had
to defend
his
constantly
anxiety.
Armstrong
coeducational
from
attacks
various
and
by
policy
philanthropic
groups
men
and
about
the
of
government
organizations
young
upset
proximity
He had been
aware
of the
women
of different
ethnicities
at the school.
different
races
boarded
together
from the beginning
of
caused
races and sexes
potential
problems
by mixing
in
the Indian
and
advised
Pratt
not
to
about
when
strong
girls"
program
"go
he wrote
scheme"
to
the
Commission
of
about
the proposed
"Hampton
in 1878.6
Indian
Affairs
In 1888 the school
underwent
an investigation
by
the Board
of Indian
Commissioners
to examine
of
allegations
cruelty,
poor
6 Samuel
Chapman Armstrong to Richard Henry Pratt, 18 August 1878, Richard Henry Pratt
Papers, Folder 11, Box 1, Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven (hereafter Beinecke Library).
284
The Virginia Magazine
health
and
over
the
last
in 1893,
the
begged
for
appropriation
again
Hampton
the principal
after
of Indian
Institute's
in
Native
of having
both
faced
criticism
consequences
campus.7
H. B. Frissell,
Board
Hampton
students
Hampton
negative
on
and
issue,
Despite
for
and
students,
among
Native
Americans
Commissioners
failed
the
Congress
bill
dividing
education.9
The
1912
American
support.8
to include
the
up
Southern
terms
together
upon
mutual
The
regard."10
no interracial
far as [is] known
of these
together
been
made
of the
The
loss
students
of the
slowly
it is difficult
mutual
funding
Workman,
of the
races
it
calling
races
from
understand-
in vain that "so
argued
from the bringing
resulted
demonstration
has
important
administration
has
marriage
and
at Hampton,
harmonious
of
possibility
that
meant
appropriation
sexual
school
a better
both
races
declined
Although
interracial
secure
that
death
government
school
that the close
proximity
Hampton's
magazine,
suggested
was "perhaps
for the loss of the appropriation,
the chief
reason"
a "view
of the benefits
to both
loses
which
come
sight
[that]
mingling
ing and
in 1899
Armstrong's
for
efforts,
African
ever
an
until
but
significantly
to make
assumptions
the
among
activity
the school's
frequent
between
co-operation
the numbers
the
about
at
students
of Native
last
them."11
American
in 1923.
graduated
its prevalence,
some
Hampton
apparently
In
to the contrary.
despite
protestations
its
Ten
same
the
that
1888,
self-congratulatory
year
published
Hampton
in which
Years'
Work for Indians
at Hampton
claimed
Institute,
Armstrong
between
the students
had not been
"a single
case of immorality,
that there
occurred,
of both
races
recorded
the
three
African
other
letters.
and
of both
dismissal
American
A
faculty
sexes,"12
or reprimand
for
men
meeting
the
books
minutes
and faculty
discipline
American
and
of three
Native
women
meeting
held
on
late
at
13 August
and writing
each
night
further
1888 ordered
7
Report of E. Whittlesey and Albert ?. Smiley, Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners,
1888, Appendix C, Annual Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1888, Hexdoc.l (50-2) 2637, p.
741.
8
"Proceedings of the Board of Indian Commissioners at the Seventeenth Lake Mohonk Indian
Conference," Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, 1899, Appendix D, Annual Report of
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1899, H.doc 5 (56-1) 3915, p. 311.
9 Annual
Report of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1912 (hereafter cited asARHI)
Hampton University Archives, Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, (hereafter ViHaU-A), p.
11. The government's contribution of $167 for each student up to fifty only covered board, tuition,
and some incidental costs. Scholarships from philanthropic individuals and the student's own labor
made up the difference. See Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, p. 18.
10 Southern Workman 41
(1912): 546.
11ARHI (1912), pp. 11-12. Early in the life of the school, anxieties were not so intense, as is
evidenced by the lighthearted treatment of interracial sexual relationships in the school newspaper.
In 1879 the Southern Workman recorded that "the Indian boys are looking favorably upon the
When asked if he would take an educated squaw or one of the Indian
colored girls of the school...
women at home to wife, [one boy] replied, 'No; I marry a colored girl; she will teach me good
Englis.'" Another boy reportedly planned to ask his father for six horses to trade for an African
American wife. (Southern Workman 8 [1879]: 77).
12 Ten Years' Work for Indians at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton,
Virginia, 1878-1888 (Hampton, 1888), p. 4.
Assimilation
285
by Marriage
1901
FEBRUARY,
interests
of the
races," the HamptonWorkman
reSouthern
sponsored
the school's
of
flected
philosophy
uplift through labor and Christian
Dedicated
No.2
to "the
undeveloped
Industrial Education for White and Black
in the South,
LLD.
GeorgeT.Winston,
This February 1901 issue
articles on a number
of
the institute's
topics that highlighted
on Native American
eduemphases
and
industrial
cation,
education,
? Riggs
Peculiarities of Indian Education, Frederick
morality.
included
"moral
?j Art in Negro Homes,
Dowd
Jerome
AnnieBcechcr
Scovine
Land in Severalty,
Moral Integrity as an End of Education,
C.J.C B;nnet
N.De G.Doubleday
Aboriginal Industries,
integrity."
Kindergartens for Colored Children,
PassieFentonOttlcy
Classification of Mountain Whites,
D.D.
Rev Robert
F Campbell,
Disfranchisement
ana Education,
Cha*D McWer
VirginiaHistorical Society
into
investigation
dormitory
at
extensive,
two-day
volved
three
return
Joseph
to an African
to
the
All
received
school
after
Native
American
a female
other
recounted
relationships
Caroline
the
Andrus,
comprehensive
either
has described
Tingey
American
male
student
with
1919
a Native
of
company
revealed
examination
couples.
Historian
wrote
that
allegations
in the
night
records
the
African
an
that
student.
Native
the
a reprimand
one instance
woman
Tingey
left
strolls"
"midnight
or expulsion.13
in-
in which
details
the
that
school
he
relationship
a number
many years later in interviews.14
maintain
member
who
helped
American
her
An
suggesting
his
discovered
also
had
man.
American
in 1911
administration
by alumni
white
staff
of past
American
students
at Hampton
not
of
In
the
and
13
Faculty Records, 13, 15, and 16 August 1888 and Discipline Books 1887-88, pp. 214 and 310,
ViHaU-A. See also Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, pp. 156 and 168-69 and Tingey, "Indians
and Blacks Together," pp. 181-83.
14 For
example, the Reverend David Owl, a Cherokee former student who attended Hampton
between 1910 and 1915 and whose brother married a white former teacher, recalled that "all school
social gatherings, religious meetings?were
functions?assemblies,
open to both races, uniting the
students into one family in spite of differences" (Tingey, "Indians and Blacks Together," pp. 181-82).
286
The Virginia Magazine
who
was
ture
herself
death,
students
between
part to
the
two
of relationships
American
men,
left
the
American
declining
of
the...
spread
here."15
for
on
premaAmerican
far
children
the
and
three
and
wide,
In
school
leaving
Native
American
1923
she
was
the
and
women
caused
interracial
by three
students
record
that at
former
married
his
Native
flirtations,
has
between
occurring
and mentioned
gossip
Files
until
graduate
number
of
"knowledge
of Hampton
students.16
Native
American
women
marriages
least
two
they
the
races,
[which]
from
their
parents
sending
that part of her motivation
marriages
some
preventing
hinted
in a letter
possibility
African
a Native
that
reported
due
in
was
to
engaged
African
American
men
after
school.17
staff
Although
Hampton
tween
students
of different
did
not
beencourage
relationships
did not discourage
races,
they
relationships
between
students
of the same
racial background.
One of the main concerns
of the administration
was that Native
American
students
who returned
to
the
reservation
the
this
first
Native
the
"co-education
work."18
severest
test
students,
marriage
it."19 Armstrong
the
public
inevitable
equally
former
the
women
[causing
the]
and civilized
student
who
in 1893
returned
ways
...
strongly,
"to offset
Armstrong's
his African
many
American
intercourse,
always
under
of his
students:
"first,
has
to meet
highlighting
the young
the
a
Armstrong
to ... true
if not
slow,
coeducational
Indian
in regard
school's
need
to
for
and
to
of
relapse
savages."20
1884, was
the
cruel
girl
An
husband,
in Christian
at meals,
restraint
to
was
impossible."21
he argued
policy
in recitations,
"Mingling
reasonable
direction
pertaining
the
with
report
and
savage
educated
returned
generally
is in regard
men,
annual
with
and
at
Indians
themselves
to the
development
[to] be painfully
the
advanced
less
to mate
"[b]urdened
defenses
at Hampton,
is indispensable
the records
organized
that
staff
In 1878,
educated.
...
student
of the
of the
further
The
lifestyles.
when
students
arrived
sexes
wrote
young
whilst
home
they return
difficult
problem,
according
female
the
Folsom,
sentiment
it more
put
more
students
of
Mae
of character
and
recruit
American
Cora
American
traditional
to occur
likely
had not been
similarly
especially
who
partners
the
civilizing
to Native
their
was
married
that
year
argued
resume
would
felt
Hampton
home
and
certainly
In one
that,
of
for
in social
is good
for
15 Caroline Andrus,
"Report of Indian Records 1919," Caroline Andrus Collection, ViHaU-A.
16
Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, p. 261.
17 Student Files of Elsie Greene Doxtater and Maude Abbie Goodwin, ViHaU-A. The
marriages
were reported in December 1917 and January 1914 respectively. It is not known whether they
occurred before Hampton's denial in 1912 that interracial marriages took place.
18ARHI
(1878), p. 11.
19
Twenty-Two Years' Work of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, Virginia.
Records of Negro and Indian Graduates and ex-Students (Hampton, 1893), p. 318.
*>ARHI
(1879), p. 16.
2i Ibid.,
(1884), p. 71.
Assimilation
both
the
[sexes]...
and
who
program
had
Americans
in
reformers
received
he
role
annual
a savage
numbers
Small
Hampton's
and manual
the
couple
has
resulted
in many well
that the
feelings
its founder's
civilization"
1882.
Two
his
Lake
own
years
school
Mohonk
Native
by instituting
Richard
later,
gathering
that the
Americans
is the calamity...
'go-back'
or
an
educated
girl,
girl has
of specially
where
campus,
After
training.
were
meant
to
selected
Native
for
of
white
program
If a boy
to mate
married
couples
life,
they combined
family
both
husband
and wife
had
return
to
the
reservation
to
models.
ran the
scheme
on a small
but
scale,
Hampton
discussed
it. The experiment
ended
in 1894 when
ConNative
Americans
over
of age
from
eighteen
years
schools.24
widely
prohibited
eastern
attending
Government
officials
and
of educated
and
partners
Commissioner
of Indian
offer
financial
reformers
at least
Affairs,
concerns
about
assimilated
partially
John
D. C. Atkins,
students.
incentives
shared
to
boarding
U.S.
Mohonk
another.25
the
marriage
In 1886 the
recommended
that
school
who
graduates
M. Cutcheon,
a member
of
In the same year, Byron
of Representatives,
wrote
to Pratt
to suggest
that "[marbetween
the educated
Indians...
should
be encouraged,
but they
riage
should
be grouped
into
little
communities
where
could
each
they
help
other."26
In 1885,
the well-known
reformer
and
of
the
Lake
president
the
one
couples
to establish
on
gress
Congress
married
in
of
plight
eternal
"[t]he
take
...
of Christian
in the
boy."23
classes,
reformers
Hampton
told
the
must
"advanced,"
become
married
because
cottages
academic
been
1879,
begun
to marry
a savage
with
left
interested
been
want
for
allowed
evinced
pairs."22
Hampton
most
"unit
important
the
a special
had
have
mated
wisely
was
family
Pratt,
we
freedom
287
by Marriage
House
Dr.
used the problem
to argue
Abbott,
Lyman
against
"You
educate
an
Indian
and
send
him back to
system:
boy
the Indian
He must not find a wife here,
because
that would
be
Territory.
the
with
American
He looks
for a wife
there,
'intermingling'
population.
and they look with as natural
a
beaver
hat
as
he
would
disgust
upon
upon
the
a
conference,
reservation
blanket."27
squaw's
argued
in
its
Annual
Even
Report
the
of
conservative
1888
that
Indian
"much
of
Association
Rights
the work
which
the
22 Southern Workman 9
(1880): 63.
23
Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1884 (Philadelphia,
1885), p. 27.
24
Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, pp. 37-39.
25 Ibid.
26
Byron M. Cutcheon to Richard Henry Pratt, 1 April 1886, Richard Henry Pratt Papers, Box 3,
Folder 64, Beinecke Library.
27
Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1885 (Philadelphia,
1886), p. 52.
The Virginia Magazine
288
W*3W,
Courtesyof Hampton UniversityArchives
This scene
clear Hampton's
efforts to promote the virtues of marriage among its
it provided a limited number of three-room
cottages for married
shown above that was occupied by Noah and Lucy La Flesche. The
its belief that the
it would demonstrate
offering such accommodations
civilization.
unit
of
Christian
important
makes
students. After 1882
students like the one
school hoped that by
family was the most
subsequent
So while
marriages
Alice
guidelines.
felt
many visitors
within
the surprise
female
students
she
in one
published
the
ate,
not
was
said,
school,
undone
by their
about
immoral
was defending
itself from accusations
Hampton
it
on
its
of
the
races
and
the
sexes
the
caused
campus,
mixing
by
and marry,
its students
to mingle
with
concerned
encouraging
episodes
was also
albeit
the boys will be necessarily
educating
Indian
with wild,
untrained
girls."28
is doing
Government
reports
of
studied,
or
six
a teacher
the
observing
and socialized
when
recited,
of the
the
Bacon,
restrained
be read
should
M.
discouraged.
28 Sixth Annual
Report of the Executive
(Philadelphia, 1889), p. 49.
29
?/?//(1886-87),
p. 49.
"easy
way"
and
that
male
This
behavior,
together.
Bacon's
account,
however,
the
designed
For example,
amount
of skepticism.29
for
their
interracial
were
who
punished
many
reports
with a certain
students
described
at Hampton,
Committee
to justify
of the Indian
and
advertise
Rights Association,
1888
Assimilation
the
a guard
mention
patrolling
relationships
out the night.30
It seems,
that
however,
men
permitted
opportunities
become
acquainted.
occurred
of the
women
Donai
"a tradition
described
is an umbrella;
not
at Hampton
the climate
because
rainy days
and from
boys
school."32
have
Thoughts,
March
The
was
not
the
evenings
racial
same
only
work
issue
shy
write
pleasant
of their
own
if not
Lindsey
that
marriages
in
Report
a new
thing
but
damp,
their especial
boy buys
on
because
friends
student
letters
words
by encouraging,
for that race."
newspaper,
romantic
life
hinting
that
violinist
"[o]ur
while
Behind
Me,'"
gossiped
Girl I Left
in his
first
is particularly
of escorting
to
background
promoted
Annual
The
the
at the
about
dormitory
throughand various
other
Armstrong,
that
privilege
American
Native
The
also
1887
the
to play, 'The
that "[t]he
girls
reported
they are
social
can we save our
[Indian
marriages]
and staff actively
that Hampton
faculty
American
students.31
the Native
among
arranging
has argued
learning
women's
F. Lindsey,
that
conclusion...
to historian
According
had been
"forced
to the
1888
and
289
by Marriage
who
the
of
telling
of a new
Talks
of
to
and
students.
is lonesome
July
the
1887
is
edition
good
people
looks
that
apron
with,
rooms,
long descriptions
for anything,'
In
of some
of the boys
to see them."33
pretty
coming
the
when
and
1888
described
summer
men
women
August
paper
evenings
for
on the green
reserved
were
allowed
to walk
and talk together
usually
'too
female
students
These
activity,
group's
women.
female
in the
American
in front
social
of Virginia
occasions
of the
part
relative
This
belief
as
was
of assimilation.
program
of civilization
level
students,
student
were,
Hall.34
was
could
largely
responsible
as school
administrators
body
would
cultivate
nearly
every
school-sponsored
a racial
To the Victorian
mind,
be
measured
for Hampton's
felt that the
proper
in 1881
behavior
of
by its treatment
decision
to enroll
presence
among
the
Native
of women
male
Native
wrote
that
American
Armstrong
pupils.
came
to Hampton
with "the traditional
ideas of the inferiority
and
of women,
but they grow to a spirit
of courtesy
and chivalry
insignificance
students
30
Faculty Records, 15 August 1888, ViHaU-A.
31
Armstrong quoted in the Southern Workman 14 (1885): 216 and Lindsey, Indians at Hampton
Institute, pp. 197-98. Pratt claimed in a letter to Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca anthropologist and
leading member of the Society of American Indians, that Armstrong "was in favor of amalgamating
the negroes and Indians and letting the Indians of this country be lost in the negro race" (Richard
Henry Pratt to Arthur C. Parker, 11 December 1912, Richard Henry Pratt Papers, Box 10, Folder
356, Beinecke Library). If Armstrong did indeed hold such contentious views, he certainly would not
have expressed them publically. According to Robert Engs, however, the relationship between Pratt
and Armstrong was affected by personal incompatibility. See Engs, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, p.
118. Perhaps this tension motivated Pratt to spread what might have been rumors or even malicious
gossip.
32
?/?/(1888),
p. 42.
33 Talks and
Thoughts of the Hampton Indian Students, March 1887, p. 4 (first quotation) and July
1887, p. 2 (second quotation).
34 Ibid.,
August 1888, p. 3.
The Virginia Magazine
290
VirginiaHistorical Society
VirginiaHistorical Society
show
"Girls'
Industrial Room"
the
These two engravings from an 1873 issue of Harper's
the
school
maintained
and the male students' "Reading-Room"
at Hampton.
Although
for
male and
certain separate facilities for the sexes, it also provided many opportunities
in
which
romantic
female students to intermingle,
relationships
creating fertile ground
could
sprout.
towards
race."35
their
and
teachers,
In 1892,
that,
report
explained
the boys that respect
their arrival...
upon
boys
was
a reversal
walked,
in
them
given
American
"[w]hen
for the
the
female
and
womanhood,
the
patronizing
a
underwent
extent
to some
a heading
under
the
Indians
the
to
Native
male
American
shown
indoctrination
to women
in
the
work,"
religious
came
to us, in order
were
the
their
of
girls
the
they
girls
were
allowed
to ride
girls
of their
former
experiences.
due
respect
learned
students
subtle
first
in which
the
attitude
towards
and
of "moral
weaker
domestic
students
somewhat
to the
the
sex."36
tasks
the
while
lesson
first
While
of
to give
deficient,
School
Thus
own
annual
Native
late-Victorian
instruction
received
in
men, both sexes
by late-Victorian
roles
and
white
courtship
gender
rituals.37
its
members
The
Institute's
Hampton
students
helps
took the
school
marriage
created
to
a
interest
provide
unusual
an
student's
These
three
expectations.
of such
thinking
whereby
the
in influencing
the romantic
relationships
white
women
in
three
context
which
step of agreeing
that
environment
later
"success"
cases
represent
the
marriage
to marry
emphasized
in living
Native
the
American
of
staff
men.
of
importance
white
people's
up to
if surprising
a logical
American
of a Native
progression
to a white
35ARHI
(1881), p. 13.
36 Ibid.,
(1892), p. 86.
37 For further discussion of rituals
promoting white gender roles undertaken at Native American
boarding schools, see Adams, Education for Extinction, pp. 173-81.
Assimilation
and
Christianity
unthinkable
assimilation
female
in white
educated
white
into
culture,
American
students,
women.38
For
it more
ethnicity
(according
staff possibly
viewed
Native
American
not
noted
purposes,
American
even
from
in
find
Two
collected
trips
"whose
influence
reports,
former
staff
The
"fair"
Those
to
and
Indian
Hampton
School
in
simply
whether
Twenty-Two
a booklet
Institute,
riages
male
the
and
who
blanket"
Mae
women
have
lived
but...
sexually
extensively
that
argued
at the
carefully
had also been
in 1893
American
had
publicity
Native
Caroline
end
for
very
strongly
Christian
lives,"
"civilized
exert
[did] not at all times
were
"shiftless"
and "fickle,"
or criminal.39
promiscuous
in its annual
to
reports
of eastern
students
boarding
of
their
recorded
a student
the
38
Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, p. 196.
39 Ten Years' Work,
pp. 42-43.
40
Twenty-Two Years' Work, p. 393.
students
their
of a
spouse
or Carlisle
of Hampton
she was white,
or
perhaps
man."40
young
and
Agricultural
to publicize
the school
and
former
In
educations.
whether
he or
whether
Pennsylvania,
the person
for
an "excellent
was,
example,
Years'
Work
Normal
of the Hampton
published
successes
who
and
Folsom
circumstances
as "poor"
either
Andrus
student
Native
two
every
would
for
mainly
of former
failures
designed
the
of former
students,
by describing
interracial
with
the marriages
Along
marriages.
Native
American
former
students
to white
men,
of
for
for
Native
former
statistics
those
society.
that,
Cora
"good"
"to do well
were
Folsom's
Folsom
male
and during
students
by mail
the
Folsom
members
of
faculty.
by
former
students
could
be graded
by which
Folsom
wrote
in
were
those
1888,
latter,
recorded
"bad"
American
records
or
be
to
meant
to contradict
"returned
search
more
and
nature
by
[was]
determined
Native
members,
about
"excellent."
used
charged
of successful
students
of white
successes
by themselves
a five-point
scale
a good
influence."
and those
designated
Hampton
the
information
Those
good."
while
those
rated
not
with
men
male
were
"suitable"
taken
developed
"bad"
to
Congress
schools
detail
students.
Andrus,
western
men
to
own
of their
marriage
partners
to the expectations
of their
alma
Hampton's
mater).
white
women
as a viable
than
better,
certainly,
option;
to
of former
students
marrying
prospect
in
been
instructed
the
suitably
ways
student
Hampton
painstakingly
kept
the
converted
a constant
despite
always
Hampton
a rate
of about
three
at
reason,
difficult
addition,
had
students,
usually
this
In
culture.
American
Native
found
once
Apparently,
Native
American
assimilation.
and those
for white
women,
partners
marriage
as indications
at least could
see such marriages
education
their
advanced
indicated
person
291
by Marriage
a
recorded
of
at
least
eight
it documented
to
white
of
number
women.
female
six
marThey
292
The Virginia Magazine
TALKS
OF THE
VOL. II. No. s
Tahenan upt ?a ounkiya biye,? Come over and help us."
HAMPTON. VA.. JULY. 1887.
2 sets. Per Year.
The Brotherhood of Christian Unity.
Hampton girl] and baby first rate. We
The followingis froma returnedHamptonstudent; have a little beautiful baby whom we both
althoughhe did not graduatehe haslearnedenough love very dearly. She is
than any
to have an influenceover his companionsfortheir other here at Fort Hale. prettiest
Miss F.?I have
good.
not much to say at present but will try say
Lower Br?le, D. T. June 10th, /SS?. more sometime. I send my best love to
:
Friend
? ? Dear
you which my dear ioin me to send
To-day I think about very often times.
?enj Brave {Ohitik?)
You did'not expect that I am living yet but
1 am yet living. Neither I did not forget
On the morning of the Fourth of
you all my east friends at all day and night.
But still ? cannot write to you very often, five Indian boys ascended to the roof of July
Virbecause ? had a hard time to live. I live ginia Hall and raised the "Stars and
very far off the agency about 15 miles so I Stripes", This was the first time that on a
did not go to the agency all the times, ex- Fourth of July the Indians could celebrate
cept twice in a month for hold of Associa- the day in its full meaning. Five pair of wiltion which we call "The Brotherhood of ling hands quickly raised the flag and five
Christian Unity." All the Christians are join- voices gave a shout which was answered by a
ing, not all of them but most of them. Now large group of Indian bovs who were watchat the present the officers of Brotherhood ing the flag being raised.
Medicine Bull, President ;
of C.U.Samuel
The boys who raised the flag were Chas.
Elijah Quilt. Vice President ; Benj. Brave, Doxson, Onandago Tribe, New York, Hyson
De
TreasCharles
Secretary ;
Shenquette,
Powlis, Oneida1 Tribe, Wisconsin, Thos
urer ; Martin-Leeds, Visitation of the Sick; Sloan, Omaha'Tribe, Nebraska, Henry LyAmos Boy Elk, Visitation of the Sick.
man, Sioux Tribe, Dakota Ter., Daniel ChilWe work against the evil and help the son, Potowatomie Tribe, Indian Territory.
our
have
over
Rules
We
13
In the evening a celebration took place
good thing.
Brotherhood, that we will try to help, and with speeches and singing, an account of
look for anything will happen at Agency or which will be given more fully in our next.
Reservation. We are trying to right among
our people who are now in negligences and
ignorances of our mighty God. We hope
Hiram Chase of the Omaha Tribe of Inthat we do more good works among our dians who moved into the town of Decatur
for
I
am
very sorry
poor savage race.
the Reservation, voted at the
them sometimes, because they do not [know] adjoining
town election, and was appointed Town
future
in
our
do
them
to
for
best
is
what
Clerk.
life. Sometimes some of my old [friends]
The Omahas coming into citizenship unask me to give it up the whites way. We der the "Indian Severalty Bill" need such
all Hampton boys here are do better than
men and we hope they will be found.
the any other Agency. We Brul? boys young
none g >back to our old life again except
The last one who has left us is Hyson
others Powless, bound for Massachusetts to spend
two of them E?L? and L?E?and
the summer.
I am sure done well.
Now I am living v.ell with my wife fa
VirginiaHistorical Society
Talks and Thoughts was a publication
Native American
entirely produced by Hampton's
students, and included news of events at the school, student literary works, and reports on
the lives of former students. In the July 1887 edition reproduced
above, a letter appears
from Benjamin Brave, a former student living in the Dakota Territory. Brave describes his
in a group of Native Americans
committed
to doing "good works among our
membership
race."
No
doubt
further
school
Brave also writes
administrators,
poor savage
delighting
that he is married to "a Hampton girl" and has a baby daughter.
included
Law
lawyer
1889
School
Hiram
valedictorian
in
order
Chase.
Thomas
to
return
Just
before
Sloan,
west
being
to
who
read
admitted
declined
admission
law
Native
with
to the
bar,
he
to Yale
American
married
"a
Assimilation
white
young
woman
from
of American
Society
Bushotter
St.
Louis."41
Indians
of the
Alexander
interaction
with
Thomas
Peters,
that "both he and
reported
color
and seem
prejudice,
African
Miles
choices
The
became
indication
keeping
of the
career.
engaged
of the
to
with
idea
the
Native
white
Hampton
assimilated
that
the
was
single
under
peoples
fundamental
to
also
spouses
at Hampton
American
Eastman
and
important
between
1883
Pond,
this
Native
and
form
believing
that
a Native
marry
in common.
Elaine
married
homes
married
more
or
dramatic
marriage.
men
had,
men
who
In
in
a
had
white
culture,
but
white
female
staff
in the
must
American
Charles
of their
of
selected
absorbed
only to have
it. The majority
of the
1886,
staff
American
women
to
booklet
"pleasant"
or disapproval
and
faculty
offer
a far
for
The
Goodale,
Eastman,
inherent
surely
man.
who
have
Their
taught
a Native
at Pine
South
Dakota
as an agency
Ridge,
physician.
been
a student
at Hampton,
but studied
at missionary
then
at Dartmouth
and Boston
West,
College
University.43
employed
had not
in the
traits
Gautier.
with
shock
missionary-oriented,
characteristics
God,
a decision
had
three
Frank
stories"
no
men
at
white
and
female
American
toleration
all
Andrus
have tremendous
particularly
his
education
of
regret
Hampton
[because
Huntsman
wife was
Americans]"),
Wesley
(whose
partners,
not
themselves
outwardly
proven
to have become
successful
within
at Hampton
of
equality
Caroline
to
of marriage
partners.42
three
in which
instances
earned
sense,
41
member
(of whom
the latter,
his wife,
"a great
a foreigner"),
hustler,
reportedly
all these
touted
men as Hampton
"success
and acceptable
and
professions
expressed
Rebecca
an active
a successful
became
included
schools
was
Sloan
and
pursued
legal
George
to a white
woman
while
engaged
employed
by the
of Ethnology
to assist
a white
with
a
of
a
dialect
ethnologist
study
Dakota
students
Lesser-known
who married
white
women
language.
Bureau
been
293
by Marriage
who
taught
in
the
academic
department
during
Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, p. 33 and Twenty-Two Years' Work, pp. 451-52
(quotation).
42
Twenty-Two Years' Work, pp. 340-41; Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, pp. 22 and 33;
Student File of George Bushotter, ViHaU-A; Twenty-Two Years' Work, pp. 349 and 387-88; Student
File of Thomas C. Miles, ViHaU-A (first quotation); Twenty-Two Years' Work, p. 435; Student File
of Wesley Huntsman, ViHaU-A (second quotation); and Twenty-Two Years' Work, p. 456. Cora M.
Folsom wrote in her introduction to Twenty-Two Years' Work that "When I speak in my records of
a 'good home/ I refer more to the home life than to the building that shelters it" (Twenty-Two Years'
Work, p. 320).
43 The Eastmans'
courtship and marriage took place after Goodale had left Hampton to set up her
own day school in the West, eventually becoming the supervisor of education in North and South
Dakota and Nebraska. Nevertheless,
Hampton and its ideology greatly influenced Goodale's
philosophies and later career. See Katherine Ellinghaus, "Reading the Personal as Political: The
Assimilationist Views of a White Woman Married to a Native American Man, 1880s-1940s,"
Australasian Journal of American Studies 18 (1999): 3-42. For more information about the Eastmans,
see Kay Graber, ed., Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman, 1885-91 (Lincoln,
Neb., 1978); Charles Eastman [Ohiyesa], From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the
Autobiography of an Indian (Boston, 1916); Julie Dobrow, "White Sister of the Sioux," Masterkey 56
294
The Virginia Magazine
the
First
World
student
Band)
who
Andrus,
office
from
until
his
a Cherokee
Owl in 1919,
(Eastern
George
who fought
in the U.S.
Caroline
overseas
Army.44
Finally,
held
of "Indian
in the records
the position
Correspondent"
War,
1895
until
untimely
in anthropology
In all probability,
married
her
death
Ph.D.
work
Eastman's
as
that
in 1922, was engaged
to William
Jones
resignation
in 1909.
a Sac and Fox student,
a
earned
Jones,
Boas
Franz
under
at Columbia
University.45
status
as
a
war
Charles
Owl's
veteran,
George
a
made
qualifications
women.
Interestingly,
Native
Americans
physician,
them
marriages
and
William
acceptable
with
whites
Jones's
doctorate
white
as
would
marriage
partners
were
seen
as evidence
rather
had
assimilated,
than,
successfully
had somehow
be expected,
in question
that the whites
slipped
perhaps
while
from
On
the
other
white
hand,
marriage
acceptable
society.46
as contributing
to the ultimate
white
could
be seen
object
person
the
white
of
the
Native
American
into
absorption
people
population,
relationships
in the
result
white
Hampton
African
and
appear
Americans
other
a particular
Americans
more
and
African
Americans
could
non-white
that
away
to a
of
the
sexual
only
non-
and, furthermore,
people,
racial
into
neatly
nineteenth-century
white
anxieties
at
some
toward
why
goes
way
explaining
between
to have
centered
more
on sexual
relationships
who
This
Eastman's
of
creation
people
categories.
Native
between
were
for
would
and
not
Native
fit
Americans
than
on
those
between
whites
races.
and
style
Jones's
of Native
of
the wider
context
accomplishments
lay within
existed
educational
that briefly
American
policy
(1982): 103-6; Ruth Ann Alexander, "Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist
Protestant Ethic," Great Plains Quarterly 8 (1988): 89-101; and Ruth Ann Alexander, "Finding
Oneself through a Cause: Elaine Goodale Eastman and Indian Reform in the 1880s," South Dakota
History 22 (1992): 1-32.
44 See
Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, p. 165; Tingey, "Indians and Blacks Together," esp.
pp. 222-48; and Southern Workman 47 (1918): 535-40; 48 (1919): 255 and 623; and 49 (1920): 431.
45 See
Henry M. Rideout, William Jones, Indian, Cowboy, American Scholar, and Anthropologist in
the Field (New York, 1912); Nineteenth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Indian Rights
Association, 1901 (Philadelphia, 1902), 34-35; Henry Owl, "Some Successful Indians," Southern
Workman 47 (1918), pp. 535-40; Tingey, "Blacks and Indians Together," pp. 216-20; and Southern
Workman 51 (1922): 532.
46 Needless to
say, there was no corresponding ideology of acceptance about relationships between
whites and the African American students. According to historian Donai Lindsey, no marriages
occurred between white female teachers and African American students (Lindsey, Indians at
Hampton Institute, p. 165). Many historians of the South have documented the unacceptability of
relationships between whites and African Americans during this period, especially those involving
black men and white women. See, for example, Martha Elizabeth Hodes, White Women, Black Men:
Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Haven, 1997); Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Gender and
Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Chapel Hill,
1996); and Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women's
Campaign Against Lynching (New York, 1975). The different degree of acceptance of relationships
between whites and African Americans compared to those of whites and Native Americans is
reflected in the numerous miscegenation laws operational between 1661 and 1967, the majority of
which targeted African Americans but rarely included Native Americans. See Peggy Pascoe, "Race,
Gender, and Intercultural Relations: The Case of Interracial Marriage," Frontiers 22 (1991): 5.
Assimilation
295
by Marriage
Courtesyof Hampton UniversityArchives
from left with a group of Native American students,
Office from 1895 until 1922. Andrus, who was white,
was engaged to be married to a Native American graduate of the school, William Jones,
until his death in 1909. The relationship
between Andrus and Jones illustrates that, at least
at Hampton, it became acceptable for the most educated and, by white standards, highest
Caroline Andrus, shown here second
worked in Hampton's
Indian Records
Native
achieving
in the
American
United
States
schools
that
influence
that
the
played
white
second
half
American
Unlike
century.
of
a
an
instrument
Hampton
policy
men the opportunity
to reach
high levels
of the
that
perception
an important
woman
and
notably
tions
of
convenient
that
on the basis
policy
those
that "removed"
land
distant
belief
because
that
from
the
part
made
of their
of two
Native
white
Native
inability
partners.
nineteenth
was
afterward,
the
marriage
this
had
a civilizing
to "win" the hand
settlement,
Americans
derived
were
with
First,
contact
its Native
some
policies,
ever-decreasing
in part
from
unable
with
to
acceptable
constructed
beliefs.
conflicting
Americans
to
to cope
was
education
in assisting
them
their marriages
more
and society
at large.
community
Hampton
Before
1880 the United
States
government
American
and
in the
came
many
Native
that gave some
It was
of education.
of an educated
men to find white
to be
porthe
"civilized"
Europeans
they
The Virginia Magazine
296
to extinction.
were
doomed
work
of missionaries
Mohonk
and
from
developed
and become
assimilated
to learn
the ways of white
culture
a
was
Institute
of mainstream
American
society.47
Hampton
deof
the
latter
The
1884
annual
advocate
ideology.
report
able
members
passionate
clared,
is no
can
longer,
Indian?"48
"[t]he
question
of the civilized
becomes
must
one
fall
red
man
educate
To
ways.
The
for
was
Native
reformers
$75,000
in
each
of up
expenses
incidentals.50
displayed
a hundred
a
at Hampton,
humanitarian
as much
children
which
two
question
one white
to
money
in civilized
Christian
its
reached
initiative,
funds
Lake
of the second
platform
modest
aims for the education
"Indian
Indian
for Native
of increasing
government
support
rose
from
annual
Congressional
appropriations
in 1900,
received
for
$167
$3 million
Hampton
must
have
that
covered
clothing,
Mohonk
a
traveling
few
other
conference
in 1884
of Native
American
The
quite
that the
what
Mission-
at least
it takes
of their
but,
American
"The
But
and
to nearly
to fifty Native
American
students,
from
their
to and
board,
homes,
1880
civilized?
economy."49
program
conceived
as
heyday
American
be
a meeting
more
blunt.
is shot,
American
originally
a period
during
education.
As
Indian
or extermination.
Indian
who
every
as it would
to train
is at least
the
of the
At
in 1881, Armstrong
ary Association
he argued
...
is this,"
"education
kill
set
such
conference,
be
would
man
the
of policies,
which
encouraged
as those
who gathered
at the Lake
the idea that Native
American
people
A second
reformers
a knowledge
of
and
peoples,
the
language,
English
stating
as they
business
and transact
that he may associate
with his white
neighbors
him
with
to
fit
to
have
industrial
do. He must
training
compete
practical
education
to enable
for life. He must have a Christian
others
in the struggle
duties
perform
[the]
an
believed
that
Reformers
him
to
children
white
would
Indian
society.
Affairs
more
than
enable
But
this
Thomas
competent
Native
the
the
family,
education
similar
of
American
simple
goal
J. Morgan
farmers,
could
be taken
it clear
telling
to
the
that
to
children
made
and
State,
Lake
received
Church."51
by
assimilate
further.
that
the
easily
Commissioner
education
Mohonk
could
Conference
white
into
of
create
in
47 For information about the
way in which boarding schools were used as instruments of the
federal government's assimilation policy, and for histories of the policy itself, see Francis Paul
Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, Neb.,
and London, 1984), vol. 2; David Wallace Adams, "Fundamental Considerations: The Deep
Meaning of Native American Schooling, 1880-1900," Harvard Educational Review 58 (1988): 1-28;
Adams, Education for Extinction, pp. 3-94; Frederick Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to
Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne, 1995), pp. 41-82 and
189-210; and Spring, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality, pp. 1-27.
48 ^?W
(1884), p. 9.
49 Southern Workman 10
(1881): 120.
50 Adams, "Fundamental Considerations," p. 3 and Caroline W. Andrus, "'Education of Indians
at Hampton/ A Survey of Hampton Institute in 1921," Typescript, p. 3, ViHaU-A.
51
Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1884 (Philadelphia,
1885), p. 14.
Assimilation
it was
that
1889
of
gain
many
Americans
the
the
that
pleasures
and stimulus
blatant
and
charters.
students
literature,
a
true religion."52
by
humanitarians
pushed
as examples
the
and
and
create
Native
of social
of travel,
advantages
philosophy,
to
would
the
Native
American
A few
people.
Native
American
of assimilation
to their
only
in
college
small
very
the
late
numbers
Native
of
nineteenth
and
American
twentieth
early
and
were
Pratt,
both
Lake
reformers,
including
Armstrong
of this ideal.53
In the late 1880s Armstrong
supporters
Mohonk
Conference
"that provision
should
be made
by the
ment
for
many
enthusiastic
the
education
special
can
be doctors
they
fifty?so
that
Morgan
"endowed
advocated
an
with
Morgan
leaders
a scheme
a special
imperative
"[t]here
of thought?lawyers,
men of letters."55
In
1892
sioner
the
of Indian
Board
of
Affairs
of Alice
suggestion
more
help
these
Indians?about
would
to undertake
if
the
governin
one
Two years later Thomas
people."54
Americans
who were
help Native
higher
Indians
are
the
need
urgent
physicians,
been
consisted
for
Indian
education.
to
be
them
among
teachers,
preachers,
"There
is
assimilated,"
for
a class
editors,
and
is
Commissioners
the
promising
now
given
to
African
and
on
as
emphasis
physical
aimed
to "arouse
and
practical
value
in
American
prepare
of both vocational
labor
develop
of intelligently
the
Indian
"Mohonk
scholars
the
academic
"the
teachers,
subjects,
foundation
of
in its students
performed
to
the
of
states-
commis-
at the
decided,
Fund"
to provide
in the pursuit
of a
Government
at Hampton
supported
The institute's
students.
policies
American
Native
reported
Conference
had
Mohonk
to establish
Robertson,
to
education
52
an
that
"bright
education
than
higher
schools."56
Armstrong's
and
of
for the
that
is
some
told
and
men,
had
of
capacity"
for this
necessity
argued,
the
solace
had never
excluded
colleges
that
did
African
Americans.
Some
way
they
colleges,
even mentioned
Native
American
students
in
Harvard,
Although
attended
centuries,
science
American
in the
Dartmouth
their
...
of commerce
period,
would
act
who
which
Native
Americans
through
of a middle-class
Educated
lifestyle.
sweets
of refined
the
homes,
delight
from
afforded
existed.
already
students
medium
emoluments
come
this
During
"leaders"
the
trappings
"the
enjoy
would
intercourse,
like
to be
297
by Marriage
and
the
but
idea
contract
of higher
original
objective
the
curriculum
reflecting
all welfare."
an appreciation
manual
labor
the
school's
Hampton
of the dignity
... to cultivate
Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1889 (Philadelphia,
1890), p. 17.
53
Meyer Weinberg, A Chance to Learn: The History of Race and Education in the United States
(Cambridge, Mass, and New York, 1977), pp. 337-40.
54
Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1887 (Philadelphia,
1888), p. 57.
55
Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference, pp. 18-22.
56
Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, 1892, H.exdoc. 1 (52-2) 3088, p. 1271.
298
The Virginia Magazine
Samuel Chapman
Armstrong,
who led black troops during
the Civil War, founded Hampton Normal
and Agricultural
Institute in 1868 and served as
its first principal until his death
in 1893.
VirginiaHistorical Society
in
them
the
study
to be useful
could
work
and
through
of trained
ability
take either
the academic
them
to be skilled
such
concomitant
farmers.
tradesmen,
courses
in unison
worked
policy
worked
at the school
during
in
took
classes
academic
night
This
and
American
students
was
program
and
maintained
from
poor
financial
of great
campus
or enroll
with
the
Hampton's
in return
access
facilities,
school
to teach
and
printers,
to give
African
to an education,
the
as student
and
food,
produced
natural
Students
unique
plan whereby
and board
for room
Initiated
subjects.
rural
the
designed
carpenters,
day
backgrounds
benefit
to the
is
vocation."57
in classes
as blacksmiths,
students
that
self-respect
in a skilled
labor
made
built
for
goods
sale.58
Although
the
features,
opportunity
the creation
the
on work
was
emphasis
school
also offered
"normal"
to train
as teachers.
of trained
teachers
of
Hampton's
courses
that gave
The
of this
most-lauded
students
was
more
the
than
purpose
policy
to
children
serve
on isolated,
willing
living
in the West:
it was a means
which
through
reservations
poverty-stricken
role models
assimilated
civilized,
as exemplars
of proper
in the
wrote
principal's
one
behavior.
report
would
return
As
B. Frissell,
for
H.
1894:
57 "A
Survey of Hampton Institute in 1921," p. 10.
58
Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, pp. 24-27.
to those
"The
reservations
Armstrong's
solution
of
to act
successor,
the
Indian
Assimilation
lies in sending
out competent
of
leaders
problem,
both by precept
and example,
show them
how to
decreed
that as soon as Native
American
students
as of the Negro
problem,
their own race, who shall,
live."59
were
Hampton's
course,
training
similar
school
lacked
Hampton's
was both
racist
For
demonstrated
American
unwavering
students
were
that
approached
these
students
that
of color
wrote
Armstrong
did
not
in the
is
in the
lack
children
no
doubt
idea
that
that
both
a
attaining
students.
of
the
black
level
The
of
school
innate
by their
Annual
of a scale
idea
of
capable
to white
offered
to white
given
advantage
example,
faith
courses
students.60
grammar
in the nineteenth-century
and patronizing,
there
that
the
school
teacher-
Hampton's
and taking
belief
Native
believed
to white
taught
at least
education
they could
competent,
begin
classes
with
black
students
attending
to those
Although
civilization
and
policy
academically
judged
299
by Marriage
Report
but merely
ability
cultural
background.
for 1881 that:
It is to be regretted that the terms usually applied to such people have needless
It would be better if the
reproach or sting, as the words, "despised," "degraded/'
idea of being behind, implying lack of opportunities,
rather than below, implying
a fall could be conveyed in our description phrases; this would not wound their self
respect. The Negro and the Indian are low but not degraded.61
educational
Hampton's
for
the
example,
policies
this
into
theory
course
consisted
put
academic
(or Normal)
reading,
language
(the study of English),
geography,
included
the study of "news
items
...
it possible
[to make]
think
and talk intelligently
of the economic
and political
In 1894,
practice.
of mathematics,
science,
day,"
despite
enfranchised),
"how
taught
the
quired
senior
Native
the
vast
were
majority
and economics
government
own
is carried
government
political
parties"),
drawing,
on
not
and
would
to
the
not
be
students
were
(in which
and what are the politics
of
woodwork,
singing,
gymnastics,
were
re-
and
science,
agriculture,
"practice
teaching"
(students
between
their middle
and
part in a year's
teaching
experience
In
nineteen
1894
Native
American
women
and
years).62
twenty-nine
American
in the normal
men were enrolled
school
classes
along with
American
who
graduated
at mainstream
skilled
that
(which
[students]
of
subjects
to take
African
ton's
fact
civil
our
different
mental
109
the
history
for
Native
women
this
from
colleges
American
trades.
59ARHI
(1894),
60
Hultgren and
61ARHI
(1881),
62 Ibid.,
(1894),
63 Ibid.,
p. 13.
The
and
course
and
African
were
prepared
and
universities,
students
annual
137
report
went
in
on
1892
p. 9.
Molin, To Lead and To Serve, p. 22.
p. 6.
pp. 14-17.
American
men.63
to continue
their
some
of them
did
Students
education
so.
Hampin many
and
professions
recorded
that their
occupations
to work
The Virginia Magazine
300
In 1893 Dr. Hollis Burke Frissecond
sell became Hampton's
He
wholeheartedly
principal.
believed that the institute had
a mission to make leaders of its
to
students
Native American
serve as examples to others of
their race.
VirginiaHistorical Society
included
teachers,
lawyers,
as
a physician,
well
as
wrights,
blacksmiths,
however,
returned
The
social
police
and
merchants,
climate
reservations
that
gave
Native
clerks.64
to take
pursue
schools
or
in which
agricultural
obstacle
first
the
curriculum
subjects.66
to an equal
As
however.
last,
Native
education
solely
Frederick
was
64 Ibid.,
(1892), p. 77.
65
Hultgren and Molin, To Lead and To Serve, p. 28.
66 Hoxie, Final Promise,
pp. 190-201.
surveyors,
the
After
American
and
wheel-
students,
opportunity
the
1900
children
into
Indian
segregated
mechanical
on practical
constructed
concentrated
historian
farming.65
students
up
American
was
not
to
education
higher
to
at
first
integrate
attempted
government
when
this failed,
and then,
white
schools,
to
engineers,
farmers,
postmasters,
of Hampton's
Most
soldiers,
missionaries,
to the
officers,
the
Hoxie
reluctance
has
detailed,
of
the
all-white
Assimilation
' ''?"
HAMPTON
Riven.
301
by Marriage
p? MO*
???
MM
lam.
TMIataf
S?*p
UMKIIUOI
POINT.
Hampton
Normaland AgriculturalInstitute,Hampton,
Virginia.
VirginiaHistorical Society
This panoramic
Institute from across the
photograph
displays the campus of Hampton
River.
It
that
a
in this essay, including
role
Hampton
depicts buildings
play
prominent
Winona Lodge, Virginia Hall, and "the Wigwam."
schools
to
secondary
Indian
Affairs
Thomas
to
white
encourage
Native
American
children.
accept
J. Morgan
had begun
an integration
schools
to accept
Native
American
In 1895
contracts.
government
in 1903
scheme;
only
four
with
doubts
concerns,
budgetary
a growing
disillusionment
to
required
Indian
Affairs
dent
of education
to
govern
academic
the
about
idea
the
Native
were
the
in the
bureau,
Native
American
training
entirely
schools.
of boarding
efficacy
that education
was
in favor
Reel,
The
pupils
of
in 1891
through
in the
participated
taking
part. Combined
still
American
Estelle
scheme
districts
began
advocating
segregated,
in Native
American
communities.
schools
inferior,
with
assimilate
school
forty-five
school
districts
Commissioner
population,
and therefore
the
In 1901
the
course
of unrelentingly
and
all
was
that
of
Bureau
definition
by
superintencurriculum
a new
announced
new
schools,
of
abandoned
study
manual
and vocational
education.67
The
that
would
educators
something
we more
than
Native
"enter
railroad
he
expressed
William
Americans
Affairs
would
at the
become
time,
Francis
Leupp,
those
that
farmers;
the
labor
market
as lumbermen,
general
or what not." Leupp
went on to argue
that
of Native
to attempt
Americans
to "make
else...
. Looking
our
own
among
companions
who
has made
sincerely
respect?the
person
hands
him
nature
of Indian
commissioner
most
gave
is?"68
at
or the
Leupp's
Hampton
become
Jones
ditchers,
it was
did
not
miners,
an error
[them]
in life,
the
believed
most
over
for
into
do
whom
of
what
who
is always
to be something
other
person
trying
vision
for the future
was a long way from the ideals
that had helped
men
such
as Thomas
and
Sloan
lawyers
and
academics.
Control
of Native
67 Ibid.,
pp. 190-96.
68Annual
Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1905, H.doc. 5 (59-1)
American
4959, pp. 3 and 7-8.
302
The Virginia Magazine
education
shifted
this period
missionduring
away from the humanitarian
and reformers
but who
who were
of the government
aries
not employees
the beginnings
had overseen
of federal
educational
Hoxie
policy.
By 1916,
has argued,
of the new
context
1912.
"bureaucracy
were
program
that
It
is testimony
continued
funding
provided
American
men
American
trators'
importantly,
marriages
reinforce
least,
were
country
in
regularly
its confines,
for
of
welfare
of
assimilation
than
his
or her
"Indian
white
doctrine
American
of
of
ethnicity,
problem"
population.
was deeply
that
their
student
of their private
all aspects
to build
their future.
whom
for
69 Hoxie, Final Promise,
pp. 205-6.
to
the
levels
men
Adminis-
expect.
former
Native
Among
a potential
It was
seen
during
period
the public
not just influence
It
also had
attended
Hampton.
especially
their
into
choice
life
more
many
the
choice
of assimilation
of American
this
as
in which
by absorption
in which
the
an atmosphere
to the ideology
connected
at
Americans,
was
spouse
in a context
especially
would
be solved
lives,
in some
of education,
could
did
who
conducive
setting
no less
and,
charges,
were so great that they encouraged
that
students
believed
would
they
occurred
assimilation
day. The school
white women
and
provided
Hampton
It attracted
white
relationships.
a humanitarian
bent
and gave
Native
of
school's
level
a
Hampton
and Native
romantic
and
the
where
policy
in Native
wanted
ideology,
women
of the
prejudices
to reach
high
opportunity
American
white
what
most
marriage
partner
all the cultural
shifts
Native
the
in
appropriation
the government
not
white
in the
reputation,
American
Native
among
the lessons
learned
at Hampton.
mainstream
The
between
meet
interracial
was
in this
It was
educational
assimilationist
marriages
Within
national
all that
architects
office."69
Indian
the
for the
the
of its own_The
after
of
agent
educated
beyond
concerns
the
important
believed
did
to symbolize
might
races.
the
to form
men
far
men
between
who
it
possible
despite
of the few locations
perhaps
Native
American
women
as
long
came
were
one
sympathy
raw material
of the
employees
uncompromising
in which
a context
was
cases
as
Hampton
education.
an
a life
acquired
withdrew
government
Hampton's
to the institute's
that
uniqueness
and
changed
American
As
federal
the
had
of
and
history.
of every
implications
with
of a partner
Assimilation
by Marriage
303
Courtesyof Hampton UniversityArchives
as
teachers
studied geography,
normal curriculum,
As part of Hampton's
prospective
and other academic subjects. This photo
shown here in this Frances Johnston photograph,
After 1901,
students in the same classroom.
includes both black and Native American
of Indian Affairs
such scenes would grow rare. In that year the Bureau
however,
work in
that abandoned
academic
a new curriculum
for Native Americans
announced
favor of strictly vocational
education.