STANFORD HISTORY EDUCATION GROUP sheg.stanford.edu
Document D: Luther Standing Bear (Excerpt)
Luther Standing Bear was a member of the Lakota tribe and attended the Carlisle
Indian Industrial School beginning in 1879. After graduating, he became a Lakota
chief and advocated for Native American rights and sovereignty. The following
are excerpts from a book he wrote in 1933 about his experiences at the school.
At the age of eleven years, ancestral life for me and my people was most
abruptly ended without regard for our wishes, comforts, or rights in the matter. At
once I was thrust into an alien world, into an environment as different from the
one into which I had been born as it is possible to imagine, to remake myself, if I
could, into the likeness of the invader. . . .
At Carlisle . . . the “civilizing” process began. It began with clothes. Never, no
matter what our philosophy or spiritual quality, could we be civilized while
wearing the moccasin and blanket. The task before us was not only that of
accepting new ideas and adopting new manners, but actual physical changes
and discomfort had to be borne uncomplainingly until the body adjusted itself to
new tastes and habits. . . . Of course, our hair was cut, and then there was much
disapproval. But that was part of the transformation process, and in some
mysterious way long hair stood in the path of our development. . . .
Almost immediately our names were changed to those in common use in the
English language. . . . I was told to take a pointer and select a name for myself
from the list written on the blackboard. . . . By that time we had been forbidden to
speak our mother tongue, which is the rule in all boarding schools. . . .
Of all the changes we were forced to make, that of diet was doubtless the most
injurious, for it was immediate and drastic. . . . Had we been allowed our own
simple diet . . . we should have thrived. But the change in clothing, housing, food,
and confinement combined with lonesomeness was too much, and in three
years nearly one half of the children from the Plains were dead and through with
all earthly schools. In the graveyard at Carlisle most of the graves are those of
the little ones. . . .
Source: Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, 1933.