Book Review

A Different Look at Indian Schools

Federal Fathers & Mothers:
A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869 - 1933
by Cathleen D. Cahill
The University of North Carolina Press | 368 pp | $45.00
ISBN 978-0807834725

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The “Indian Problem”

It has been said the federal government has really never known what to do about American Indians. At intermittent intervals throughout American history, we - American Indians - have been referred to as the “Indian problem” because we never would completely go away. Subsequently, the federal government has had to change its methodology - or policy - to deal with us.

The concept of assimilation - or even more to the point colonization - of American Indians is examined in “Federal Fathers & Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869 - 1933,” a new book written by Cathleen D. Cahill, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico.

“Federal Fathers & Mothers” chronicles the history of the United States Indian Service, now named the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now a part the US Department of Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has its origins in the Department of War when it was created in 1824.

Cahill is forthright from the beginning of the introduction to her book when she references a comment written by Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) in “Custer Died for Your Sins”: “It would be fair to say that Indian people are ambivalent” about government agencies. “Some Indian people want desperately to get rid of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Others want increased bureau services to help solve problems of long standing.”

“Federal Fathers & Mothers” picks up in the period soon after the Civil War and moves well into the twentieth century during a time the federal government realized all American Indians were not going to be killed off and at the end of the treaty-making period of United States history. Even with the historic ambivalence, the United States Indian Service during the late 1800s and early 1900s played a major role in the attempted assimilation of American Indians as it entered reservations to “civilize” Indian students by educating them in schools.

With the advent of the Indian schools, most American Indian students were away from their homes for long periods of time. The teachers and other personnel attempted to become their surrogate parents; thus the name of the book: “Federal Fathers & Mothers.”

“Federal Fathers & Mothers” provides a different look at Indian schools.

“Federal Fathers & Mothers” concentrates more on the formation of federal policy and the implementation by the United States Indian Services. Cahill touches only briefly on the deplorable living conditions of the schools that caused widespread diseases and even death to Indian students.

Cahill did a lot of research for “Federal Fathers & Mothers” by going into federal personnel records and other archival documents. As earlier mentioned, the federal government has really never known what to do with Indians. This is evident as Cahill reveals how the schools were administered by non-Indians whose task it was to assimilate Indians.

The reader will get the feel there were some well intentioned people who thought they were performing humanitarian work while employed by the United States Indian Services. This is particularly the case as more and more American Indians, who in many cases were originally students who after they received higher education went back to be employed by the United States Indian Services.

The Indian school era examined in “Federal Fathers & Mothers” is one that American Indians are now ready to talk about, so the book is timely.

posted June 4, 2011 9:47 am et