Promises of the Past: A History of Indian Education

Fascinating excerpts from government documents, court decisions, letters from commissioners of Indian affairs, and eyewitness accounts trace the white man’s effort over the years to educate and assimilate Native Americans into the Euro-American culture. Beginning with a description of Indian education before contact, DeJong’s highly informative and readable selections dramatize a struggle that continues today-a struggle ultimately aimed at the control of a people. From the first tentative efforts of the missionaries, to the successful schools of the Five Civilized Tribes, to the shocking inhumanity of the boarding school era, these readings reveal in minute detail the dark past of Indian miseducation. The reader will come to understand how decades of cultural ignorance on the part of white society has affected the past, present, and future of today’s tribal nations.