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Federal Indian Policy And The St Francis Mission School On Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota: 1886-1908 , Karla Lee Ekquist

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Contrary to popular white opinion of the nineteenth century, the Lakota, and other, native peoples, had a strong and effective culture. Their culture included a well developed system for educating their children and passing on essential knowledge and skills long before contact with whites. By the nineteenth century, white perceptions of the Indians, as possessing an inferior and primitive culture, led to a push for the assimilation of Indian populations into the dominant white culture;The institution seized upon to effect assimilation was the white, or European, style school. The government relied on religious organizations to run these Indian schools ...