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Climbing Learners' Hill: Benedictines At White Earth, 1878-1945, Carol J. Berg Osb

Saint Benedict’s Monastery Publications

Benedictine sisters and monks administered and staffed a boarding school on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota from 1882-1945, responding to a request from the local bishop and to the Peace Policy of President Grant. Church denominations were asked to cooperate with the government in Christianizing and “civilizing” the Indians—on and off-reservations. With significant aid from federal funds, various denominations, primarily Catholic and Protestant, built churches and schools to educate and “convert” Indians. This was done in the cause of assimilation, with most of the missionaries, lay or religious, deliberately undermining the traditional cultures. Benedictines came late to the Indian …