In today's society, this kind of "education" might be described as kidnapping and indoctrination. One of the results of practices like these is that Native American languages stopped being used and in some cases disappeared. In other words, these education requirements not only severed relationships between families, they helped erase Native American cultures.
Some would argue, however, that this education plan was implemented in order to benefit Native Americans, to acculturate them into dominant society and give them the tools they needed to succeed in that society. If the motives of the educators and the lawmakers were pure, then we cannot condemn their actions.
Do you think it makes more sense to judge these educators on the basis of their motives or on the results of their actions?
And if they are to be judged on the results of their actions, would you say their plan was harsh but not fundamentally destructive, since it effectively accelerated cultural changes that were inevitable? Or would you say that their plan was closer to cultural genocide?
I would argue that their plan was closer to a cultural genocide; when the authorities implemented this plan, their main goal was the economic betterment of their own society. Training the young Osage to live like their white neighbors and their parents' guardians would ultimately profit those in the oil business and government. They were not trying to preserve any native languages. The authorities wanted to eradicate the Osage's way of life because it was fundamentally different than their own and had no desire to succumb to the Capitalist empire that would only continue to grow.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Kennedy and what she said about it being a cultural genocide. I believe that they saw the Osage as a threat to their own culture so they had to find a way to overcome that. By having the Osage children learn a different way of life, they thought it would help their own society as a whole. I also agree with Taylor on the point that no race is more superior than the other but many people in that point of time did not believe that.
DeleteI completely agree with Kennedy. The whole reason to send the kids to the boarding school was to rid them of their own heritage and to be more like the "superior race". Not one race is any more superior than another we are all people no matter the skin color and that is not how the authorities saw it at that time. They saw the difference in the native heritage and their own as a threat and out of fear they acted.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The lawmakers’ education plan was intended to rid the Native Americans from their own culture and convert to the beliefs and lifestyles of the white population. I believe it was very much planned to result in a cultural genocide, because as a result, some languages, beliefs and traditions were indeed lost. While this might have been the intention of the authorities, however, the educators could have genuinely thought that the Native Americans were uneducated, and their only motives could have been to educate their students in the way they were trained to teach - that of white society. Nevertheless, I believe the ultimate objective was to wipe Native Americans from their culture in order to comply to the new white culture that forcing its way into their territory.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It makes more sense to judge the lawmakers and educators based on the result of their actions. These people knew what had happened in the past to the Osage, who like other Native Americans, had been forced to move from their ancestral lands time and time again by White people, and they had to have known what would happen in the future, when the Osage culture was all but wiped out. I don’t think that it’s unfair at all to call what those people did cultural genocide. The settlers were invaders on the land, and they should have left the Native people be. Like Addison said, the intentions of the educators might have been pure, but ultimately the goal was to bolster the economy and destroy the culture of the Native Americans.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the end result could be argued as cultural genocide and they should be judged based on the results of the school. If the educators and lawmakers genuinely wanted to teach they ways of dominant society to help them succeed, they did not need to be kept from practicing their traditional ways. Since the Osage children were not allowed to practice their beliefs they inevitably began to believe they should be ashamed of them. Grann later explained that when they returned home, the children refused to wear traditional clothes and cut their hair to look more American. As these children grew up and had their own families, many Osage traditions died with the elders. The death of Native American traditions was arguably the main goal of the assimilation education system.
ReplyDeleteI learned throughout my life that actions speak louder than words. The results of the educators’ actions are how they need to be judged. The way they did the education for the Indians can definitely be described as cultural genocide. Sadly, this happened a lot in the history of the United States. Anybody that was part of a different culture eventually had to learn the English way of living. It almost destroyed the diversity of culture in America. However, having everybody learn to grow in one culture makes it easier for people to communicate with each other and feel more comfortable around each other. It is devastating to see older traditions pass away, but we are more unified this way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Daniel that educators’ actions should be judged for the results that they yield. However, I think it is also very necessary to examine and criticize the intentions of United States lawmen when they were forcing assimilation. Lawmakers should not be trusted when they provide the public with what they claim is their true intent. Their motives are often hidden behind false claims and exaggerations. So, when government insisted that assimilation and the strict education of the young Native Americans was for the many tribes’ benefits, it is questionable. The past United States had many issues when it came to the acceptance of different cultures, so many parts of said cultures were almost erased as a result.
Delete-Natalie Hegwer
If there is one thing I have learned from my FAIRLY RUDIMENTARY study of American History, it is that you should never give lawmakers the benefit of the doubt regarding their legislative intent. If Native American "education" resulted in irreversible trauma on an individual and cultural level and widespread erasure of indigenous cultures, and if legislators did not realize their "mistake" and make every attempt to right their wrongs as soon as the effects of their laws became clear, you can be certain that they either do not care about the wellbeing of these horribly abused groups or (even worse) that they are pleased to see their decimation.
ReplyDeleteEven if someone acts with the purest of motives, if they end up doing something destructive to themselves or the people around them, then they should still be reprimanded for those actions. I believe that the educators should be judged based on the results of their actions. Also, I believe that their plan was more of a cultural genocide. Based off of what I read in other parts of the book, Native Americans were not seen as equal human beings to the whites. The white people did not like their culture because it was different from theirs, so they did everything they could to not be forced to be surrounded by it. I believe that they knew what they were doing and just simply did not care how it affected the Osage because the white’s viewed their culture as superior than that of the Osage.
ReplyDeleteThe boarding schools that the Osage children were forced to attend was essentially cultural genocide. What they were doing, whether in good intention or not, was immoral. They were stripping them of their culture because they wanted them to conform to the way of the whites. Americans tend to be harsh when it comes to other cultures as we tend to see ourselves as superior to other ethnicities.
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