The Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Published 2022-05-06
During a time when the United States government was willing to spend $1 million to eradicate a single Indian tribe out west, Captain Richard Henry Pratt established the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Pratt's idea was to "save" native children by turning indigenous peoples into white men and women.

The most well-known of the boarding schools for Indian children was opened in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and operated for nearly 30 years. This presentation wishes to explore the school's plan to "Kill the Indian, save the Man."

Matthew March, Education Curator of the Cumberland County Historical Society, will explore what it means to be stripped of your cultural heritage through forced assimilation, as he recounts the history of the school and stories of the children there.

All Comments (8)
  • @dridemoto
    My grandfather who was full blood Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma attended Carlisle School in early 1900's and played on a baseball team with Jim Thorpe.
  • @juanesteban8827
    In the 1990's I spent 4 years at one of the best high schools in the US, a private boarding school, not 50 miles from the Carlisle school yet it was another 20 years before I learned anything about this long, dark chapter in US history. It was absent from my American, world, and local history classes both in high school and College. Given our current political climate, we're a long way from welcoming the subject in our classrooms but it must be taught. Failure to do so short changes future generations and increases the likelihood that history will repeat itself. Knowledge is not always pleasant but it is always power
  • I’ve visited the installation twice in the past few months. It gives a very dizzying, literally, feeling.
  • @PyWells
    My great grandfather was suppose to have attended Carlisle School-last name Coterrius
  • @WVF112469
    They definitely had photoshop techniques back then. Lucias Aurelia and Martin Liedke have mind blowing pre 1899 videos of photographic deception.
  • @kentkearney6623
    1:49 This picture says it all. Kidnapping and genocide. Carlyle is the oldest for a controlling reason. And they have the audacity to call Hitler a monster.