Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T19:32:02.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Corporal Punishment and the Politics of Indian Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Robert A. Trennert
Robert A. Trennert*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In May 1930, at the peak of his public campaign to discredit federal Indian policy, John Collier charged that widespread brutality existed at government boarding schools. As executive secretary of the American Indian Defense Association, Collier persuaded the U.S. Senate to investigate charges of flogging and other forms of excessive punishment. At the center of the controversy stood the Phoenix Indian School, its administration accused of crass brutality, whippings, beatings, and even death—a prime example of what seemed to be wrong with federal Indian policy in the United States. As sensational as this case became for a brief time in 1930, it was primarily a politically staged event that Collier sought to use to his own advantage in bringing down the current administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. An examination of this incident reveals the nature of Collier's feud with old guard government employees and how the inflammatory issue of corporal punishment became a key tool in discrediting government Indian schools. The 1930 controversy over flogging provides an excellent case study in the dynamics of the Collier-led reform movement's challenge to the old order.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , Winter 1989 , pp. 595 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 New York Times, 23 May 1930.Google Scholar

2 Hyman, Irwin A. and McDowell, Eileen, “An Overview,“ in Corporal Punishment in American Education: Readings in History, Practice, and Alternatives, ed. Hyman, Irwin A. and Wise, James H. (Philadelphia, 1979), 4–5; Williams, Gertrude J., “Social Sanctions for Violence against Children: Historical Perspectives,” in ibid., 28–30; Glenn, Myra C., Campaigns against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America (Albany, 1984), 3, 107–9; Axtell, James, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York, 1985), 209.Google Scholar

3 There are several good works on the cultural and educational differences between native and European societies. The most relevant new study is Connell Szasz, Margaret, Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607–1783 (Albuquerque, 1988). An older but still useful study is George Pettitt, Primitive Education in North America (Berkeley, 1946). Anyone interested in this subject should also consult the works of Axtell, James, especially The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America, 245–71, and his essay “The English Colonial Impact on Indian Culture,” in The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, ed. Axtell (New York, 1981), 245–71. Among other works to be consulted are Lurie, Nancy O., “Indian Cultural Adjustment to European Civilization,“ in Seventeenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial History, ed. Morton Smith, James (1959; reprint, New York, 1972), 33–60; Driver, Harold E., Indians of North America, 2d ed. rev. (Chicago, 1969); Brandon, William, The American Heritage Book of Indians (New York, 1964); Farb, Peter, Man's Rise to Civilization as Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State (New York, 1968); and Carbinaro, Merwyn S., Native American Heritage (Boston, 1976).Google Scholar

4 Berkhofer, Robert F. Jr., Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787–1862 (New York, 1972), 35–36, 41–42.Google Scholar

5 S. C. Armstrong to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 31 Oct. 1881, in Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, 1881 (Washington, D.C., 1881), 195. See also Trennert, Robert A., “Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878–1920,“ Western Historical Quarterly 13 (July 1982): 276.Google Scholar

6 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, 1890 (Washington, D.C., 1890), clii; Johnston, Basil H., Indian School Days (Toronto, 1983). For general works on federal educational philosophy during this era, see Hoxie, Frederick E., A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln, 1984); McBeth, Sally J., Ethnic Identity and the Boarding School Experience of West-Central Oklahoma American Indians (Washington, D.C., 1983); Adams, David W., “The Federal Indian Boarding School: A Study in Environment and Response, 1879–1919“ (Ed.D. diss., Indiana University, 1975); and Gilcreast, Everett A., “Richard Henry Pratt and American Indian Policy, 1877–1906“ (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1967).Google Scholar

7 For the history of the Phoenix Indian School, see Trennert, Robert A., The Phoenix Indian School: Forced Assimilation in Arizona, 1891–1935 (Norman, 1988); idem, “‘Peaceably if they Will: Forcibly if they Must': The Phoenix Indian School, 1890–1901,” Journal of Arizona History 20 (Fall 1979): 297–322; and idem, “From Carlisle to Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of the Indian Outing System, 1878–1930,” Pacific Historical Review 52 (Aug. 1983): 267–91.Google Scholar

8 C. W. Crouse to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 12 May 1893, Record Group 75, Letters Received, 18170–1893, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), National Archives (NA); Harwood Hall to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 10 Aug. 1894, in Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report, 1894 (Washington, D.C., 1895), 370. For similar comments regarding other Indian schools, see McBeth, , Ethnic Identity and the Boarding School Experience of West-Central Oklahoma American Indians, 105–8.Google Scholar

9 Wellington Rich to Morgan, Thomas J., 24 Oct. 1892, R.G. 75, L.R. 39108–1892, BIA.Google Scholar

10 Martin, H. S. to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 12 Apr. 1899, R.G. 75, L.R. 18457–1899, BIA.Google Scholar

11 Reminiscences of Irving Pabanelle, courtesy of Robert Black; Louise Udall, Me and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa (Tucson, 1969), 136–37; Moore Shaw, Anna, A Pima Past (Tucson, 1974), 135–36.Google Scholar

12 Blaine, Peter, interview with author, 7 May 1981; Lopez Antone, Ella, interview with Kathleen Sands, 22 Jan. 1982; Udall, Me and Mine, 137.Google Scholar

13 The Native American, 20 Mar., 3 Apr. 1915.Google Scholar

14 One example of this concern came when the Board of Indian Commissioners began a major study of why boarding school students failed to use their educational skills. See Returned Student Survey, 10 Oct. 1917, R.G. 75, Tray 120, Reference Materials, Board of Indian Commissioners, NA.Google Scholar

15 Annual Report, Phoenix Indian School, 1917, R.G. 75, Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, NA.; John Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 2 Jan. 1918, R.G. 75, NA, Federal Records Center (FRC) (Laguna Niguel, Calif.), Phoenix Area Office; Brown to Cato Sells, 17 Apr. 1917, R.G. 75, 76512–16-806, Central Classified Files, NA, Phoenix.Google Scholar

16 The Indian service during this period routinely employed Indians as disciplinarians, apparently finding it advantageous to have native Americans in the position of disciplining Indian children. Mike Burns to Carlos Montezuma, 11, 17 Apr. 1919, Carlos Montezuma Papers, folio 5, box 4, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, Arizona State University.Google Scholar

17 Burns to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 24 July 1923, Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 28 Sep. 1923, R.G. 75, 61544-23-820, Central Classified Files, NA, Phoenix.Google Scholar

18 Paul Prucha, Francis, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, 1984), 2: 790–806. Two excellent biographies of Collier discuss his leadership of the 1920s reform movement. See Kelly, Lawrence C., The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform (Albuquerque, 1983); and Philp, Kenneth R., John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920–1954 (Tucson, 1977).Google Scholar

19 Undated memorandum [1924–25], folio 13, box 619, Carl Hayden Papers, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, Arizona State University.Google Scholar

20 Meriam, Lewis et al., The Problem of Indian Administration (Baltimore, 1928), 361, 363, 369–70, 383, 577–79.Google Scholar

21 Copy of Indian Office circular [1927] in folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers; Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 13 Oct. 1928, R.G. 75, 51244-28-821, Central Classified Files, NA, Phoenix; John Collier memorandum on flogging, 15 May 1930, folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers; Arizona Labor Journal, 24 May 1930. Some of the pressure on Burke came from the Senate subcommittee on Indian affairs, which was starting to investigate the schools. For a view of the Senate investigations, see U.S. Senate, Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, parts 1–4 (Washington, D.C., 1928–29).Google Scholar

22 Schmidt, Elsie to Borah, Senator, 12 Apr. 1930, and Schmidt, Elsie to Commissioner of Indian Affairs [6 June 1929], in U.S. Senate, Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8 (Washington, D.C., 1930), 3094–95, 3088–89; Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 23 Dec. 1930, R.G. 75, NA, FRC, Phoenix Area Office.Google Scholar

23 Testimony of Collier, John, 23 May 1930, and Schmidt to Commissioner of Indian Affairs [6 June 1929], in Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3032, 3088–89.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.; Kelly, Lawrence C., “Charles James Rhoads, 1929–33,“ in Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824–1977, ed. Kvasnicka, Robert M. and J: Viola, Herman (Lincoln, 1979), 263–66; Connell Szasz, Margaret, Education and the American Indian: The Road to Self-Determination since 1928 (Albuquerque, 1977), 24–28; Philp, , Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 92–96; Bolt, Christine, American Indian Policy and American Reform: Case Studies of the Campaign to Assimilate the American Indians (London, 1987), 235.Google Scholar

25 Testimony of Collier, John, 23 May 1930, with quotations from the Moore report, Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3031–32, 3038. The Native American, 26 Mar., 4 June 1927, contains stories on the Indian athlete involved in the bath incident.Google Scholar

26 Testimony of Collier, John, 23 May 1930, and testimony of Daiker, F. H., 27 May 1930, with quotations from the Moore report, Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3032, 3065–66.Google Scholar

27 Arizona Labor Journal, 24 May 1930; Rhoads to Brown, 19 July 1929, quoted in John Collier press release, 15 May 1930, folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers.Google Scholar

28 Arizona Labor Journal, 5 Apr., 24 May 1930.Google Scholar

29 Although not specifically stated, the Schmidts’ account of their appearance before Fiske is contained in the Arizona Labor Journal article of 5 Apr. 1930.Google Scholar

30 Testimony of Collier, John, 23 May 1930, in Survey of the Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3033–36.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 3036–39; Collier press release, 15 May 1930, folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers; Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 30 Dec. 1930, R.G. 75, NA, FRC, Phoenix Area Office.Google Scholar

32 Philp, , Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform 84, 103.Google Scholar

33 Schmidt, Walter to Frazier, Senator, 11, 13 Mar. 1930, and copies of affidavits, Survey of the Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3049–51, 3057–61; Arizona Labor Journal, 5 Apr. 1930.Google Scholar

34 Circular #2666, 20 Mar. 1930, copy in folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers. Circular #2666 was in fact a long-ranging letter in which Rhoads acknowledged that the schools would always have a few troublesome students. Admitting that, because of their influence on other students, they must be controlled, he preferred not to issue a general instruction. “I am disposed to place the reponsibility personally upon the superintendent,” he wrote. “Certainly those in immediate touch with conditions and circumstances should be capable of acting more intelligently than administrative officials a thousand miles or more distant.” At no point did he sanction corporal punishment, although he did suggest a “quiet room” for some schools, “where the offending student may think things over in comfort and self-respect.”Google Scholar

35 Collier testimony, 23 May 1930, Survey of the Condition of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3035.Google Scholar

36 Arizona Labor Journal, 5 Apr. 1930.Google Scholar

37 Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 9, 13, 24 Apr. 1930, R.G. 75, NA, FRC, Phoenix Area Office; Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 8 Apr. 1930, Rhoads to Blackhoop, 19 Apr. 1930, Rhoads to Elsie Schmidt, 28 Mar. 1930, and Rhoads to Green, 28 Mar. 1930, in Survey of the Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3098–3100, 3072, 3091–92, 3106.Google Scholar

38 Arizona Labor Journal, 19 Apr. 1930; Hayden testimony, Carl, 23 May 1930, in Survey of the Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3015.Google Scholar

39 “Flogging of Indian Children Revived by Government Rule—Says Collier,” unidentified newspaper clipping in folio 6, box 623, Hayden Papers.Google Scholar

40 The New Republic, 7 May 1930; New York Times, 30 Apr. 1930.Google Scholar

41 Collier press release, 15 May 1930; Peters, Scott H. to Rhoads, , quoted in Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3028–29. For background on Bonnin and Peters and their organizations, see Hertzberg, Hazel H., The Search for an American Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements (Syracuse, 1971), 207–8, 232–33.Google Scholar

42 New York Times, 16 May 1930.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 23 May 1930.Google Scholar

44 Hayden and Ashurst testimony, 23 May 1930, in Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3015–23; Washington (D.C.) Star, 23 May 1930.Google Scholar

45 Collier testimony, 23 May 1930, in Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3023–60.Google Scholar

46 New York Times, 24 May 1930; Washington Star, 23 May 1930; Arizona Labor Journal, 24 May 1930.Google Scholar

47 Rhoads and Daiker testimony, 27 May 1930, in Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 8, 3061–78.Google Scholar

48 Hayden testimony, 27 May 1930, in ibid., 3078–79; New York Times, 28 May 1930.Google Scholar

49 Arizona Labor Journal, 7 June 1930.Google Scholar

50 Annual Report, Phoenix Indian School, 30 June 1930, R.G. 75, Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, NA.Google Scholar

51 Brown to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 23 Dec. 1930, 8, 25 Apr. 1931, R.G. 75, NA, FRC, Phoenix Area Office. Brown managed to find out about Leila Schmidt and Willie Curran through diligent detective work. By tracing their subsequent movements, marriage, and birth of a child, he proved beyond much doubt that they had been living together while at the school.Google Scholar

52 The Native American, 11 Apr., 6 June 1931; The Phoenix Redskin, 2 Jan. 1932.Google Scholar

53 Raichle, Donald R., “The Abolition of Corporal Punishment in New Jersey Schools,“ in Corporal Punishment in American Education, ed. Hyman, and Wise, , 62–63.Google Scholar