“It has preached against colonializing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them.” (Pratt) These are the ironic words of Captain Richard H. Pratt in his discussion of the education of the Native American society. I say ironic because of his emphasis on the individualization of the Native Americans in which he describes the Carlisle Indian School will provide. This is because throughout his introduction to the Carlisle School within his speech titled “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” he demonstrates nothing but colonial force on the Native American societies and a complete disregard for their individuality, even encouraging an abolishment of it. Pratt makes this idea the theme of his speech throughout his offensive general language and demonstration of how American society has been successful in forcing other groups of people to conform to their own way of life.
A common pattern I’ve noticed throughout Pratt’s speech is his use of general and, more significantly – impersonal language. The main idea Pratt is trying to convey is a rejection of Indian genocide and a replacement of it with the education of the Indian youth to try to “save” the industrialized (white, American) men they have the potential to be. In delivering this message, Pratt fills his speech with historical examples of other groups of people becoming “civilized” through American influence as well as historical events and facts that took place to support his argument. He begins this pattern through introducing the conflict with the Indians in terms of past presidents’ policies towards them. He explains how “Washington believed that commerce freely entered into between us and the Indians would bring about their civilization, and Washington was right,” and “was followed by Jefferson, who inaugurated the reservation plan.” In doing this, he’s introducing the Indian population as though they were a debate to be discussed and through the view of government officials that came before him. He then goes further into his argument through utilizing widespread events in general as examples – such as battles and massacres between them and the Native Americans. He explains how “It is a sad day for the Indians when they fall under the assaults of our troops, as in the Piegan massacre, the massacre of Old Black Kettle and his Cheyennes at what is termed “the battle of the Washita,” and hundreds of other like places in the history of our dealings with them.” After many other references to our Constitution and explanations of how the Indian population is living as of now in terms of the laws in place, he goes on to point out how the African community became civilized through the African Slave Trade. He discusses the period of our history of slavery through an analytical lens, concluding how the black men who escaped slavery are now walking semi-free and civilized through association with Americans. He explains how if they were “left in Africa, surrounded by their fellow-savages, our seven millions of industrious black fellow-citizens would still be savages.” In conclusion, what I take away from Pratt’s speech is just more words and numbers spewed out by another government official. I relate the way that Pratt discusses the civilization of Native Americans as though it were a business matter and statistical debate. There’s no genuine humanity or lives being discussed – it’s all impersonal information coming from someone who has deemed themselves as superior.
This is a problem within his speech – and, argument in general, because at the end of the day, it’s personal narrative that leads to true historical understanding. It’s not the number of people who died during massacres but who are the ones that lost their lives and what they left behind. It’s the stories within Native Americans’ everyday life that allows us to understand how they live, not the laws in place over them. This is demonstrated through Zitkala-Sa’s work in American Indian Stories, but most significantly in my opinion, within the short story Impressions of an Indian Childhood. Throughout her piece, Zitkala-Sa begins with describing the land around her where she grew up. She includes so much detail – it was as though the land around her wigwam was a character. She describes how “a footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses.” Though Pratt describes the lack of industrialization within the Native American’s purchased land as an example of un-civilization, Zitkala-Sa demonstrates the role that nature plays in their culture and why they wouldn’t want to corrupt it with “mak[ing] use of their large and rich estate,” as Pratt puts it. Then, Zitkala-Sa goes in to describe life with her sad mother, as they depend solely on one another after the massacre of most of their family. She describes how her mother “was only of medium height,” and how “often she was sad and silent.” She then explains how she often “begged to know what made the tears fall,” out of “her black eyes,” in which “shadows fell under.” In Zitkala-Sa’s detailed description of her mother and her mourning, we understand that those massacres in which Pratt lightly mentions have results that are not just undetailed casualties. These recognizable historical events have real effects on real humans involved, leaving Zitkala-Sa and her mother for example, with a “hill where [her] uncle and [her] only sister lay buried,” as well as her father who “has been buried in a hill nearer the rising sun.”
In conclusion, though official government words can have somewhat of a blissful censorship and sound nice and controlled – it’s what they typically ignore or leave out that holds most significance. Zitkala-Sa directly challenges Pratt’s claim of advocacy for Native American individuality in her work by demonstrating what individuality and identity actually encapsulate – a story of human suffering, identities stolen, and a valued culture that was stripped, not a list of “instructions to those controlling Indian matters.”
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