The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first Indian boarding school deliberately established off-reservation, with a specific mission to cleanse students of their home cultures. For four decades it also served as a flagship for similar cultural-assimilationist schools across the US and Canada.
‘Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” That was the grisly, unapologetic motto of the North American Indian Boarding School Movement, from the 1870s until the 1960s.
Today, Donald Trump may be on a mission to sanitise US history as he issues executive orders requiring publicly funded museums to celebrate an “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty”.
Yet no matter how much white Americans may want to look away, history’s darkness keeps sounding a tragic undertone to the cheery amusement park melodies of much of contemporary US life – the 100,000 STEAM games, the city-sized malls, the yachts, ski resorts and recreational vehicles.
Recently, I visited the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, located about an hour away from my adoptive home of Sunbury, Pennsylvania.
