Volume 32 Number 1
October 1992

Karen K. McKellips

In 1867 Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs signed the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in which they agreed to move onto a reservation. Pursuant to an Executive Order, they were assigned to reservation lands in Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Among treaty provisions, the federal government promised to provide teachers and schools for the tribes who had not been previously exposed to the White man's form of education (Kappler, 1972).

Cheyenne and Arapaho children before this time had learned much of what was needed to function in their societies through play and imitation of the activities of their elders. Young girls prepared to be mothers by playing with dolls. They assisted their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers in women's tasks, gradually developing skills necessary to camp life and learning acceptable behavior for females in their society. Boys played at hunting and warfare, gradually mastering the bow and becoming excellent riders. At about age 12, the Cheyenne boy was allowed to accompany the men on buffalo hunts and eventually was allowed to participate in a war party. He was instructed by his elders in religious practices and encouraged to seek a vision of a guardian spirit (Berthrong, 1963).

For the Cheyenne, piercing the ears of a child was "symbolic of opening the mind to learning, understanding, discipline, and knowledge" (Whiteman, 1982, p. v). Through the open ears a rich oral literature passed from generation to generation the philosophical aspects of life as a Cheyenne. Practical knowledge was transferred through a curriculum Whiteman (1982) describes as "culturally relevant and comprehensive, encompassing every aspect of life in subject matter areas equivalent to the academic disciplines" (p. 27). However this education was not presented to the child separated from life, within the confines of a building called a school, but was integrated into the life of the camp.

The first schools were established on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation in 187 1. With the introduction of school buildings, children had to learn what a school was and to observe the White man's tradition of time schedules. At the first school a cow's horn was blown by the teacher to call the children to study (Whiteman, 1982).

The establishment of these schools was in keeping with what has been called Grant's Peace Policy, the policy of placing Indian reservations under the control of Christian denominations in an attempt to assimilate Indian people and transform their cultures. This assimilation was to be accomplished through education and Christianity directed toward bringing these people into a form of life that the government viewed as civilized.

In 1869 the government authorized Hicksite (Liberal) Friends and Orthodox Quakers to nominate Indian Agents and gave all other appointments to the military. Congress opposed the military appointments, and other denominations were added to the Quakers as sponsors of efforts to bring American Indians into the mainstream of American life (Keller, 1983). This view of the school as a major instrument for accomplishing the assimilation of American Indians was not new in this decade, but an extension and expansion of earlier efforts, most of which were made by missionary societies.

The Cheyenne-Arapaho agency was established at Darlington, Indian Territory, and the first school opened there in 1871 under the sponsorship of the Orthodox Friends. Although the government tended to treat the two tribes as if they were one, each had its own traditions and pride in the distinctive elements of its culture. According to Wilson (1965), animosity between the two tribes was such that few children were sent so long as both groups were to be educated together and the Darlington school became the Arapaho school with another school for the Cheyenne established one mile north at Caddo Springs. Cheyenne parents seemed more reluctant than Arapaho to send their children to the agency school. Before the second school was built, a partition was constructed down the middle of a classroom to separate the children of the two tribes, but still few Cheyenne children appeared and those who did were frequently tardy. A Cheyenne prophet, Sweet Medicine, had predicted that education would be used by White men to destroy completely the Cheyenne culture (Whiteman, 1982).

Berthrong (1976) states that in 1880 there were 150 students at each of the reservation schools and 62 Cheyenne and Arapaho students at Carlisle, declining to a total of 250 children at the two reservation schools in 1881 and 30 at Carlisle. This 1881 total represented only 27% of the children of the two tribes. In 1881 a third school opened on the reservation, this one a Mennonite mission school. The Mennonites had the same difficulty that the Quakers had earlier, inducing the two tribes to attend the same school. In 1882 the Mennonites opened a fourth school so that the tribes could be educated separately. As late as 1897, the Indian Agent was withholding annuity goods due under the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in an attempt to force Cheyenne parents to send children to school.

The analysis made by Keller (1983) of the performance in 1880 of the Darlington Agency based upon agents' reports rates this agency as excellent on a five level scale ranging from very poor to excellent. This ranking compares agencies in terms of civilization (cleanliness of Indians, living in houses, etc.), farming activity, schools, and religious and missionary activity. The nearby Kiowa-Comanche Agency, serving tribes with Plains Indian cultures similar to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, is ranked only fair.

The Cheyenne Transporter was first published at the Arapaho school. Only a few issues were printed before the press was turned over to a printer who moved it from the mission property and began to publish it as a newspaper. Twice a month from August 25, 1880, through August 12, 1886, the Transporter served the agency, the missions, the cattlemen, and the soldiers at nearby Ft. Reno as a source of local, national, and international news (Bass, 1968).

It is the writer's thesis that analysis of the content of the Cheyenne Transporter reveals that the editorial position of the paper regarding the propriety of the use of schooling to eliminate American Indian culture without eliminating American Indian people is in keeping with the policy and practice of federal government officials and agencies of the time. It is also apparent that no consideration of the opinions or desires of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people themselves was given except in those cases where they supported the editorial stance of the newspaper. Analysis of the content of the paper is useful in providing insight into practices within these schools so long as one takes into account the biases of the editor and contributors to the paper. The Cheyenne Transporter provides an interesting local reflection of federal Indian policy of the day.

While the newspaper's editor stated a desire to serve both the Indians and the stock men (cattlemen), the majority of the local news and a considerable amount of the national news was devoted to what was seen as the Indian problem. The editorial stance of the newspaper was that American Indian culture should be completely replaced with that of the dominant White culture and that the method by which this could and should be done was through education of American Indian children in both reservation and off-reservation schools. In these schools it was hoped that they would forget their native languages, learn English, and adopt the White man's clothing and religion. Each boy was to learn a trade and each girl the skills of the White housewife.

Every issue of the Transporter contains an abundance of school news. There are two categories of such news. One category is news regarding Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania and Hampton Institute, the industrial school for freedmen in Virginia. Dozens of Cheyenne and Arapaho students attended these schools during the time of publication of the Transporter. The time of the publication of the Transporter is within the period described by Hoxie (1984) as the time of greatest popularity of boarding schools as the preferred method of education for American Indians.

Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors sent to imprisonment at Ft. Marion in Florida were among the first American Indian students at Hampton Institute, taken there by their military escort, jailer, and mentor, Richard Henry Pratt, a proponent of assimilation through education in off-reservation boarding schools. Pratt also recruited students directly from the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation for Hampton which accepted Indian students from 1878 until 1912.

Convinced that it would be of benefit to Indian students to be educated separately from freedmen, in 1879 Pratt opened Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first off-reservation, government boarding school for American Indians. Cheyeme and Arapaho students were among the first to arrive (Prucha, 1976).

The Transporter printed reports and speeches of the superintendents of these schools, R.H. Pratt and S.C. Armstrong, letters home from students, excerpts from the Carlisle school newspaper, and accounts of the journeys of local chiefs, students, and agency personnel to and from these schools. The newspaper items are invariably positive and supportive of the efforts being made at both schools to assimilate American Indians through education of students away from the influences of their culture.

The second category of school news relates to the local agency schools, in which 250 children were enrolled in 1880. This category of news includes articles written by the newspaper's editor and reporter (who made frequent visits to observe in the schools) describing school activities, letters to the editor written by other visitors to the school, compositions written by school children, and news items relating to such events as the arrival of new teachers, school programs and assemblies, the improving of school facilities, and even the social lives of the school personnel.

The first editor and publisher of the Transporter, W. C. Eaton, was a great friend and admirer of John Seger, first superintendent of the Arapaho school, as is evident in the frequency and tone of references to him and his school in the newspaper. Also, Seger regularly contributed articles about Indians and Indian life to the newspaper.

Seger's association with Cheyenne and Arapaho education encompassed a much longer tenure than just his service at the Arapaho school at Darlington during the time of publication of the Transporter. Born in 1846 on a farm in Ohio, he was brought to Indian Territory by Indian Agent John Miles to build houses and was made superintendent of the school in 1875 at the suggestion of Miles' wife who thought his good influence upon the Indians more important than his lack of teaching experience (Le Van, 1973). When Seger's contract expired in 1979, he stayed at Darlington, continuing his work with the school, but also venturing into various businesses such as securing the contract for a mail route and operating a stage line (Perry, 1933). In 1882 he resigned in protest over the lowering of his salary but remained in the area. In 1893 a new boarding school opened at Colony, Indian Territory with Seger as superintendent (Berthrong, 1976). He remained at Colony until his death in 1928 and is best known for his work there. Seger's reminiscences of life in Indian Territory were published in 1934.

Analysis of school news in the Transporter related to the local agency schools aids one in gaining some understanding of the importance placed on teaching American Indian children to read and write English and to adopt a White lifestyle and the methods which were used in an attempt to accomplish this task.

In these schools discipline was strict and fit a military model as the following letter to the editor shows.

The work of the three teachers at the Cheyenne school was divided so that one teacher had beginners, a second the more advanced students, while the third supervised the "recitation room" where ". . her classes speak and act promptly, obey without question, and show that they improve their study hours properly" (Transporter, January 25, 1881).

The students were given military ranks and called cadet, corporal, sergeant, and so forth. The newspaper reports that Superintendent Seger does this to "turn the Indian's natural desire to be a chief to the best purpose" (Transporter, November 26,1880). In addition to wearing uniforms, the boys' hair were cut and spankings administered. The editor of the Transporter compliments the teachers for bringing under control the "swaggering gait and careless demeanor which is but one degree above the camp Indian" (Transporter, April 25, 1881). The military regimen and use of corporal punishment indicated by the newspaper seem to parallel the system McBeth (1983) describes as typical of most of the American Indian boarding schools of this and later times.

The penmanship of students is frequently praised as legible and in books "free from blots" (Transporter, April 25, 1881). One student from the Arapaho school won a "diploma for penmanship" at the Wichita Fair (Transporter, February 25, 1881).

The schools had choirs and students frequently performed for visitors. Academic contests of various sorts were conducted in the schools. The following is a front page story.

A letter to the editor from someone who attended these literary exercises states that the visitor was "pleased to note the absence of the loud unnatural way of speaking . . . that I have noticed in similar schools" (Transporter, January 10, 1881).

Although discipline for the children was obviously strict and the constant devaluing of their culture and language difficult, there are indications that attempts were made to provide pleasurable experiences for them and that it was recognized how difficult it was for the children to cope with a language whose syntax differed from their own. The editor of the Transporter, perhaps inadvertently, acknowledges that such tasks as handwriting and spelling are easier to master than the complex task of sentence structure. He prints a letter written by an Arapaho student and follows it with the comment, "The letter also shows what difficulties people who have no language of their own [sic] have to encounter in constructing English sentences. The spelling and penmanship are excellent" (Transporter, July 25, 1881).

At another time before printing a student's school composition, the editor says "The reader should remember that the Indian knows nothing of the theory of language, . . . he must learn from the very lowest rudiment. The difficulties he has to surmount will be apparent to any thoughtful reader" (Transporter, February 25, 1881). Many of the student compositions and letters published exhibit poor sentence structure indicating that school personnel did not believe it was necessary to show to the community only student writing which had been edited into Standard English.

In the evenings the superintendent or one of the teachers would entertain the children with stories, games, and music. On a trip to Atchison, Kansas, Seger purchased a number of games for the children to play at the Arapaho school. At the Cheyenne school socials were held each Monday evening. A Transporter report of one of these socials praised the games being played there as being both enjoyable and valuable in teaching English to the students.

One source of entertainment was a magic lantern which had been purchased at the same time as the printing press (Bass, 1968.) While the Transporter describes its purpose as amusement, even in White society such magic lanterns were marketed as educational and often projected slides which featured scenes which broadened the viewer's knowledge of the world.

Items in the Transporter reveal two sets of readers in use in the schools. It is reported,

An enterprising principal at the Cheyenne school wrote to Van Antwerp, Bragg & Company, publishers of McGuffey's readers, and persuaded them to donate a set of readers free of cost and to sell their other publications to the agency at half price. A teacher at the school convinced J. Esty and Company to sell her a $175 organ for $40 (Transporter, December 10, 1881).

Textbooks were supplemented by use of newspapers in the classroom. An article from another newspaper reprinted in the Transporter says

The Transporter follows this item with an editorial comment:

Methodology such as the use of games and newspapers in the classroom, the publishing of student work less than perfect according to standards of English grammar and syntax, and the use of the magic lantern strikes today's reader of the Transporter as in keeping with current practice. Today's advocates of whole language instruction and the toleration of invented spelling at the appropriate developmental levels would see parallels to their "new" methodology.

Although the newspaper was published for only six years, the interest in American Indian education shown by the editor and the abundance of information he published regarding the agency schools resulted in the Transporter's providing those wishing to know something about educational practices in 19th Century American Indian mission schools with valuable clues to the past. However, one must read the newspaper with the obvious biases of the editor in mind.

Although other sources, such as those reported in Whiteman (1982) and Berthrong (1976), indicate less than enthusiastic acceptance of these schools on the part of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, no dissenting voices are heard in the Transporter. Occasionally, perhaps inadvertently, a glimpse of the resistance of the American Indian people to the govemment's attempt at forced assimilation comes through. An example of such resistance can be seen in a letter from a Carlisle student which is printed in the paper. Although the student's letter is full of praise for Carlisle, she mentions how unhappy another student is and how that student is always trying to run away (Transporter, March 25, 1881.) A composition by a boy at the Arapaho school is one of praise for himself because he does not attempt to run away as do his friends (Transporter, February 25, 1881.) Perhaps the most revealing is an editorial column which states,

In considering the content of the Cheyenne Transporter as it relates to the Cheyenne and Arapaho schools, one sees school personnel and an editor who appear to believe that these schools are providing for American Indian people an education which is appropriate for them and beneficial in making them acceptable in mainstream American culture. Neither these schools nor the various federal, state, and mission schools to follow met the goal of total assimilation of these people. The Cheyenne and Arapaho people exist today as distinct groups with living cultures linked to those of their past.

The methods and materials used in these schools appear, in the context of the time, for the most part to be humane and up-to-date. The belief that strict discipline and mastery of certain subject matter would civilize, Americanize, and bring people into the mainstream was not unique to Indian schools. Horace Mann, Booker T. Washington, and William T. Harris are but three whose educational recommendations show little conflict with the focus on discipline and subject matter mastery in these schools. The attempts made in these schools to relate the curriculum to real life situations as in the use of the newspapers and attempts to motivate students through games and contests are methods usually associated with a later, more humane, time.

Yet, missing from these accounts is any appreciation of, or consideration for, the traditional culture of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people themselves. Perhaps there is a message here for those who work to educate today's American Indian children. A philanthropic attitude and selection and use of new and humane methodology will not guarantee appropriate educational experiences for American Indian children. The voices and values of the people themselves must be heard.