Carlisle Barracks School

Michael W. Simpson

In 1879, U.S. Army Captain Richard H. Pratt persuaded the federal government to allow him to establish an off-reservation boarding school for American Indians at the abandoned cavalry barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Indian Industrial School at Carlisle became the model for the hundreds of government-run American Indian boarding schools developed after 1879 as the government policy shifted from supporting religious organizations schools, often on or near where the native peoples lived, to government-run, off-reservation schools. Removal from family, tribe, language, place, and culture was intended to speed the assimilation of the native children into the dominant Anglo society. Besides its total immersion of native people in Anglo culture and its militaristic methods, the school is noted for its Indian arts program taught by natives; the system that placed native students in Anglo homes, businesses, or farms to work; and an athletic program that produced football teams that beat ...

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