On the surface you wouldn’t think power was really being used against the roughly two
hundred Native Americans representing their tribes as shown in "The West Shore: The Indian
School at Chemawa.” The American government was just trying to “help” its Native American
citizens. Yet power was being used against them in a way that forced them to become
“Americanized,” to adapt and change their way of life to fit more into our American ideology
(Gramsci). The selected Native Americans were moved from their homes to a boarding school
provided by the government. They were forced apart from their family and friends, from their
community. “We must break up tribal organization, give the Indians land in severalty, make
them responsible to the law for their conduct and dependent upon their own exertions for a
living, and educate them to become intelligent, industrious and harmless citizens” (The West
Shore). Looking at this from the surface level, it doesn’t sound so bad; it talks about learning
about responsibility and getting an education, when looking at this statement from below the
surface the document argues that Native Americans need to be broken up, moved away from
social relationships such as the family, that they aren’t responsible in any legal, moral or ethical
way, and that they will forever be dependent on the government. It also insinuates that they
aren’t educated and are harmful (Lukes). The document rejects the notion that Native
Americans had their own culture, values, and education because it did not match the norms of
American society. In fact, it insists that the American society had to “educate them to be good
citizens.”
“The West Shore” document also argued how Native Americans didn’t use their land
well because they didn’t do things such as tilling and cultivating. It was also made clear that the
government needed to take care of them, making the Native Americans sound lazy or childlike.
Also, some of the steps the government took to help the Native Americans are described. The
main step that the government felt like they needed to take involved educating the offspring of
the Native Americans. The American government started educating them in common American
public schools, and instructing them in ordinary trades and agriculture. The government used
its institutional power to forcibly instill its American values. The government was able to do this
because American individuals as a general whole have internalized the norms of the American
values. The same values were used not only to educate the Native American’s latest generation
the way they wanted to, but also to move them away from their families and elders (Gramsci).
The American government felt that when the Native American children went back home after
school, they wouldn’t practice what they were being taught at public school since their families,
being “uneducated”, would not be practicing those things.
A quote sums up one of the reasons why the United States government continued to
“Americanize” the Native American students: “The crying shame is that he is at once subjected
to those demoralizing influences, and degrading mode of life” (The West Shore). That
statement was about the Native Americans when they come home after gaining their
government education. How after being “Americanized” they would have to go home and be
around what the government felt to be like a lazy, demoralizing and a degrading type of
lifestyle. It is obvious that the government did not care for, or respect the Native American’s
way of life. This would create many different kinds of identity issues because they were being
taught at school that their people (tribes) were immoral and that on the reservation they were
all living a degrading life. One type of identity issue that might come up would probably be that
Native Americans would feel ashamed of being Native because of how the institution and the
“Normal” people who follow the institution viewed the tribes on reservations. And more than
this, how could the Native American students still be accepted by their tribe and family? How
can someone feel comfortable with who they are if a majority is trying to make them ashamed
of where they come from while their loved ones try to get them to embrace what they are
being taught to be ashamed of ( Schwalbe )?
One of the ways they integrated the Native American students was by enforcing an
English-only rule, but upon first attending the school they could not speak English. They were
forced to learn fast otherwise they weren’t really able to communicate with others. Power at
that point is easily seen as being used as majority vs. minority. Power was being used against
the Native Americans through the government by monitoring the education system that the
teachers worked under. (Arendt). This also shows a few of the nets of accountability in play. An
illustration of this could be that if the teacher didn’t force the children to speak only English,
the teacher could possibly lose her job, because the teacher has to answer to someone for her
actions such as the principal. Just like how the teacher has to answer to the principal, the
principal has to answer to someone in a higher position in the education hierarchy. All in all,
there are a lot of forces of power at play that are not in the Native American students’ favor
(Schwalbe).
Besides cultural assimilation, the Native American students were forced into performing
free labor for the same system that would brain wash them into self-loathing. For example,
“The West Shore” detailed Native American students clearing out 40 acres of land for their
school. On the first dimension this doesn’t seem horrible because it is for their school, but this
is a public school. Do non-Natives have to clear out land for their public schools? When you feel
like you’re stuck in a system of oppression, you’ll probably just go along with things such as this
because you feel there isn’t anything you can really do to change things. After all, the system
that they were in took them from their homes made to completely change their lifestyles like
how they speak and what they wear, and throughout this whole thing were being told it was for
their own good, implied that this makes them better ( Foucault ) and more “American”
(Gramsci). These tactics are demonstrations of power being used completely against the Native
American students.
When the Native American students weren’t in class they had a very strict daily
schedule that they had to stick to. Not only did they spend half their day learning in school but
they spent another half of it working. They worked making their own shoes, doing laundry,
working in the kitchen or on the farm as well as many other types of work. This was stated in
“The West Shore” as “recreation” (Foucault). But how can recreation, something that should be
of choice, be fun if it’s forced and mandated? It seems that they are being punished for not
being like the majority thus why they were being forced to work as “recreation”. The
punishment here is a social function as well as a political tactic both of which are working
against the Native American students.
The conditioning that took place when the Native American students were forced to
leave their homes, their tribes, and their families, made them see the power being used against
them as justified, a good thing. They learned to be ashamed of their people, their culture, and
had learned through their social conditioning at school that they wanted to be like the majority.
In the statement “We are not well educated yet, and do not know how to work well, but in the
near future we hope to become a credit to ourselves, our country and our people” (The West
Shore) it is easy to see that many were conditioned into not seeing how power was being used
against them.
Works Cited
Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. Florida: 1969.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1995
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections From The Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
H.L. Wells, “The Indian School At Chemawa.”The West Shore, 1 (January 1887): 5-12.
Lukes, Steven. Power: A Radical View. 1974.
Schwalbe, Michael. Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced In Everyday Life. Ohio:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Young, Iris Marion. Justice and the politics of Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1990.