Carlisle Indian Industrial School - Student Recruitment

Student Recruitment

Pratt persuaded tribal elders and chiefs that the reason the washichu (Lakota word for white man) had been able to take their land was because the Indians were uneducated. He believed that the Natives were disadvantaged by being unable to speak and write English and that if they had the knowledge, they may have been able to protect themselves. Many of the first children to be sent to Carlisle were sent voluntarily by tribal families. Descendants of Spotted Tail and Red Cloud were among the first sent to the Carlisle School.

As the decades passed, enrollment at the Carlisle School increased, with up to 1,000 students a year. The older students used their skills to help build new classrooms and dorm buildings.

As more schools were developed across the country, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) put pressure on Indian families to send their children to the boarding schools. To save their children from capture, some parents taught their children a hiding “game” to be used when BIA officers arrived. The Hopi nation surrendered groups of their men to prison sentences in Alcatraz rather than send their children to the schools.