Historical Demographics, Student Origins, and Recruitment at Off-Reservation Indian Boarding Schools, 1900

Abstract

Beginning in 1878, the United States government funded the establishment of off-reservation industrial training schools for Native American youth. Much has been written about the histories of the schools, but information is limited about the students recruited to them. This research examines enrollment and recruitment policies established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and people like Richard Henry Pratt, the man responsible for creating and developing the off-reservation boarding school system. The 1900 United States Census is used to create maps of student distributions, graphs, and tables detailing the student population demographics, and to compare these data to expected values based on recruitment/enrollment criteria. Although there is wide variation in student demographics among the individual schools, the results indicate that a large number of students enrolled at these schools did not meet the attendance requirements with regard to age limits, gender proportions, the degree of Indian ancestry and the tribal region from where the students came.