Richard Pratt Character Analysis

Richard Pratt was an army captain whose Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which first opened in 1879 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, served as a model for the boarding schools that would open across the country over the 19th and 20th centuries and become compulsory for Native children. Pratt believed that education could be used to could teach Indian children to “assimilate” into Western society, an idea distilled in his infamous quotation, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” Pratt believed that Indians’ “savage” ways weren’t the result of “race or some defect in the blood,” but of “environmental determinism.” It was this belief that motivated Pratt to push for displacing Native children from their tribal communities, educating them at boarding schools where they would be isolated from their traditions and fully immersed in Western culture. At schools like Carlisle, Native children had to wear Western clothing and speak English. They were punished for speaking their native languages, and abuse, disease, and malnourishment were extremely common amongst the students.