The Navajo Code Talkers

History: Boarding Schools

Boarding schools are just another small part of the Native Peoples’ history and one way the settlers tried to “civilize” the Native children by not allowing them speak their native language or study their culture. Native American children were forced to attend government-operated or church-operated boarding schools. They were not allowed to speak their native tongue and if they did they were beaten or their mouths were washed out with “a bitter brown soap,” said Chester Nez, one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers who came up with the code, as he recalled what happened to them in the boarding schools (Fox).

After a while, the Natives had no choice but to send their children to the boarding schools, because no other schooling was available for them. The whole point of the boarding schools was to eliminate their traditional ways of life and replace them with “American culture”. Native children were forced to cut their hair and give up their traditional clothing. They were not allowed to see their families for four or more years, and they were forced to give up their Native American names for English ones. Their religious practices were forcibly replaced by Christianity and they were taught that their cultures were inferior. Their teachers made fun of their cultures, and their ways, making the children ashamed to be Native American (“Boarding”). “The boarding schools had a bad effect on the self-esteem of Indian students and on the wellbeing of Native languages and cultures” (“Protecting”). Many of the boarding school experiences may have been bad, however, that would not make the Native People reluctant to later on join the military and help with the war to come.

The very first boarding schools for Native Americans were opened in 1860, “when the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the first boarding school on the Yakima Indian Reservation in the state of Washington” (“Boarding”). Boarding schools were a part of a plan that Herbert Welsh and Henry Pancoast came up with that they believed was well-intentioned. “The goal of these reformers was to use education as a tool to ‘assimilate’ Indian tribes into the mainstream of the ‘American way of life’ (“Boarding”). They assumed that it was necessary to “civilize” Indian People and make them accept the white men’s beliefs and value their systems (“Boarding”).

In 1879, there was a well-known boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania that was led by a man named Col. Richard Henry Pratt. He was the headmaster of the Carlisle Indian School for twenty-five years, and he believed in complete assimilation. His motto was, “Kill the Indian in him and save the man” (“Boarding”). Pratt made the Native children live with white families over the summer and hoped that they would never return to the reservations (“Boarding”).

Many of the Code Talkers attended those boarding schools, and later on as adults they were confused about how the same government that tried taking away their language would ask for their help in World War II. As Chester Nez said, in an interview in 2005, “All those years, telling you not to speak Navajo, and then to turn around and ask us for help with that same language, it still kind of bothers me” (Fox). However, not all boarding school memories were bad, and the Natives made friends for life, as well as learned skills that they would find helpful to use later on in life, like carpentry, cooking, science, math, agriculture, and trading. The boarding school life was like military life; they had to wear uniforms, and march in formations (“Protecting”). Many Native students spent their entire childhoods away from their families and their cultures. By the time of WWII, many Navajo had already sacrificed much for their country.