Five Recommended Native American Boarding School Books

Happy Friday! (I guess – it’s a pretty weird time to be going about your business, trying to get your work done and pretending like everything is normal.) My concentration suffered this week, and I spent a lot of time acclimating to having my two kids home from school and trying not to feel overwhelmed by the news. This post is a short one – I figured I would share some boarding school reading material for anyone with a little extra time and an interest in this history.

1.     White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940, by Margaret D. Jacobs. (University of Nebraska Press, 2009)

 This was the first book I read that introduced me to the history of Native American boarding schools in a meaningful way. It also compares the assimilation programs in U.S. and Australia – there were many ideological similarities, but also critical differences in these systems.

 2.     Stringing Rosaries: The History, the Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors, Denise K. Lajimodiere. (North Dakota State University Press, 2019)

 This book shares the experiences of boarding school survivors in their own words. It is a moving and intense read that I highly recommend.

3.     Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press, Edited by Jacqueline Emery. (University of Nebraska Press, 2017).

I am a huge fan of this book – Emery argues that the writings of boarding school students are an important part of the Native American literary cannon. I whole heartedly agree!

4.     Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933, by Cathleen D. Cahill. (University of North Carolina Press, 2011)

This book explores the bureaucracy and men and women who created and administered the Native American boarding school system. This book provides a lot of background information on the emergence of these schools and connects them with broader trends in U.S. politics and history.

5.     This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States, by Andrew Woolford. (University of Nebraska Press, 2015)

A comparative study of boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada (they were called residential schools in Canada), this book asserts the genocidal intent of this system and also explores the differing efforts in each country confront this history. Spoiler alert: the U.S. has done very little in this regard, whereas Canada established a truth and reconciliation commission to address it.

I hope you enjoy these and get as much out of them as I have.

Take care, stay safe, and be kind to yourself, your family, and everyone working hard to keep us healthy, well fed, and in the know.

 Samantha