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Analyzing Photographs from Carlisle Indian School

Explore these two photographs and notice the similarities and differences between them. Then answer the questions that follow.

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What major similarities did you notice?
What major differences did you notice?
How might these two images relate to one another?

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When you're done

These Chiricahua Apache students were photographed at the Carlisle Indian School, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, upon their arrival in 1886 and then again four months later. At Carlisle and other schools, Native American students were required to abandon traditional ways and learn a trade. The Indian boarding school system, of which the Carlisle School was a part, implemented strict military discipline and policies such as changing the students’ Native names to English ones, and punishing them for speaking their Native language or practicing their religious beliefs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, known as the Office of Indian Affairs until 1947, ran schools like Carlisle both on and off Indian reservations. The schools were part of the Federal Government’s attempt to “Americanize” Native children through assimilation.

How does this information change your perspective of the photographs?
What do you think it would feel like to be taken away from your family and sent to live somewhere new?
What are some things that are important to your identity? How might it feel if someone tried to make you stop doing those things?

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To the extent possible under law, National Archives Foundation has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to “Analyzing Photographs from Carlisle Indian School”

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