Chemawa Indian School

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Chemawa Indian School (pronounced /tʃəmawa/)[citation needed] is a Native American boarding school in Salem, Oregon, United States. It was opened February 25, 1880[1] as an elementary school, but as of 2005 serves ninth through twelfth grades. It is sometimes referred to as Chemawa High School.

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[edit] History

Dancer in traditional regalia attends a Pow-wow a Chemawa Indian School.
Dancer in traditional regalia attends a Pow-wow a Chemawa Indian School.

The history of the Chemawa Indian School dates back to the 1870s when the U.S. Government, experimenting with the theories of Captain (later Brigadier General) Richard Henry Pratt authorized a school for Native American children in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It was the second such school, after the Carlisle Indian School near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Pratt's philosophy was to integrate the Native American population into general society through education. This contrasted to the earlier philosophy, which assumed that Indians were inherently different from whites, and that no education could "civilize" them. The schools founded under Pratt's influence were deliberately located far from Indian reservations, in order to separate the students from traditional ways of life.[2]

A site was chosen at Forest Grove, Oregon on four acres (16,000 m²) of land rented from Pacific University. Lieutenant Melville Wilkinson of the United States Army and Secretary to General O.O. Howard was in charge of the project. $5,000 was provided to start the school. Lt. Wilkinson, with the help of eight Puyallup Indian boys began construction on the buildings in 1880. The initial class of students consisted of fourteen boys and four girls. All the students came from the State of Washington, seventeen of them from the Puyallup Indian reservation on the Puget Sound and one boy from the Nisqually Indian reservation. These students were taught blacksmithing, shoemaking, carpentry, wagon making, girl's industries, and advancement in studies.

Prior to 1883, the United States Congress was going to appropriate a larger amount of funds for the Chemawa Indian School. Several factors led to the search for a new site for the school, including local resistance to the school, a need for more land to teach farming skills, and the destruction of the girl's dormitory by fire in 1884.

At this point, officials looked at the temporary leased nature of the land as well as the poor drainage and began considering alternative sites around the Willamette Valley. Three sites were donated for the new school. Newberg, Oregon offered 100 acres (400,000 m²) of heavily timbered land, 23 acres (93,000 m²) near Forest Grove, Oregon with a pasture parcel of 75 acres (304,000 m²) approximately four miles (6 km) away from the main site, and 171 acres (692,000 m²) partially cleared, sparsely timbered land in Salem, Oregon served by a spur of the main railroad through the Willamette Valley. School officials chose the Salem site since it was close to Oregon's Capital and had the most land.

In 1885, the school moved to a site five miles (8 km) north of Salem, Oregon and began construction. The first buildings were made of wood, and were later razed to make way for more permanent brick structures. On June 1, 1885 the Chemawa Indian School was opened with approximately half of the students moving to the new location and half staying behind in Forest Grove, Oregon. On October 1, 1885, Mr. John Lee became superintendent of Chemawa Indian School (then known as Salem Indian Training School). After a winter of separation, and after staff and students finished construction on three new buildings on the campus, he withdrew the remaining students from Forest Grove, Oregon and reunited them all on the Salem, Oregon campus.

The first graduating class completed the sixth grade in 1886. Subsequently, courses were added through the tenth grade. In 1900, the school had 453 students, the largest of its kind in Oregon with a federal budget of $57,182.62. The emphasis at that time was on vocational education.

The 1913 report lists farming as one of the major areas of training. Dairy farming, animal husbandry, and other farm methods provided food which was preserved by the students for later use. A school library provided reading material and students could participate in basketball, baseball, and American football. There were 690 students enrolled with 175 Alaskan children.

By 1922 there were 70 buildings on the 40 acre campus. Most of the buildings were wood frame, but some of the newer were of brick construction. The land area of the school had grown to 426 acres (1.72 km²). Some of the land had been purchased by Native American students and given to the school as a token of their gratitude, with the money earned by picking hops.

The year 1926 saw the peak enrollment at Chemawa with almost 1,000 students enrolled. The 11th and 12th grades were added to the curriculum and all grades below the 6th were dropped. In 1927, Chemawa became a fully accredited high school.

In an economy move the school was threatened with closure in the early 1930s, but due to the efforts of interested journalists and Oregon's delegation to the U.S. Congress, it remained open with 300 students.

Lawney Reyes, who attended the school in 1940–1942 (as did his sister, Luana Reyes), devotes two chapters of his memoir White Grizzly Bear's Legacy: Learning to be Indian to his experiences there. He wrote that his consciousness of being "Indian" was largely formed through his conversations there with other students.[3] He also wrote:

I did not experience any harsh restraint against Indian culture or tradition at Chemewa. Generations of Indians before me had already felt the full force of that practice. I learned that in earlier years, speaking the Indian language had been forbidden. White authority had dealt harshly with Indian dancing, singing, and drumming. Students were not allowed to braid their hair or wear any ornaments with Indian design motifs. During my time, efforts to teach the white way were still in force, but attempts to abolish or restrain Indian culture were past. The practice of Indian culture, however, was not encouraged or discussed.[4]

The 1940s and 1950s brought other changes, including a special program for Navajo Nation students and changes in policy to bring back Pacific Northwest students, particularly those from Alaska. In the late 1970s, Chemawa moved to a new campus on adjacent land, with most of the original brick buildings being destroyed.

Chemawa Indian School has recently come into controversy regarding the death of a student who died of alcohol poisoning after she was locked in a cell when intoxicated.[5] The controversy launched a probe by the US government.

The Chemawa Indian School is the oldest continuously operating boarding school in the United States and numbers its graduates in the thousands.

[edit] Partnership with Willamette University

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In 2005 Willamette University and Chemawa formed a partnership with the assistance of Associate Professor Rebecca Dobkins, Anthropology teaching the class. The partnership consist of Willamette University students tutoring from Monday through Thursday nights at Chemawa.

Chemawa Indian School and Willamette University have begun a collaborative partnership with the support of the Lilly Project. In 2005 Chemawa administrators invited Willamette to assist in its long-term process of transitioning to a college preparatory curriculum. Willamette students now volunteer as tutors and mentors at Chemawa study hall. They in turn learn from the relationships they are building with Chemawa students and the teaching staff at Chemawa.[6]

The Native American Enlightenment Association, a student organization, has worked with tribal elders to rekindle the annual campus Powwow. Funds have also been made available to bring Native American artists and speakers to campus. On Founders Day 2005, Willamette held a Ceremony of Renewal with regional tribes to acknowledge its Indian mission legacy and begin a new chapter in the mutual history of Oregon’s tribal communities and the University. At the ceremony, President M. Lee Pelton announced the establishment of a lecture series to bring guests from Indian country to the campus and the broader Willamette Valley for dialogue, teaching and learning. The Indian Country Conversations Series is coordinated in consultation with the University’s community-based Native American Advisory Council.[6]

With the establishment of the tutoring sessions and the renewal ceremony, the two institutions are working hand-in-hand to build community and to provide Chemawa with resources so that it can continue to educate Native Americans from all over the United States. Chemawa also strives to empower its youth through education. John Claymore, school supervisor stated that he expected students to leave Chemawa with skills that they can use back at the Reservations or where ever their home may be. Overall the staff at Chemewa encourages students to educate themselves in order to better serve their reservations and people.

2008-2009 Willamette University will continue to work with Chemawa through tutoring and they will continue having college workshops. In addition, Willamette has helped designate an area that will serve as the Career and Future Center for Chemawa students. The dream behind all these actions is to Native Americans to be empowered so they can reach their goals and so that their can be Native American Sovereignty.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 118.
  2. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 117–118.
  3. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 112.
  4. ^ Reyes 2002, p. 117.
  5. ^ [1][dead link]
  6. ^ a b Willamette University: History
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[edit] References

[edit] External links