Boarding schools begin to take center stage in the U.S. policy of forced assimilation for Indigenous children.
Date: 1879
The U.S. government launches the policy of forcibly removing Native children from their families and tribal communities and placing them in residential boarding schools far from their homelands and cultural contacts.
These militaristic schools forbid children from contacting their relatives and force the adoption of Christianity; the English language; and Euro-American customs, values, and practices. Their goal is the complete eradication of Native identity, culture, and values, and the complete adoption of white/Euro-American, Christian, and heteropatriarchal values.