Boarding schools were for settlers: Jean Reith Schroedel, Melissa Rogers, Edward Headington, ‘Indian Boarding Schools for the Gain of White Settlers: A Case Study of Rapid City Indian School’, Journal American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 49, 2, 2026, pp. 149-174 | settler colonial studies blog

Boarding schools were for settlers: Jean Reith Schroedel, Melissa Rogers, Edward Headington, ‘Indian Boarding Schools for the Gain of White Settlers: A Case Study of Rapid City Indian School’, Journal American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 49, 2, 2026, pp. 149-174

04Aug26

Excerpt: Over the past thirty years, there has been a growing body of research on Indian boarding schools. Researchers using the settler colonial framework as developed by Wolfe and others1 have shown that the primary purpose of the federal government’s Indian boarding school policy was not to provide education to Native children,2 but to facilitate the dispossession of Native lands.3 The goal was for reservation lands to become “surplus” as tribal members adopted the Euro-American methods of farming taught in Indian schools.4 As part of that effort, the boarding schools were required to teach children that the 1887 Dawes Act, its amendments, and the allotment of tribal lands—a policy that resulted in a massive transfer of land to white settlers—was a benefit to their communities.5 Scholars have focused on giving voice to the Native perspective on boarding schools. Drawing upon archived oral histories, interviews with former students, and student-parent letters, these researchers highlight Native agency, resistance, and community building.

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