Concho Indian Boarding School

Concho Indian Boarding School (also known as the Cheyenne-Arapaho Boarding School at Concho or Concho Indian School and home to the Concho Demonstration School) was a boarding school for members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and later opened to other Native American students. It existed from 1909 to 1983. It was located in central Oklahoma, approximately 1 mile south of Concho, Oklahoma and 4 miles north of El Reno, Oklahoma.[1] The name of the town and school is the Spanish word for "shell" and was named for the Indian agent, Charles E. Shell.[2]

Curriculum

Concho was developed to provide a means of integrating and assimilating American Indian children into mainstream society. It, like other federal boarding schools, was run on a strict military model.[3] Students were wakened at 5 a.m., performed military drills and formations, ate breakfast and were in class by 6:00 each morning.[4] Academic subjects, including reading, writing, and arithmetic,[5] were studied for half the day and the remainder of the day consisted of labor.[4]

Trades and farming were taught to boys[3] and girls were taught domestic labor[5] and nursing. A large experimental farm was maintained, where the children were instructed in conservation[6] and planting techniques. Boys milked cows and girls helped prepare all of the meals and sewed clothing.[4] Discipline was strict and infractions, like speaking in their native language rather than English, were punished by things like breaking large rocks into smaller rocks[3] or sawing wood.[4] Each infraction required punishment of one hour of labor.[3]

Initially, the school offered education to the 6th grade and students would have to transfer to Carlisle, Chilocco or Haskell Institute for secondary education. By around the 1920s, the school curriculum mirrored public education being offered throughout the country and included sports, music, art, and a full course of educational subjects.[4] By the time the school closed in the early 1980s, it offered instruction for grades one - eight and was predominantly attended by orphans and students who had difficult home environments.[7]

History

The first school was opened at the Darlington Agency on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in 1871 by the Hicksite (Liberal) Friends and Orthodox Quakers and was called the Cheyenne-Arapaho Boarding School.[8] In 1872, the facility was built with federal funds,[9] but run by the Quakers. Few Cheyenne children attended the school and as a means to entice them, a partition was erected to divide the classroom into separate areas for the Arapaho and Cheyenne students.[8] In 1879 the facility was renamed the Arapaho Manual Labor and Boarding School and a new facility was built for the Cheyenne students located at Caddo Springs, which was called the Cheyenne Manual Labor and Boarding School.[9] Within 5 years, it was reported that the children at the agency schools were responsible for raising 211 cattle and hogs and cultivating 130 acres of land.[10]

In 1881, a new school, called the Darlington Mission School was built and run by the General Conference Mennonites but a fire which occurred on 19 February 1882 destroyed the building, taking the life of the missionary's infant son and three Indian children. Federal funds and donations from the Mennonite Mission Board were secured to rebuild the mission school by December, 1882.[11] The Mennonites had the same problems as the Quakers had had in trying educating the two tribes together, and opened a fourth school in 1882[8] called Cantonment. By 1884, the agent reported that attendance in the four schools represented 66 students at the Arapaho boarding school, 22 students at Cantonment, 71 students at the Cheyenne boarding school and 28 students at Darlington.[11]

After 1891 federal policy shifted and began to require more standardization, attendance quotas and less use of federal funds for church "contracted" institutions.[11] By the mid 1890s only about half of the school-age children on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation were attending school. An experiment with enrolling Indian children in the public school system and offsetting the costs to the schools was attempted in 1896-1897, but was discontinued.[12] Declining attendance at Darlington forced its permanent closure in June, 1898[11] and Cantonment closed in 1901.[13] In 1908 both the Arapaho Manual Labor and Boarding School and the Cheyenne Manual Labor and Boarding School were closed and the facilities sold by the government.[14] The Darlington Agency was also closed and relocated to Concho in 1909.[6]

The new school Concho Boarding School opened in 1909[4] and re-implemented the farming model, which continued during the Great Depression.[6] In 1932 the Seger Indian Training School,[15] which had incorporated the students of the Red Moon School in 1917,[16] closed and its students were transferred to Concho.[15] Total Concho Boarding School students for 1932 were 133 boys and 117 girls.[17] However, the school struggled during the Dust Bowl period, where between 1933 and 1937 there were 362 dust storms in the immediate area, coupled with tornadoes and flash flooding. As part of the Works Progress Administration President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an Executive Order in 1933 which authorized the Indian Service to establish a Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Concho to improve the grounds and buildings, implement soil erosion controls, and develop water resources.[18] The agency buildings were razed and rebuilt in 1933 and a hospital was constructed in 1941.[19][20]

The era of the federal Indian Termination Policy from the 1940s through the 1960s saw threats to close tribal schools and Concho was not immune. Richard Boynton and George Levi, of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Business Committee and Robert Goombi of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma sent pleas to Oklahoma Congressmen to fight school closure.[21] The bid to save the school was successful as some of the buildings were converted into a facility to assist troubled students in 1962.[22] In 1968, a new school complex was built for the boarding school, featuring a pioneering teaching program which was to be operated in conjunction with Southwestern State College. The program was designed to overcome language and cultural barriers and offer Indian students access to college materials and individual instruction.[23]

The school was closed after the graduation ceremonies held 14 May 1982[24] due to federal budget cuts.[25] Though parents and the tribe protested the closure and obtained an injunction to stop it, at the end of the 1983 school term, the school permanently closed.[26] The school buildings were returned to the tribe from the BIA in 1985 for use as business enterprises.[25] In 2015, plans were in the works to convert some of the buildings to a fitness center.[27]

Concho Demonstration School

In 1962,[22] a new system for streamlining troubled students back into the school systems was set up. Earl C Intolubbe, a Choctaw who was working as an Education Guidance Specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs set up a model school at Concho. The idea was to keep classrooms small so that children received individual attention. Students who had dropped out of other schools were placed in the special program. Some returned within weeks or months to their prior boarding schools or public schools, and some stayed for years. After 6 years of operation, with a 60% success rate, Intolubbe retired in 1968 when it was suggested that the Demonstration School be combined with the Boarding School.[28]

Notable alumni

References
  1. Dias, William T. (1933). "Historical Sketch of Cheyenne-Arapaho School and Agency". Oklahoma Indian School Magazine. Chilocco, Oklahoma: Chilocco Indian Boarding School. 2 (2): 5–6. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  2. Shirk, George H. (1987). Oklahoma place names (2d ed., rev. and enl. ed.). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 57. ISBN 0-8061-2028-2.
  3. Anthes, Bill (2006). Native moderns: American Indian painting, 1940-1960. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0822338666.
  4. Fowler, Loretta (2010). Wives and husbands : gender and age in Southern Arapaho history. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 202–204. ISBN 978-0-8061-4116-9. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  5. Lyman, Rebecka (January 1, 2013). "Life's Journeys Simple woman, simple life" (PDF). Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Tribune. 8 (5): 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 February 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  6. Federal Writers Project of the WPA (1941). Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 372–373. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  7. "Closing of Off-Reservation Boarding Schools. Hearing before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs". United States Senate. February 24, 1982. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  8. McKellips, Karen K (October 1992). "Educational Practices in Two Nineteenth Century American Indian Mission Schools". Journal of American Indian Education. 32 (1).
  9. Everett, Dianna. "SEGER, JOHN HOMER (1846-1928)". Oklahoma State University. Oklahoma Historical Society. Archived from the original on 19 November 2012. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  10. Steere, Bobby F. (2009). The trace of the Southern Arapaho. Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, Inc. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-4401-0402-2. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  11. Thiesen, Barbara A (June 2006). "Every Beginning Is Hard: Darlington Mennonite Mission, 1880-1902". Mennonite Life. 61 (2). Archived from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  12. Berthrong, Donald J. (1992). The Cheyenne and Arapaho ordeal : reservation and agency life in the Indian territory, 1875-1907 (New ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2416-4. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  13. Dalke, Herbert M (July 1955). "Seventy-five Years of Missions in Oklahoma" (PDF). Mennonite Life. North Newton, Kansas. X (3): 102. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  14. "ACTS OF SIXTIETH CONGRESS—FIRST SESSION, 1908". Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  15. "Colony Public School". Abandoned Oklahoma. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  16. "Department of the Interior. Office of Indian Affairs. Red Moon School and Agency. (12/1909 - 05/16/1917)". National Archives. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  17. Dias (1933), p 12
  18. Schukies, Renate (1993). Red Hat : Cheyenne blue sky maker and keeper of the sacred arrows. Münster, Hamburg, Germany: Lit Verlag. p. 246. ISBN 3-89473-585-6. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  19. Baird, W. David (1988). "An Historical Overview of the Arapaho Tribe" (PDF). Historic Context for the Native American Theme Management Region #7: 1803-1938. Stillwater, Oklahoma: Oklahoma State University: 211. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  20. Baird, W. David (1988). "An Historical Overview of the Arapaho Tribe" (PDF). Historic Context for the Native American Theme Management Region #7: 1803-1938. Stillwater, Oklahoma: Oklahoma State University: 211. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  21. Nichols, edited by Roger L. (1992). The American Indian : past and present (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 254. ISBN 0-07-046499-5.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  22. "Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1962". Bureau of Indian Affairs. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  23. "Exemplary Indian School to Open in Oklahoma" (PDF). Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs. July 14, 1968. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  24. Etter, Jim (May 14, 1982). "Last Graduation Today At Concho Indian School". News OK. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  25. Brawley, Chris (February 6, 1985). "Indians to Use Concho School Buildings". News OK. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  26. Bridgman, Anne (April 11, 1984). "Plan To Shut Indian School Sparks Outcry". Education Week. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  27. "Fitness complex design and construction signed". Watonga, Oklahoma: The Watonga Republican. 28 January 2015. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  28. Intolubbe, Velma. "Earl C Intolubbe (Intolabbee)". Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Archived from the original on 28 November 2013. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
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