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Date: | Thu, 17 May 2007 17:18:41 EDT |
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The more recent education of Indians IN VIRGINIA is recounted most
engagingly, with suberb photographs, in Mary Lou Hultgren and
Paulette Fairbanks Molin, TO LEAD AND TO SERVE: AMERICAN
INDIAN EDUCATION AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE, 1878-1923 (Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities, 1989). This exhibit catalogue revealed
Hampton's wonderful collection of Indian artifacts, which many of the
students brought with them.
In those years, almost 1,400 Indian students from 65 different tribes
were educated along with African Americans at Hampton, and the
gutsy experiment in biracial education was much praised and well
supported for a time. Unfortunately, however, by the early 20th cen-
tury, the race issue resulted in the loss of federal funding, in the
biased belief that it was preferable to "elevate the red race [including
warriors who had fought against the USA] to the level of the white
race ... [rather than] degrade and humiliate him by sinking him to the
lowplane of the negro race" (attributed to Texas Congressman John
Hall Stephens, Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs,
quoted on p 52).
Best from St. Louis,
Fred Fausz
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