Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Carlisle Indian Industrial School, (1879 - 1918), in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the first federally supported school for Native Americans to be established off a reservation; it was founded in 1879 by Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt had an intense distrust of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, began to formulate a new school model based on the Hampton Institute. The first students arrived on October 6, 1879.

American football

In 1892, when the Carlisle Indian School fielded its first football team, no one could have predicted that, in less than ten years, the Indians would become one of the dominant college football powers in the nation. From 1899 to 1913, they regularly beat traditional powerhouses of the time like Harvard, Yale and Army, while producing no less than twenty one All-America players. The Carlisle Indians (the name of the team, not a generalization about the school?s students) first organized to play football in 1892 against local high school teams. But a serious injury (a broken leg) to one of the players in their first game led Richard Henry Pratt to disband the team and they did not reform until 1894, at the request of a student group. Pratt had reinstated the school?s football program partly due to student demand and partly due to his own beliefs about the acculturation it could bring. To him, football represented the white American value system. It taught teamwork, sportsmanship, discipline and precision; traits a military man like Pratt held in high regard. It emphasized fitness, self-control and it promoted the very American idea of ?winning?. But by 1898 it was also bringing recognition to the school. Sportswriters around the country praised the Indians for their sportsmanship and good, clean play. For Pratt, the football team was a shining example of the success of the boarding school programs. The Indians were able to beat white teams because they themselves were becoming culturally white. He was making true on his promise to ?Kill the Indian and save the man.? Carlisle was also benefiting monetarily from the team. The Indians were such a draw that schools like Harvard and Yale regularly paid the school purses of $5,000 to $15,000 for a game. This money was used to provide perks for the players and enhance aspects of the school. Because of all the good the team was doing for the school, Pratt sought to improve it, and that led him to bring in a new coach, "Pop" Warner, in 1899. Under Warner, the Carlisle Indians, led by Jim Thorpe, would reach their peak and become a national phenomenon and brought the school nationwide attention.

Related Topics:
1892 - Football - Harvard - Yale - Army - All-America - 1894 - 1898 - "Pop" Warner - 1899 - Jim Thorpe

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