Zitkala-Sa
Zitkala-Sa was born to a Sioux mother and white father in the Dakota Territory in 1876. She attended a Quaker Indian School in Indiana and then Earlham College, and she worked as a teacher at the Carlisle Indian School in 1898 and 1899. After leaving the Carlisle School, she wrote about her experiences as an Indian living in white America, and helped found the Society of American Indians, an early civil rights organization devoted to Native American causes. In the excerpt from her autobiography below, she reflects on the shortcomings of Indian education as she experienced it at the Carlisle School and similar institutions.
Boarding School Lesson: Excerpt from Zitkala-Sa’s diary
This lesson, using excerpts from Zitkala-Sa’s diary, The School Days of an Indian Girl, explores the question: “What role the Indian Boarding Schools play in assimilation of Native peoples and attempted annihilation of their cultures?”
Open Boarding School Lesson: Excerpt from Zitkala-Sa’s Diary