A classroom instruction tool, this 24 page wall scroll uses images, alphabet letters, words and phrases in the Dakota language to teach math functions and reading. This item was designed to hang on the classroom wall to teach the Dakota, Santee language variant, and English. This word book was made by Alfred. L. Riggs in the 1880s and is an example of how missionaries translated the Dakota language into English.
Access the entire Wicoie wowapi wowapi pehanpi kin: the word book wall roll on the Newberry Library’s Internet Archive page.
The Santee Normal Training School
The Santee Normal Training School was founded by Alfred L. Riggs, an American Board member, in an attempt to train native teachers. As a boarding school, established in the winter of 1870-1871, it had an enrollment of 111 and an average attendance of 69. From 1870-1923, the school had 2,398 pupils on the roll. After 67 years, the school closed in 1937.
The Santee Normal Training School reached its high point in the 1890’s, when it became in reality what its founder had envisioned it as being: “a center of education for all the Sioux.” Financial support from the government and religious societies were a mixed blessing. Besides its financial support the government tried to control what was taught at the school. For example, Riggs was constantly defending usage of the Dakota language while teaching. In 1886-7, he was ordered by the government to teach only in the English language. In Riggs’ official report he pointed out that in the normal department of the school the use of Dakota was “indispensable to the best instruction.” “Things, not names,” he said, “are what the true teacher must grasp; then names come afterwards.” He went on to further point out that the Santee Normal Training School represents “the high-water mark of Indian advance more than any other school in the country.” He reviewed its history and described its impressive physical plant, concluding: “And now this is to be dismembered and eviscerated by the order of the government.”
In 1893, the strain of trying to accommodate the school and the government proved too great. The government contract was terminated and the American Missionary Association, a Congregational body, operated the school until the fourth decade of the twentieth century.
Santee Industrial School
Despite the promise held by the Santee Normal Training School, government officials continued to recommend the establishment of a manual labor school at the Santee agency. Reasons for opening a school for the Santee included the separation of church and state and of (the then current) beliefs about the best way to lead the Indians to civilization. There was a strong prejudice among Indian Bureau officials against conducting any education in the Indians’ native language. It wasn’t until 1934 that the Indian Bureau realized that the eradication of Indigenous native languages was not necessary in the learning process.
In 1874, a Santee Industrial School was completed. It opened with thirty-six students and three teachers. The students found the physical conditions of school life more comfortable, particularly after the brick building was finished, than life in the ill-heated log houses in which most of their families lived. Whether this comparative luxury compensated for the rigid discipline imposed by the school authorities and the absence of parental affection is another question. Due to the presence of the Santee Normal Training School and a number of district schools on the reservation, and the fact that the plant was in poor shape and “not well thought of by the Indians,” the boarding school closed in 1909.
Missionary Schools
While the Santee Normal Training School and the Santee Industrial School were running their hectic course, there were mission schools that also proceeded steadily with their work. The Episcopal Church ran three-day schools and a girls’ boarding school for a number of years, and about 1882 opened Hope School, a small institution for boys across the river at Springfield, Dakota Territory. After the burning of the mission buildings at Santee in 1884, the girls’ school, St. Mary’s, was closed and reestablished the following year at Springfield. These church schools were later consolidated. At the beginning of 1896, the churches rented the institution to the government, which, in turn, was conducted as a school for about fifty boys.
Although the aforementioned schools were served by district schools for many years, Native people yearned for their own school, which could follow a curriculum more suited to their children’s needs.
That yearning was met shortly before the opening of the new school building, where classes were being held in what was known as the C-5 District School which was made up of only one building and two doublewide trailers. At first, the one building was enough to house the students. However, the extra buildings became necessary when the school’s population increased due to the construction of many new houses in Santee. In the fall of 1971, the school consisted of 12 students supervised by one teacher and a cook. A year later, the school consisted of 80 students that filled the buildings and 15 staff members.
[Featured image: front cover of Wicoie wowapi wowapi pehanpi kin: the word book wall roll / by A.L. Riggs. New York: Published for the Dakota mission by the American Tract Society, [188-?]. Call number: Ayer oversize PM1023 .R53 1880z]
Suggested readings:
English versus the Vernacular: the Suppression of Indian Languages in Reservation Schools at the End of the Nineteenth Century, Jacqueline FEAR, Revue française d’études américaines, No. 9, L’ÉTRANGER DANS LA CULTURE AMÉRICAINE (Avril 1980), pp. 13-24, Published by: Editions Belin.
Report on Santee Training School written by Alfred L. Riggs in August 19, 1889 for the United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs
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