property and food stores. Exhausted and hungry,
most surrender in early October. Although they
claim they are innocent of the murders, they are
sent to prison in Vancouver, Washington Territory,
then relocated to Idaho’s Fort Hall Reservation.
Summer
Ethnologist Frank Hamilton Cushing comes
to live among the Zuni.
A largely self-trained ethnologist employed by the
Smithsonian Institution, Frank Hamilton Cushing,
at age 22, travels to the Southwest as part of the Bu-
reau of Ethnology’s (see entry for MARCH 3, 1879)
first expedition to the region. He is charged with
collecting Zuni artifacts and learning as much as
possible about the Indians’ culture, a daunting task
considering their reluctance to discuss their ways
with non-Indians. To gain their confidence, Cush-
ing leaves the expedition’s camp and moves into the
house of the Zuni’s governor. Cushing’s willingness
to adopt Zuni dress and customs and to learn their
language endears him to the governor, who adopts
him into his family. When, after two months, the
expedition leaves the Zuni pueblo, Cushing chooses
to remain behind.
For the next four years, Cushing will live as
a Zuni, while taking notes about Zuni life, ways,
and beliefs, particularly their complex mythology.
Cushing’s years among the Zuni will provide data
for his later writings, which will be among the first
in-depth anthropological studies of southwestern
Indians. They will also establish a new model for
the ethnologist as equal parts observer and partici-
pant in the culture under study.
Autumn
The Carlisle Indian boarding school
is founded.
The first non-reservation school sponsored by the
U.S. government, the Carlisle Industrial Indian
Boarding School is established in Carlisle, Penn-
sylvania, by Richard Henry Pratt. While serving in
the army, Pratt supervised Indians held in a pris-
oner-of-war camp in St. Augustine, Florida (see
entry for 1875). His experience convinced him that
boarding schools could be the most effective tools
for peaceably assimilating Indians into non-Indian
society. Only by taking children and young adults
out of the “corrupting” environment of their own
Indian communities, he reasoned, could they learn
to prosper in the mainstream. Pratt summarized his
philosophy in the slogan “Kill the Indian and save
the man.”
When students arrive at Carlisle, they are for-
bidden to speak their own language, wear Indian
clothing, or practice any customs that appear too
“Indian” to their non-Indian instructors. In addi-
tion to receiving a modest academic education that
stresses learning the English language, they are given
vocational training to help them find manual work
when they graduate. The boys are taught mechani-
cal skills and farming, while the girls learn to sew,
cook, and do housework.SeptemberAmerican troops defeat the Ute in the
Ute War.
To force the Ute at the White River Agency in
Colorado to give up gambling and take up farm-
ing, their agent Nathan Meeker plows up their
race track and prime horse pastures. Frightened by
the infuriated Ute, Meeker asks the U.S. govern-
ment to send troops to the agency to protect him.
It responds by dispatching 175 soldiers under the
command of Major Thomas T. Thornburgh to sub-
due the Indians.
When the troops reach White River, Ute war-
riors led by Chief Jack (Nicaagat) attack them
and kill Thornburgh in the Battle of Milk Creek.
The Ute continue the battle for seven days, until
American reinforcements arrive, forcing the Indian
warriors to retreat. The Ute War ends when a treaty
is negotiated with the U.S. government by Ouray,
the leader of the Uncompahgre Band. The treaty
forces the Ute to cede their lands at White River
and relocate to the Uintah Reservation in what is
now Utah.