Primary Sources: Native Americans - American Indians - Indigenous Americans: Education

"As stated in Title 25 CFR Part 32.3, BIE’s mission is to provide quality education opportunities from early childhood through life in accordance with a tribe’s needs for cultural and economic well-being, in keeping with the wide diversity of Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages as distinct cultural and governmental entities. Further, the BIE is to manifest consideration of the whole person by taking into account the spiritual, mental, physical, and cultural aspects of the individual within his or her family and tribal or village context."

The Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives has an extensive collection of documentary and photographic works on American Indians with an emphasis on indigenous people in the Greater Southwest. The Digital Library represents a virtual selection from the archives, library and art collections including:

Photographs both historic and modern
Repository guides
Broadsides, booklets and brochures
Correspondence
Artists’ biography reports
Drawings and prints
Images of art objects

"The Indigenous Digital Archive is here to help you explore the history of US goverment Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Explore, annotate and learn from over 500,000 archival documents about Santa Fe Indian School, 1920, all kinds of boarding school records, and letters."

"Clara D. True served as day school teacher at Santa Clara day school from September 1901 through December 1907. The Santa Clara day school was operated under the administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) Santa Fe Indian School; it served primarily younger students who did not attend BIA boarding schools. Ms. True's lettters were to the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Indian School, and they concern her activities at Santa Clara, including the construction of the day school and her living quarters, and the living conditions of her students. They give information on whooping cough and diphtheria outbreaks, parental concerns for children attending the school, relationships between Ms. True and the Governor of Santa Clara, trespasses on Indian lands, and the acquisition of supplies and necessities. The letters also reveal a few autobiographical facts of Ms. True's life, such as being born in Kentucky , and apparently teaching in Washington state before moving to the Santa Clara Pueblo." Not all letters are available online.

"Teachers may use these Library of Congress primary source documents to present viewpoints on the education and assimilation of Indian peoples from the
1880-1920s. "

Phoenix Indian School

"This collection contains images taken by Walter Runke at the short-lived Blue Canyon School when he was there from 1901-1903. Images are of the physical buildings, students, school employees (Runke, Nettie Morris, Laura Williams, others), school activities, Blue Canyon, Navajo and Hopi people, Hopi villages, and Navajo textiles. "