368 Legacies of the Brafferton Indian School

Ben Franklin's World

The Brafferton Indian School has a long and complicated legacy. Chartered with the College of William & Mary in 1693, the Brafferton Indian School’s purpose was to educate young Indigenous boys in the ways of English religion, language, and culture. The Brafferton performed this work for more than 70 years, between the arrival of its first students in 1702 and when the last documented student left the school in 1778.

This second episode in our 2-episode series about the Brafferton Indian School will focus on the legacy of the Brafferton Indian School and how it and other colonial-era Indian Schools established models for the schools the United States government and religious institutions established during the Indian Boarding School Era.

As one of the architects of these later Boarding Schools, Richard Henry Pratt, stated, the purpose of these boarding schools was to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Pratt meant that the United States government desired to assimilate and fully Americanize Indigenous children so there would be no more Native Americans.

But Indigenous peoples are resilient, and they have resisted American attempts to extinguish their cultures. So we’ll also hear from three tribal citizens in Virginia who are working in different ways to reawaken long-dormant aspects of their Indigenous cultures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/368 Sponsor Links

• Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
• The American Indian Initiative at Colonial Williamsburg
• William & Mary, Brafferton Initiative
• William & Mary October 28th Lecture: Ned Blackhawk, “The Indigenous Origins of the American Revolution”

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 290: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 1: Before 1620
• Episode 291: The World of the Wampanoag, Part 2: 1620 and Beyond
• Episode 310: Rosalyn LaPier, History of the Blackfeet
• Episode 314: Colin Calloway, Native Americans in Early American Cities
• Episode 343: Music and Song in Native North America
• Episode 353: Brooke Bauer, Women and the Making of Catawba Identity
• Episode 367: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

Series Music

• WarPaint Singers
• WarPaint Singers on YouTube
• Blue Dot Sessions

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