The Government Boarding School at Lac du Flambeau in Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin was a school where Native American children of the Ojibwe, Potowatomi and Odawa peoples were taught mainstream American culture from 1895 to 1932. It served grades 1-8, teaching both academic and practical subjects, intended to give children skills needed for their rural societies. The school was converted in 1932 to a day school, serving only Ojibwe children and those nearby of other tribes.
After 1975 and passage of national legislation for self-determination, the Ojibwe tribe at Lac du Flambeau took over control of the school. They now use the boys' dormitory for offices for historic preservation, Ojibwe language, and cultural activities.
The boys' dormitory is one of the remaining structures of what was a large multi-building complex on 300 acres. It had a variety of support buildings and, when a boarding school, raised its own produce and livestock. The school complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 as one of the historic sites in Vilas County.
History
The Ojibwe people have a long history at Lac du Flambeau. About 1745 under Giishkiman (Sharpened Stone), they settled where the Bear River flows out of Flambeau Lake. In 1792 the North West Fur Company added a trading post there, which operated until about 1835. A Presbyterian missionary visited, starting in 1832. The Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation was established here in 18xx.
When timber companies discovered the resources, major logging began in the winter of 1885. Officially, the BIA leased the land for fees that were supposed to be returned to the tribe and held in trust or paid to heads of households. Many such trust funds were mismanaged. The first United States Indian agent was assigned to the area in 1888. The first church was built in 1894.
Through much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. government policies were intended to assimilate Native Americans into European-American culture. Rationalizing boarding schools, one Indian agent wrote in 1886, "Only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated..." By separating Indian children from their families, the government believed that they could more easily educate children to speak English and mainstream American culture, and prepare them to fit into American society as farmers or laborers, which were typical of opportunities in rural societies. But in the process, they damaged Ojibwe and other Native American children by stripping them of their own culture and traditions.
Ojibwe children were forced to government boarding schools as early as 1856. In 1895 the Bureau of Indian Affairs opened the boarding school at Lac du Flambeau. This was not the only such school in Wisconsin; by 1899 the Menominee Boarding School at Keshena and the Oneida Boarding School at Oneida had been opened. There were also non-government Indian boarding schools, such as Saint Mary's at Odanah, operated by Franciscan Sisters as a mission school on the Bad River reservation. The Lutheran church operated Wittenberg School. The Tomah Industrial School in Tomah, Wisconsin also was opened at this time . Some Ojibwe children attended government day schools, such as one at Lac Courte Oreilles. Others were sent to off-reservation boarding schools, such as that at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Children from the tribes ages five to fifteen were required to attend the school at Lac du Flambeau, essentially encompassing grades 1-8. this was typical of public education even in towns and many cities; public high schools were not generally available. Some students went to private academies or seminaries to get more education. At the boarding school, the children were forced to abandon their Ojibwe or other Native American languages, ceremonies, foods and clothing. Breaking these rules resulted in physical punishment. The school was year-round, with no summer break, to provide for more immersion and more effectively interrupt the passing of Native culture and replace it with Euro-American culture. In addition, for children at a distance from their homes, it was difficult and expensive to arrange transportation back and forth.