Thomas Marshall
In striving to recognize manifest destiny, the United States government had run into one major setback- the Native Americans. The endless fighting on the Plains had proved the failure of “relocation, segregation, and annihilation,” so the government turned to new philosophies, such as those proposed by Brigadier General R. H. Pratt. He advocated for the education of Native Americans, so as to “civilize the Indian through total immersion” and assimilate them into the white population. In 1879, the Department of the Interior and the War Department granted Pratt’s request to use the abandoned Carlisle Barracks to house an Indian School based on assimilation and immersion. At this school, the Native American children were taught the ways of the white man. Their hair was cut, their clothes taken, their traditional names changed to “acceptable” Christian names. Pratt’s goal was to “kill the Indian, save the man” and he adhered to this ideal with great conviction. He especially encouraged further education at institutions of higher learning. Some students elected to attend the local college, Dickinson, which offered admission to those students who had completed additional preparatory courses at the college’s preparatory school, Conway Hall. These students and their activities while enrolled provide insight into the effects of the college on the Native American’s continued journey towards assimilation.
Of the many students who attended the Indian School, only ten attended Dickinson. This is probably a reflection of the Indian School’s transition from a college preparatory curriculum to one that was more trade based in 1904. This transition was inspired by the dismissal of Pratt as the head administrator and the appointment of others who lacked Pratt’s “talent and conviction.” However, during the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, Native American students studied, worked, and, often to the surprise of the community, succeeded at Dickinson. One such student was a Sioux named Thomas Marshall, whose courses of study, campus activities, and impact on the Dickinson community indicated a Native American who was fully assimilated into Anglican culture.
According to Dickinson’s 1905 Alumni Directory, Marshall was born on February 15, 1876 in Fort Robinson, Nebraska to Joseph and Elizabeth Marshall. He and his family were later relocated to the Sioux reservation in Kyle, South Dakota after the Commissioner of Indian Affairs declared that all Native Americans who refused to live on a reservation would be arrested. As Marshall’s parents were Episcopal, he would have already been educated in Christian culture by the time he began his formal education. Therefore, the process of ‘Anglicizing’ him would have been much easier when compared to his Native American peers who were often raised in a more traditional manner. Indeed, the mere fact that his father, who was deemed an important member of the tribe in the April 28, 1899 edition of the Dickinsonian Weekly, was also a devout Christian is additionally indicative of the widespread effects of the ‘civilizing’ efforts of missionaries and persons such as Pratt.
Marshall began his education at the Friend’s School, a Native American school in the west, before enrolling in the Carlisle Indian School. While at the Carlisle Indian School, he was named president of their YMCA chapter, a reflection of his Episcopal upbringing. After completing the curriculum, he took the prescribed courses at Conway Hall in order to gain admission to Dickinson College. The college, being in close proximity to the Carlisle Indian School, may well have been the ideal, for the people of Carlisle were already quite used to Native Americans. Additionally, he would be permitted to live in the barracks, as his address listing in the 1896 Dickinson College Catalogue shows. While the practice of housing Native American college students at the Indian School at first appears contradictory to the mission of assimilation, it was most likely a product of the financial status of the students. Living at the Indian School, which was financed by the government, would have significantly reduced the cost of Marshall’s college tuition, for, as the College Catalogue again shows, room and board were a sizable portion of the cost of a college education.
When Marshall entered Dickinson in 1896, he was one of the first two Native American students to ender the college. He, like other freshmen, had to select a course of study from the four options offered. These courses were akin to today’s majors and were Latin, Latin Scientific, Modern Language, and Scientific. Marshall selected Latin Scientific. The curriculum dictated for this course involved the study of Latin, French, math and English during the student’s first year. His second year, he studied Latin, math, rhetoric, the history of England, political science, German, physiology and hygiene and French. Junior year, psychology, English, physics, chemistry and economics dominated Marshall’s schedule, with additional lab work and electives selected from Latin, German, math, biology and botany, history, the English Bible and pedagogy. During his senior and final year, he would have selected from classes in ethics, Christian evidences, astronomy, oratory, the major sciences, Latin, and history. All of these courses of study extolled the cultural achievements of the Anglican culture, replacing the traditional teachings of tribal life with studies of Christianity and the sciences.
Regardless of Marshall’s ignorance of his native culture, he excelled in his college courses to the extent that he was said to have exhibited “unusual intellectual ability.” This comment, while not a blatant expression of the prejudice against the ‘savage’ Native Americans, is significant in that nowhere in the Dickinsonian is the same said of a white student. Indeed, although there were no direct references to racial issues among the students on campus, white students were clearly surprised that a Native American was capable of the same levels of achievement. For example, during his freshman year, Marshall was honored with the Dare Prize of $20 for the best examination for entrance in the Latin Scientific Course. The November 14, 1896 issue of the Dickinsonian Weekly proudly stated that “especial praise is due the last named since he is one of the first two Indian students who have entered the college proper.” Evidently, although the entirety of Marshall’s education was focused on assimilation into Anglican culture, students at Dickinson were nonetheless surprised when his ‘inferior’ brain produced any work of value.
Marshall’s continued demonstrations of his more than adequate intellect led many at Dickinson to consider him ‘credit to his race.’ Indeed, upon joining the college’s branch of the YMCA, Marshall was given the opportunity to represent the institution as a delegate to the annual Student’s World Conference held in Northfield, Massachusetts. As described in the article YMCA in the May 1, 1897 issue of the Dickinsonian Weekly, the Northfield Delegation, as it was also called, was a conference where “three representatives from colleges and universities from all Christian lands [met] and [were] addressed on the various departments of Christian work, together with devotional gatherings to quicken a renewed life and to deepen the Christian experience.” For a Native American to be selected as one of Dickinson’s representatives was a bold move, and certainly demonstrates the college’s opinion of Marshall as a credit both to his race, and to the college itself. In addition to the honor of being named a Northfield delegate for two years, Marshall was permitted to enter one of Dickinson’s literary societies, the Union Philosophical Society. As one of the college’s two literary societies, the Union Philosophical Society was established for the purpose of pursuing “mutual improvement in Science and Literature” Although there were no racial restrictions listed in the Society’s 1893 Constitution and By-Laws, to be admitted, applicants still had to be approved by two-thirds of the established membership. It therefore would not have been a difficult matter to deny Marshall’s membership on trivial grounds. The fact that he was accepted to the exclusive group may serve as a sign that Marshall was indeed accepted as an assimilated student.
In short, all of Marshall’s courses and campus activities would have further promoted Christian and traditionally Western ideals. He was given all the knowledge deemed essential for an Anglican-American, all the while completely neglecting traditional Native American culture and knowledge. Unfortunately, Thomas Marshall passed away during his junior year on April 24, 1899. He died of the measles, a common affliction among the Native Americans. An article in the April 28, 1899 issue of Dickinsonian Weekly contains a resolution by the junior class, to be sent to Marshall’s parents in South Dakota, which held that the Wednesday chapel would be in his honor. He was described as being well liked by the students and the faculty, and was remembered for buying pretzels from ‘Pink’ and knowing all of the Native American girls by name. Had he been able to finish his education, he most probably would have graduated and continued his life in the East, as so many Native American students did, ignorant of their true culture and traditions. While Dickinson College’s impact on Marshall was to solidify his assimilation into Anglican culture, Marshall’s impact on the students of Dickinson was primarily to show that Native Americans were not the savage beasts so often depicted in the popular culture of the time. Through his accomplishments, Marshall was able to prove the competency of native peoples and dispel the aura of inferiority associated with non-white cultures. In the process, however, he lost touch with the culture of his birth, as so many children did, and so furthered the degradation of the Native American culture.
By Elizabeth Lewis, ‘10
