Native Americans have been the land rulers for over ten millennia, until the emigrants inhabit the territories, starting demoralizing politics towards these people. Indigenous people experienced harsh methods of Americans to conquer the land they lived on. As a result, the nation was shrinking, and emigrants either demolished people or made them accept their rules and culture. The before and after photo of a native American student is vivid evidence of American influence on the disappearing cultural heritage.
The presented photo was taken by the Carlisle Indian School members, a Native American boarding school. It depicts an astounding transformation of a Native American teenager that lost all of his significant cultural traits during three years in the school from 1882 to 1886 (Tom Torlino student file, n.d.). Such a photo is intended to show the school’s success in educating the children and making them as close to caucasian as possible by demolishing any trace of their heritage.
The intended audience was regular Americans, who were eager to vanish Indians from the United States’ lands. Another segment of the intended audience must have been Native Americans themselves, who should have thrived for such transformation in the opinion of many Americans. The unintended audience may have become the international press, which distributed the images, showing the unacceptable cultural behavior of the Americans toward the Native inhabitants.
The message the school directory was aiming to convey relied on the fundament that American Indians had a chance to join the modern society and could be reconstructed under the conventional norms and values. In reality, the message stated that indigenous people were forced to bow down before the self-established leaders and their culturally-defeating requests to survive.
The photo’s purpose was to show the power Americans had over Indians and their immense influence on their identity. They could serve as a trophy that proved they summoned the people that lived on the native land for centuries. Relying on such evidence, there are several questions that arise and call for a deeper understanding, such as how many indigenous people were similarly transformed across the United States? What was the impact of such boarding schools on the identity and values of the Native American students?
Reference
Tom Torlino student file. (n.d.). Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. Web.