“In the White Man’s Way” - The story of the Carlisle Indian School Cemetery, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

During a two day event held this past spring at Sweet Remembrances Tea Room in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where the Victoriana Lady Lisa was performing her bridal show to commemorate the Royal Wedding, we were advised to visit three cemeteries in the local area that were worth a stop.
One was the Old Graveyard in central Carlisle. It's the final resting place of the Revolutionary War heroine, Mary Ludwig Hays, otherwise known as - Molly Pitcher. The second stop was a very small cemetery on someone’s farmland; in other words, private property. That said, and despite a sign that states - "Private Property" - the cemetery seemed to be open to visitors…I think? There were flags and a dedication stone so it seemed reasonable that one more person, me, would not attract much attention.

It is called the Upper Allen Freed Slave Cemetery, more widely known as the Lincoln Cemetery, in Mechanicsburg. The remains of twelve Civil War soldiers are counted among its residents. (I'll write about this one shortly)
Now the third was in Carlisle again, and it's called the Carlisle Indian School Cemetery. And that’s all we knew. Well, that’s not totally true. We knew it was along the road – E. North Street. With that in mind we eagerly proceeded to and through Carlisle. Having finally discovered E. North Street, we continued in the direction of a road sign that mentioned a ‘Carlisle Barracks’?

It was just a hunch, so went in the direction the sign told us to go. Lisa and I were so focused on the first 50 feet of properties to either side, a tornado could have been coming our way and we would not have noticed. “The cemetery is along the side of the road…” kept ringing in our heads, so that's where we looked. There was no deviation.

Anyway, just a blip in the corner of my eye, off in the distance I noticed the classic signature of a cemetery…gravestones!  Pretty little military styled white stones all in a number of rows. I wasn’t quite sure as to why they were of military design but that little detail didn’t matter. If it is the place we seek, then that’s just great! If not, we were going to stop and scout this little roadside pocket cemetery anyway. Up ahead, just before the cemetery was a left turn, and a drive that seemed to take us onto the property. Just behind the cemetery was an Agway, so this must be a shopping center of sorts we thought. Lisa made the left turn onto Jim Thorpe Road. Jim Thorpe was a Native American - so far so good - and merrily we went our way.

That was until steel barriers lifted from the road surface just in front of us; military police sirens blasted from many locations all around us, and a somewhat angry looking guy in military fatigues screaming from behind…”STOP!”
OK, so who knew that ‘Carlisle Barracks’ meant military barracks, and that this was a military base, and home to the United States Army War College. A minor detail erased from the original conversation. And this government could certainly afford to make that ‘no left turn’ sign on the main road just a little bigger. Well, the young man in fatigues softened his expression when Lisa finally explained to him that we were there to see, and photograph, the cemetery. He told us that, “this happens all the time.” 

Be that as it may, we were escorted to the security office across E. North St. for inspection purposes before being released. We were then permitted to photograph the cemetery but, expressed in no uncertain terms, we were not allowed to photograph the military grounds, especially those transformer looking barricades on the road leading in to the base. “No problem General…no barricades.”

Upon leaving the security area, we were freely permitted entrance to the base, though under the scrutiny of the military police that parked just outside the cemetery area.

Now for a little bit about the Carlisle Indian School Cemetery.  In1879, permission was secured by Richard Henry Pratt to use a deserted military base as the site of his school of Indian indoctrination. Carlisle Barracks in central Pennsylvania was chosen. Pratt spent eight years (1867-1875) in Indian Territory as an officer of the 10th Cavalry, commanding a unit of African American "Buffalo Soldiers" and Indian Scouts. He wasn’t a bad guy. He truly did care about the deplorable conditions that the Native Americans had to endure and fought bitterly with the BIA(Bureau of Indian Affairs). But he was only one of a few that did, and he only understood it as only a white man could in the late 19^th C.; the Indian could only be saved by indoctrinating them into the white man’s society. 

Pratt was driven by his strong desire to see the Indian become an imitation of the white man.

In September of 1879, just 3 years after the Battle of Greasy Plain(Custer’s Last Stand), Pratt traveled west to speak personally with the heads of the Indian Nations. He arrived at Rosebud first to meet with Spotted Tail, Milk, Two Strike and White Thunder. At first they were reluctant but, later, one by one they surrendered their children to this man they knew very little about. The one thing that this man that they knew little of made clear was that no matter what happened, the white man would keep coming and coming.

Once back with his first group of students, Pratt set about lobbying anyone and everyone to support his Carlisle Indian School. He was a determined man in his effort to save the Indian, and finally bring an end to the ‘Indian Problem’. At the school, the students, in addition to the academic and industrial programs, music and art classes were taught at Carlisle. Each child was given a haircut & uniform. The school did have its critics. One of Carlisle’s harshest was Gertude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa), a famous Indian author and artist who once taught at the Carlisle Indian School. She believed that Indian students were capable of, and should be exposed to, higher learning and academic subjects, and should not be limited to vocational training. 

She also disapproved of the military discipline and Christian evangelizing the school imposed on its students. According to Zitkala-Sa, the boarding school system was a “miserable state of cultural dislocation,” that created problems long after the children returned home.

Richard Henry Pratt was relieved of his duty at the school in 1904. From that point on his strict disciplinary ideals were relaxed.

It was sorrowfully discovered that along with all the other programs offered and buildings needed, it was also necessary to have a cemetery. Separation anxiety to small pox and tuberculosis – the perils of first contact with Europeans - were just a few of the reasons behind the 192 children buried on the grounds. Many others were sent home immediately upon signs of illness, their fate unknown.

The school finally closed in 1918. It was then used to treat wounded troops returning from the World War I battlefields of Europe.

Before closing, one individual that excelled at the school should be a familiar name too most all of us. His name - Jim Thorpe. Thorpe, having a mother from the Sac tribe who originally named him Bright Path, began his athletic career at Carlisle Indian School in 1904 playing football and running track. He led the Carlisle football team that bought the school nationwide attention. Later on in his career, Thorpe played six years of professional baseball as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves and even holds the decathlon record winning six of ten events at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

For additional reading about the school, please refer to the following webpages:

http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/CarlisleIndianSchool.html

http://home.epix.net/~landis/histry.html

My thanks to both for the knowledge & information used, in part, in this article.

John Thomas Grant – author and photographer

John’s first book - Final Thoughts: Eternal Beauty in Stone - pub. by Schiffer Publishing.

Contact information: jtgrant19@gmail.com

Gallery: www.johnthomasgrant.com