An Experiment Aborted: Returned Indian Students in the Indian School Service, 1881-1908

This article examines a neglected dimension of the interaction between the United States and Indians during the assimilationist era. Indians, primarily alumni of nonreservation boarding schools, comprised 45 percent of the United States Indian School Service in 1899. Archival and published records reveal that their employment was an important but short-lived component of United States Indian policy. Records of the first generation of Indian alumni of Hampton Institute allow insight into the motivation and experience of the Indian employees. By reviewing this episode, the study sheds new light on the nature and duration of assimilationist policy and the ways in which Indian peoples approached and influenced it.