Inside the Tulalip Indian School
A rare 1883 report on the daily operations, hardships, and boarding school labor practices at the Tulalip reservation.
Agent Edwin Eells has just been here on his quarterly trip round the reservations, paying off employees and securing supplies. At Tulalip, where the agent has headquarters for all Indians on the Sound, the school is the chief concern. Six Sisters conduct the school under a contract arranged in the East. The boys and girls are taught in separate rooms; one sister serves as cook, a fourth as seamstress, and the fifth as music teacher. The Mother Superior has charge of everything from supplies to the control of the boys. Four and a half sacks of flour are used daily, and at the time of visitation, 400 salmon were being cleaned and salted by the schoolboys. Enrollment is eighty, nearly equally divided between boys and girls. The government farms still needed for Indian schools have about 40 acres each.
“At the time of visitation 400 salmon were being cleaned and salted by the schoolboys.”
This report provides a glimpse into the federal 'boarding school' policy, a system aimed at the systematic cultural assimilation of Indigenous children. The reference to children salting 400 salmon illustrates the manual labor that defined these institutions, which are now widely recognized for the trauma they inflicted on generations of Coast Salish families.
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