Space as Strategy: The Implementation Architecture of the Federal Indian Boarding School Policy

Abstract

This study explores the history of the United States' Federal Indian Boarding School program from a policy perspective, the architectural design of the early school sites and buildings, and issues in contemporary historic preservation planning regarding management of the system's sites. A review of the history of the Federal Indian Boarding School system documents its origins in federal legislation authorizing partnerships between the US government and private religious organizations to operate schools for the purpose of the civilization of Native children through assimilation. This inquiry traces one line of the history from New England to Hawaiʻi to Virginia to Pennsylvania, documenting the implementation architecture including the administrative logic that informed the organizational structure and the strategic use of the built environment in the evolution of the early schools from experiment to prototype to pilot, enabling the replicability and scalability of the system over time. Analysis of the policies and the use of architectural design as dual implementation strategies yield findings that are used to generate recommendations for contemporary historic preservation approaches contributing to the acknowledgement, documentation, and reconciliation of this history toward the self-determination of Native communities.