Haskell Indian Nations University

Kansas · United States · School

Haskell Institute was built in the 1800s to take Native American children from their families and strip them of their language, dress and religion.

The campus at Lawrence, Kansas dates to the 1800s, when the United States government built Haskell Institute as part of a national policy of forced assimilation.

Native American children were taken from their reservations and sent to schools like this one to be made into white Americans. Their languages, their dress, their names and their religions were taken from them. That is the documented purpose of the institution, stated openly at the time.

Children died at these schools, from disease, from neglect and from the conditions they were held in, and many were buried on or near the grounds. Haskell has its own such ground.

The campus today is a university run for and largely by Native people, which is a genuine reversal, and it is worth stating plainly rather than skipping past.

A very large number of reports have been collected here over the years. This archive is not going to turn them into entertainment. What is buried at Haskell is a chapter of American policy that the country spent a century avoiding, and the people describing what they experience on that campus are frequently descendants of the children it was built for.

FAQ

Where is Haskell Indian Nations University located?

Haskell Indian Nations University is in Kansas, United States.

Image: Gen. Quon / CC0 / Wikimedia Commons