St. Joseph's Indian Normal School is a former school for American Indians in Rensselaer, Indiana. The school building is now known as Drexel Hall and part of the Saint Joseph's College campus. Boarding schools were believed to be the best way to assimilate them into the white culture.[2] The school lasted from 1888 to 1896 and was funded by the U.S. government and Catholic missionaries. It was believed that this was the best way to "civilize" Native Americans and the western territories.[2] Established by the Catholic Indian Missions with funding from St. Katharine Drexel, the school taught 60 Indian children. The Society of Precious Blood operated the school during its years of operation. The students were all boys.[3] When the Indian School was closed, the building was named Drexel Hall. It is one of the first structures of Saint Joseph's College.[2]
The Indian school was essentially a red brick structure with the ground floor surrounded with a sandstone wall. It was built in a square, 80 feet (24m) on each side. The square courtyard in the center, it being around 30 feet (9.1m) on each side. Each wing had four floors with the east wing only three floors high. The roof was red tiles. The main entrance was on the west. It was owned by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions in Washington, D.C.[4] Its architecture would later serve as an inspiration for the St. Boniface Indian School in California.[5]
It was a boarding school for Indian boys with space for 70 boys, their classrooms, playroom, dormitory, kitchen, a small chapel, rooms for the superintendent and a teacher or two and for around six Sisters (nuns) who ran the kitchen.[4] An inspector's report said there were 29 rooms in all. Although the building served as an Indian school for only eight years (1888–1896), it was not changed or altered until 1937 when it was remodeled to serve as a residence hall for Saint Joseph's College. Only the bell tower was removed along with the shutters from the windows. On the inside, it was altered.[4] The courtyard was made smaller to allow an extra row of rooms.[4] Drexel Hall later housed some offices of Saint Joseph's College, before and after the college announced a suspension of operations in 2017.
History
Father Joseph Stephan, the Director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, wrote to Katharine Drexel on December 8, 1887, to suggest opening a mission school in Indiana. Later letters exchanged in March 1888 show the two discussing building plans and government contracts to support the school.[6] Katharine Drexel would provide approximately $50,000 towards the purchase of land and construction of Saint Joseph's.[7] The land for the school was previously part of the land that made up the former orphanage operated by the Diocese of Fort Wayne known as Spitler Farm.[8] Stephan's motives for the school were strongly religious, seeking to establish a network of Catholic schools to compete with the growing influence of Protestant Indian mission schools at the time. Mission schools were used as a tool to gain more converts, as they provided not only practical skills but religious education in their respective faiths as well.[9] Pupils were also educated in the hopes that they would return home and convert other members of their tribe.[10]
The first group of students came in 1888.[11] The school opened in September, initially headed by Father George Willard, then vice-director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, until the Society of the Precious Blood based in Carthagena, Ohio took over the management, an arrangement which would continue until its closure.[12][13][8]
Waning government support for contract schools negatively affected St. Joseph. In September 1895, the school was forced to collect 40 students without any government funding, relying on donations from Drexel to support filling its quota.[14] Federal funding was withdrawn in 1895 over St. Joseph's expensive travel costs. The high costs were due to the school's considerable distance from the Indian reservations where its pool of students were pulled from.[15]
After its closure in 1896, the building for a while became home to a printing press and was known as the Collegeville Printing Plant. It was also sometimes known as the Messenger Printing Plant, due to the Catholic monthly devotional magazine Messenger of the Spiritual Benevolent Fraternity (parallel German editions were printed under the name der Botschafter des Deutschen Wohltaetigkeits Vereins) being printed there until 1922.[16] Other papers printed, edited, and published there were the Young Crusader and the St. Joseph's Collegian.[8]
Religious factors
Stephan's motives for the school were strongly religious, seeking to establish a network of Catholic schools to compete with the growing influence of Protestant Indian mission schools at the time. Mission schools were used as a tool to gain more converts, as they provided not only practical skills but religious education in their respective faiths as well.[9] Pupils were also educated in the hopes that they would return home and convert other members of their tribe.[10] St. Joseph's was founded with the intention of acting as a central normal Indian school within a larger network of other similar Catholic contract schools.[9] In Indian territories Catholics and Protestants competed fiercely for student recruits, with both sides accusing the other of using illegal methods, corruption, and coercion during the recruitment process.[17]
Religious divisions existed between both Catholic and Protestants as well as between different Catholic sects competing for territory and influence. During discussions between Stephan and the Society of the Precious Blood over management of the school, Provincial Henry Drees strongly opposed inviting the Benedictines into an area that the Society had already settled. His protests in letters to George Willard ensured the area was left under the sole jurisdiction of the Society of the Precious Blood.[12]
Constant tensions between Catholic institutions and the U.S. Government would complicate St. Joseph's history and eventually lead to its closure. The number of contract school agencies allotted to a religious order was to be decided based on their history of mission work. Out of 13 denominations operating 73 agencies, Catholics were allotted only 7 agencies, despite the Church's extensive history operating missions.[18] Father Stephan would aggressively advocate for the existing contract schools, going on to claim nearly two-thirds of all money for contract schools in 1892. Eighteen Catholic contract schools received $39,175 in 1883, and Stephan's efforts increased this amount to $395,756 for sixty schools in 1892. This monopolization turned Protestants against the contract school system, and instead they began favoring strictly government-ran schools.[19]
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