Catholic Sisters, Narratives of Authority, and the Native American Boarding Schools, 1847-1918 - by Elisabeth C Davis (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book examines Catholic Native American Boarding Schools run by Catholic Sisters between 1847 and 1918. Using previously unexplored archival material, Elisabeth C. Davis examines how Catholic Sisters established authority over their students and the local indigenous community.

Book Synopsis

This book examines Catholic Native American Boarding Schools run by Catholic Sisters between 1847 and 1918. Using previously unexplored archival material, Elisabeth C. Davis examines how Catholic Sisters established authority over their students and the local indigenous community.

Review Quotes

An astute study of how Catholic sisters worked to assimilate Indigenous children to white culture, Elisabeth C. Davis walks readers through the sistersrsquo; tactics for assimilation, their challenges, their reliance upon their religious authority, and how they measured successful assimilation. Her careful investigation of the sistersrsquo; archives at a handful of mission sites allows her to tell a story that is both compassionate and critical of these women religious and the part they played in American imperialism. Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as an educated general readership, Davis has done the field a great service. This is a historiographical intervention that calls for more scholarship on Catholic sisters and colonialism in American history.

As indicated by its title, this study by Elisabeth C. Davis spotlights the hitherto little-explored history of Catholic Sisters in conducting Native American boarding schools. Rather than attempting a comprehensive survey of the more than seventy boarding schools run by women religious, Davis sensibly focuses on four case-studies from the mid-nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth century: the Sisters of Lorettorsquo;s Osage Missions in Kansas; the Sisters of the Holy Child of Jesus work with the Ojibwe nation in Avoca, Minnesota; the Sisters of St. Francis Pawhuska Mission to the Osage in Oklahoma; and the Sisters of St. Joseph school for the Quechan at Fort Yuma, California. A key strength of this work is the authorrsquo;s voluminous primary research in church and convent archives, federal bureaucratic records, and contemporary newspapers, matched by an impressive command of the published historiography. Not only illuminating a neglected aspect of a timely topic, Davisrsquo;s volume invites further scholarly research in the field.

About the Author

Elisabeth C. Davis is assistant professor of history at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.