Guide to the Tucson Indian Training School Records

Throughout the nineteenth century, Christian denominations and the United States government worked together to enact their agendas of cultural assimilation, conversion, proselytization, and evangelization upon American Indian/Indigenous peoples. Building upon Reverend Charles H. Cook's proselytization and missionary efforts in Sacaton, Arizona and in the Pima Agency, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Home Missions (BHM) moved to open a contract mission school (a federally supported Christian boarding school) in Tucson, Arizona, targeted at converting "Papago" (Tohono O'odham) and Pima (Akimel O'odham) children to Christianity and assimilating them into white American society. The BHM wrote in its report within the 1889 General Assembly minutes that "It seems to be recognized among all friends of the Indians that religious education is essential to their elevation and that the contract schools, where the Scriptures are taught and studied, and the voice of prayer is daily heard, and where the Government renders assistance in their support, are the best schools for them in existence."1

BHM agents obtained a land grant and a ninety-nine year lease from the Tucson City Council in 1886. The Indian Industrial Training School (later called the Tucson Indian Training School) officially opened at a temporary location in Tucson in early January 1888, then moved to a permanent location later that year. Charles E. Walker, a Tucson resident, was temporary superintendent. Mary Whitaker was one of the first teachers. Walker also sold a forty-two acre lot to the BHM, which was used as the Tucson School's farm. The United States Office of Indian Affairs subsidized per student costs, and the BHM, specifically the Woman's Board/Woman's Executive Committee, covered teachers' salaries, building construction, and other operational costs. This funding structure remained in place until it was dissolved in 1895, with the Tucson School no longer receiving federal subsidies after that time.

There were ten students present on the Tucson School's opening day, with around eighty students enrolled by the end of the year. Students' ages ranged from six to nineteen. Mirroring assimilationist policies at other federal and Christian mission boarding schools, the Tucson School's administrators did not allow students to wear traditional Indigenous clothing or to speak their native languages. Alice H. Record, teacher at the Tucson School and daughter of superintendent James F. Record (1912-1915), wrote, "It was especially hard to dress the new girls, for they were at first embarrassed to wear short dresses."2 Administrators required that students' hair be cut and kept short. Along with religious education and English language instruction, students did manual labor under the guise of learning industrial and vocational skills. Female students did cooking, cleaning, and sewing, while male students did carpentry, farming, and blacksmithing. Student labor kept the Tucson School running from its inception and was also used in the construction of buildings and facilities.

The Tucson School's first official superintendent was Reverend Howard A. Billman, who held the position from 1888 to around 1894. In 1893, Billman was quoted in The Arizona Daily Star describing the purpose of the Tucson School as "… civiliz[ing] the Indian by teaching him the beauty of the blistered hands. Among my own people I used to exhort, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' Now I bear down upon the Indian boys and girls: 'Six days shalt thou labor.'"3 Billman ignored Indigenous cultural norms, traditions, and customs surrounding gender and division of labor, specifically regarding farming. He utilized male students to plow land and harvest crops. Billman also cut students' hair himself.4 Billman's attitude toward the students and their families is documented in an 1894 circular letter in which he wrote, "Formerly our Indians were ... idle, dirty, and almost naked ... More than this, they had no money, and were hungry often, and always wretched." Commenting further in the same circular letter on the assimilation of the students, he said, "We have thrown ourselves into it with all our strength … The long hair, and dirt, and idleness are beginning to disappear from the reservation ...."5

Billman's successor was Reverend Frazier S. Herndon, who held the position from 1895 to 1903 but had been at the Tucson School since 1893. In a 1900 circular letter, Herndon wrote, "The time was when the education of our Indians would have been classed among the impossibilities, but the attitude of our people has changed. I think the progress which has been made warrants the statement that the red man of the South-west is as susceptible to our Caucasian civilization as was the Briton to Roman culture and refinement. Industrial training must go hand in hand with the intellectual. 'Help to self help is the only true help.'"6 In the same circular letter, Herndon mentions that the Tucson School benefited monetarily from student labor, with "the boys engag[ing] in outside work" and "grading a street of the city," for which the Tucson School received eight hundred dollars.

Charles Cook visited the Tucson School during Herndon's tenure. Describing his visit in a 1901 writing, Cook commented on the Tohono O'odham: "Many Papagoes would like a religion which will permit them to steal, gamble and live according to their old, sinful ways, just like the Pima some twenty years ago ... A large and influential class of them belong to the medicine element; others try to eke out a living by gambling, and other evil practices and they do all they can to keep their people in darkness."7

In 1902, the Tucson School saw its first graduating class of four students, though graded coursework had only been implemented two years prior. The first Tohono O'odham student to graduate was Jose Xavier Pablo, who had entered the Tucson School in 1894 at eight years old and graduated in 1903.8

In 1906, an 8-year-old Pima (Akimel O'odham) student named Annie Moore enrolled at the Tucson School. "We were not allowed to speak the Pima tongue at school," Moore wrote in her 1974 autobiography "A Pima Past."9 "Some students would report on those who spoke in Indian, and as a punishment our mouths would be taped." Moore wrote fondly about her year at the school, despite recounting harsh discipline and obvious acts of cruelty by staff. "Do the children get whipped?" Moore asked May Enos, a fellow student she met aboard the train to the school. "When they are naughty," May answered. A lack of funds to provide everyday comforts was evident as early as 1906: "In the winter our hands became chapped and painful. Instead of the ko'owi gihgi (rattlesnake fat) or Vaseline that mother had used, they gave us a can of lard for our hands. I later learned that the school was doing its best on a very slim budget."

During the superintendency of Haddington C. Brown (1903-1909) in 1907, the BHM purchased the George C. Kohler ranch of one hundred and sixty acres, located three miles south of Tucson along the Santa Cruz River. The Tucson School moved to this location, and a post office opened on the campus. After that, the Tucson School and its new location were commonly referred to as Escuela.

Following Brown were the short superintendencies of Jarvis B. Lawrence (1909-1910), John B. Robe (1910-1912), and James F. Record (1912-1915). Martin L. Girton held the position from 1915 to 1941. By this time, the student population was made up of more than just Tohono O'odham and Pima (Akimel O'odham) students. A 1938 letter from Tucson School staff reported that "This year twelve tribes are represented: Papago, Pima, Maricopa, Mono, Yaqui, Kickapoo, Hopi, Navajo, Mojave, Apache, Zuni, Walapai. These students come from Arizona, California, Mexico, and Oklahoma. They come to seek learning and go back to their homes enriched in mind and spirit."10 Under Girton's tenure, a critical water supply problem was resolved. After his arrival at the school, severe flooding of the Santa Cruz River damaged the motor of the school's farm well. To avert a cave in, the well was dug out and replaced almost entirely by student labor.

John E. King, former superintendent of the Presbyterian-run Dwight Indian Training School in Marble City, Oklahoma, was superintendent from 1941 to 1943, followed by Leslie M. Cronk from 1943 to 1944. In 1942, Johnson McAfee, a Pima (Akimel O'odham) graduate of the Tucson School, entered the University of Arizona upon the recommendation of Cronk. In a 1942 letter, King wrote about the intentions behind this arrangement: "This step will help our prestige on the reservations considerably. A number of reservation parents ask us frequently why we do not change our program to include certain required subjects such as algebra and geometry so that their children might go on to higher education. We are happy that our more gifted youngsters will be able to go on to further study without our having to include subjects in our program which would not be of great value to the majority of our pupils."11 Questions about the quality of boarding school education for Indigenous students had already been brought forward in the 1928 Meriam Report. Passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act also encouraged public school attendance for Indigenous children and established elementary schools on reservations.

Anna E. Falls, previously a teacher and principal at the Ganado Mission, was superintendent until her death in 1945. Joseph A. Poncel, former principal of the Allison-James School in Santa Fe, was superintendent from 1945 to 1949.

The Tucson School's last superintendent was William D. Hennessy, Jr., who held the position from 1950 to 1960. Around 1952, Hennessey sought to make several changes to school operations, including shifting the Tucson School's main focus to be a hostel-type residence for out of district students to attend accredited public schools.12 These changes were in full effect by 1957, when the Tucson School discontinued senior high school classes and only high school preparation classes for seventh and eighth graders remained. Most students living on the Tucson School's campus were attending Pueblo High School at that time.

Hennessey's tenure as superintendent exacerbated pre-existing problems of the Tucson School. Staff complained about lack of leadership or a well-defined school mission. A recurrent concern was an increasing need to address "delinquency" among students, rather than teaching and promoting Christian leadership. Some parents favored enrolling their children in non-segregated public schools instead to receive a better education. Both staff and parents accused Hennessey of making no effort to foster relationships with the Indigenous communities.

In 1960, the Board of National Missions (BNM), the successor body of the BHM, decided to close the Tucson School. In a statement, the BNM outlined its reasons for the closure: "Tucson Indian Training School has had limited classroom responsibilities for the past three years. Under a program begun in September, 1957, fifty of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders are boarded on the mission campus. It sends these youngsters to nearby integrated Pueblo High School. About fifteen junior highs attend classes at the mission … Christian stewardship of resources again cast the deciding ballot for closing the Tucson program. The mission buildings, constructed in the days when the school had an enrollment of about 150 youngsters, are not suited for the present small boarding operation … The public school tuition fee, which the Board of National Missions pays for each of its students, is extremely high."13 The Tucson School was demolished in 1964.

Bibliography/Works Cited

1Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1889. Reports of the Boards. Board of Home Missions. Page 15. Call number REF BX 8951 .A3. Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS).

2Record, Alice H. "A First Week at the Tucson Indian Training School." (New York : Woman's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1915). Call number E 97.6.T56 R43 1915. PHS.

3"Educating the Young Indians. What is Being Done in the Arizona Schools." (1893, April 23) "Arizona Daily Star," accessed from Newspapers.com World Collection.

4"Howard Billman and the Tucson Indian School, 1888-1894." Jere' Franco. "The Social Science Journal." Vol. 26, No. 2. Pages 147, 149. 1989.

5United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Mission Development Records, RG 301.7, PHS. Box 7, Folder 46. 1894, September 6 circular letter.

6Ibid. Box 7, Folder 44. 1900, February 16 circular letter.

7Ibid. Box 7, Folder 44. 1901, January 8 typewritten letter.

8Tucson Indian Training School Records, RG 103, PHS. Box 10, Folder 6. Page 75 of register.

9Shaw, Anna Moore. "A Pima Past." (Tucson : University of Arizona Press, 1974). Call number E 99.P6 S52 1974. PHS.

10United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Mission Development Records, RG 301.7, PHS. Box 7, Folder 44. 1938, November 10 letter from Reed to Foss.

11Ibid. Box 7, Folder 44. 1942, October 14 letter from King to Voss.

12Ibid. Box 7, Folder 44. 1952, April 18 letter from Hennessy to Gladfelter.

13Tucson Indian Training School Records, RG 103, PHS. Box 1, Folder 35. 1960 statement.