Foundation of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa: A History of Education on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation In the Post Boarding School Era

Abstract

This project looks at the changes in education during the post boarding school era on the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Reservation in Northern Wisconsin. The project focuses on four schools: St. Francis Solanus Indian Mission School, Kinnamon School, Hunter (New Post) School, and the Whitefish School. The project examines the schools' origins, the reactions to the schools by the tribe and neighboring community, the schools' successes and failures, and how the progression of the schools fit in with the national education plans of the public schools and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Eight students of the schools studied in the project have been interviewed on reflection of their experiences in the schools. The project highlights the value of education by the Lac Courte Oreilles peoples was a predominant factor in the tribe's successes of the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, into today. As part of the research for this project, St. Francis and Kinnamon school records were attained, general correspondences to the State Superintendent of Wisconsin Schools were reviewed, and from the Bureau of Indian Affairs archives in Chicago several correspondences pertaining to education on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation were studied. The project includes an area map.