#4: Chickasaw, Choctaw & Creek

The call for orphanages for the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek paralleled the stories of the Seneca and Cherokee – Civil War, forced removal, and disease.  Each nation, considered members of the Five Civilized Tribes, found that they were not immune to the government’s compulsory removal from their native lands.  Determined as a nation, each tribe made it their business to tend to their own orphaned children.  If a family member could not care for the orphaned, half-orphaned, or destitute child the institutional orphanages would. 
                                                                                                                        
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The nature of the orphanages were the same as most others in the nation during that time.  The curriculum focused on an English speaking emphasis that supported reading, writing, arithmetic, sciences and vocational trades.  Most children, if not adopted or taken in by a family member “graduated” from the orphanages.  Girls left at the age of 16 and boys left at the age of 18. 

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Through the Dawes Act individuals who were eligible for the allocation of property were awarded land, this included orphaned children.   Allotment rolls were made public, and for the shysters, they turned their attention to find the orphaned children and then become their court-appointed guardian. Most of these children did get the opportunity to be equal owners of their estates, in most events; the children were seen as a link to a valuable commodity leading to financial gain rather than be cared for by a loving adult.   

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It would be hard pressed to not admit the sadness that I felt as I read the accounts of orphaned children being used by adults for monetary gain.  The children, relying so heavily upon those around them – to care and to love them, but instead finding themselves being neglected and in some cases treated as indentured servants upon their own property.