The Bureau of Indian Affairs created the first Native American boarding school in 1860 on the Yakima (now Yakama) Indian Reservation in Yakama, Washington. Shortly afterward in 1879, Congress established the first off-reservation, Native American boarding school — the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The goal of these boarding schools, and many others, was to force Native Americans to assimilate into mainstream culture — to adopt a mid-19th century Protestant ideology...