"The story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School begins with a brief introduction to its founder. Richard Henry Pratt spent eight years (1867-1875) in Indian Territory as an officer of the 10th Cavalry, commanding a unit of African American "Buffalo Soldiers" and Indian Scouts. During this time, he was stationed at Ft. Sill, OK, 60 miles east of the site of the Battle of the Washita where Black Kettle (Cheyenne) was killed in 1867.

Pratt came into contact with Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho who had been placed on reservations in the area of the Red River near what is now the Texas and Oklahoma borders. He, his scouts and freed slave soldiers, participated in the many campaigns to keep the Indians on the reservations and away from the encroaching settlers. But Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors continued with their raiding parties in search of game and buffalo. Scant provisions and lack of supplies on the reservations made it impossible for the Indian people to thrive, forcing such raids.

Constant complaints about inadequate government rations brought no relief. After filing numerous reports describing rancid beef, inferior and diseased livestock, poor grains and lack of provisions, Pratt developed a distrust and loathing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) which endured throughout his military service. This deep hostility began while he was administering supplies on the reservations and eventually led to his resignation as the superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School in 1904.

Frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to 'bring in' the most recalcitrant of the 'hostiles', the United States instituted a plan to incarcerate them. In April, 1875, seventy-two warriors from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo Nations, were rounded up for exile to St. Augustine, Florida. There they would be held hostage in exchange for the ransom of the good behavior of their kinfolk with Richard Henry Pratt as their jailer. These men were shackled and transported by rail to Ft. Marion Prison far from their homelands to a hot, humid climate unfamiliar to them.

Shortly after their arrival, Pratt removed the prisoners' shackles, cut their hair and issued them military uniforms. The Indians were expected to polish their buttons and shoes and clean and press their trousers. After a time, they were organized into companies and given instruction in military drill. Eventually, their military guards were dismissed and several of the most trusted Indian prisoners were chosen to serve as guards.

Local women, curious about these prisoners, volunteered to teach them to read in exchange for archery lessons. The Indians were given art supplies to illustrate on paper, their early days as buffalo hunters. With colored pencils, they drew many beautiful pictographic ledger drawings, over a thousand of which survive today. They collected, polished, and sold sea beans as trinkets. They were eventually given the freedom to leave the fort and some found employment as laborers in the neighboring communities.

St. Augustine in the 1870's was the vacation spot of choice for New Englanders traveling by steamboat down the East Coast. Here Pratt came in contact with several benefactors who expressed an interest in the welfare of the Indians who were beginning to resemble white men. During this era, Pratt's philosophy of Indian education began to take shape.

The Indian Reformers who were predominantly Quakers and missionaries began to explore ways to 'civilize' the Indians. They were uncomfortable with extermination policies and began to formulate ideas of assimilation. This school of thought appealed to Pratt, who was already experimenting with his Ft. Marion charges. He agreed that to 'civilize' the Indian would be to turn him into a copy of his God-fearing, soil-tilling, white brother. By the end of their term of incarceration (1878), Pratt had convinced 17 prisoners to further their education by enrolling in the Hampton Institute in Virginia.

Hampton had been founded in 1868 by Samuel Chapman Armstrong. It was a government boarding school for African-American children designed to educate by training "the head, the hand, and the heart". Its goal was to train and return them to their communities to become leaders and professionals among their people. This fit Pratt's developing philosophies about assimilation, with the exception of returning to community. He began to formulate a model similar to Hampton - but exclusively for Indians.

In an address to a convention of Baptist ministers in 1883 Pratt wrote: "In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indians in our civilization and when we get them under holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked." So Pratt began his aggressive and relentless quest for a school of his own to begin his work. He lobbied Washington; he contacted his wealthy supporters in the East and convinced the powers that be that his experiment would be a success. He would take Indian children from the reservations, remove them to a school far away from tribal influences, and transform them."