University of Nebraska - Lincoln

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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

1987

Acculturation By Design: Architectural

Determinism and The Montana Indian
Reservations, 1870-1930
Carroll Van West
Middle Tennessee State University, carroll.west@mtsu.edu

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West, Carroll Van, "Acculturation By Design: Architectural Determinism and The Montana Indian Reservations, 1870-1930" (1987).
Great Plains Quarterly. 325.
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ACCULTURATION BY DESIGN
ARCHITECTURAL DETERMINISM AND THE MONTANA
INDIAN RESERVATIONS, 1870-1930
CARROLL VAN WEST
Everything the Power of the World docs is
done in a circle. The ,ky is round like a hall,
and [ have heard that the earth is round
like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind
in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make
their nests in circles, for theirs i, the same
religion ;1S ours. The sun comes forth and
goes down again in a circle. The moon docs
the same, and hoth arc round. Even the
seasons form a great ,"ircle from childhood
to childhood, and so it is in everything
where power moves. Our teepees were
round like the nests of birds, and these were
always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a
nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit
meant for us to hatch our children. But the
Wasichus have put us in these square
boxes.-Rlack Elk Speaks
Carroll Van West is an assistant professor at the
Center for Historic PreserWltion, Middle Tennes-
see State Universit:v, and sen'cs as historicLlI
landscapes consultant for Montana: The Mag-
azine of the West. He is the author of A
Travelor's Comp~ll1ion to Montana History
(1982).
[CPQ 7 (Spring IlJ(7): ')]I02J
91
This interpretation of the meaning of space
and structure in traditional plains culture cuts
right to the heart of the struggle over cultural
assimilation on the northern Plains in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Black Elk's words do more than underscore
the different cultural values of the plains
people; as verbal evidence of the architectural
orientation of past plains culture, they remind
us that the introduction of squared and
rectangular structures on the landscape was a
disturbing intrusion to the shape of the built
environment as envisioned hy plains people.
[n their studies of the acculturation process
on the northern Plains, scholars have rarely
looked at the architecture of the reservation
missions, designed and constructed by well-
intentioned missionaries and often funded by
federal dollars. The buildings and structures
that constituted the early missions, however,
were significant weapons in the struggle to
"civilize" the Native American. For many
Indian reformers, the adoption of new con-
cepts of space, huilding form, and building
arrangement hecame an important test of the
willingness and ability of the Plains Indian to
accept the gifts of a "superior" culture.'
A close look at the built environment of
92 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1987
the Blackfeet missions of the late nineteenth
century and of the Northern Cheyenne vil-
lages laid out in the early twentieth century
shows how the Jesuits and then federal officials
hoped to use deliberately designed space to
prepare the Montana Indians for the world
outside the reservation. This overview also
uncovers how changing perceptions about the
ultimate fate of the Plains Indians often
determined the designed environments the
Indians faced.
THE BLACKFEET MISSIONS
Jesuit priests, led by Pierre DeSmet, pros-
elytized among the native peoples of present-
day Montana as early as the mid-nineteenth
century, and their efforts among the Flathead
and other Salish people met with substantial
success. The Jesuits' experience with the Black-
feet, however, was another matter. The priests
believed that converting this northern plains
tribe to Christianity would be extremely
difficult. DeSmet wrote that the Blackfeet "are
the most treacherous and wily set of savages
among all the nations of the American desert."
To reverse the intransigence of the Blackfeet,
DeSmet and the Jesuits turned to an accultu-
ration strategy that had already proven suc-
cessful in South America. They adopted a
process of education, conversion, and assimila-
tion that scholars describe as the Paraguay
Reduction System. 2
In Paraguay, the Jesuits' program for con-
verting the native was grounded in a deliberate
arrangement of space. A central feature of the
Paraguay system was the mission compound,
where the Indians would live and work on a
year-round basis, continually supervised by
the priests and physically segregated from the
influence of traditional native culture. Here,
placed in a setting of enclosed workshops,
fenced-in fields, barns, dormitories, and cere-
monial buildings, the Jesuits could constantly
indoctrinate the Indians, both in the class-
room and through the physical constraints of
the built environment. If the Indians were
exposed to a more constrained sense of space,
the Jesuits assumed, then eventually they
would be eased into a more sedentary, agricul-
tural culture. 1
What the Jesuits attempted in Paraguay
was not new. For centuries reformers have
tried to manipulate the built environment in
order to encourage the correct behavior dic-
tated by the dominant cultural values of the
age. In our own time, "model" housing proj-
ects can be found in our larger cities. When
they were opened for occupation, reformers,
politicians, and the press praised these new
buildings as a quick-fix design to end urban
plight and poverty. A different arrangement of
space, they assumed, would uplift the aspi-
rations of the slum dwellers and soon lead to
new and more socially acceptable patterns of
behavior. But too many of these carefully
planned built environments, complete with
parks and recreation areas, become the slums
of a new generation.'
Why do these projects so often fail? One
important reason lies in the assumptions of
their designers, who have believed that a
properly planned environment would over-
whelm the occupants' cultural legacy and help
them behave in more socially acceptable ways.
This belief, in effect, amounts to "architectural
determinism," a variation of environmental
determinism. In the history of the built
environment of the Native American reserva-
tions on the northern Plains, architectural
determinism is a constant. It helps to explain
why missionaries and reservation officials
encouraged (or even ordered) the Indians to
exchange their tipis for square dwellings, to
live in the same place on a permanent basis,
and to worship in church buildings rather
than practice "heathen" services in open
structures such as the medicine lodge. Many
reformers believed that if Native Americans
would merely live like white people-by resid-
ing in a house that stood on a village street-
they would take a giant step towards their
assimilation into the "human race."5
Faith in the power of the environment to
transform a people's culture helps to explain
the optimism of late nineteenth-century Indian

reformers who belie\Td th::n the Indians clluld
be fully assimilated. Scholars such as Lewis
Morgan, John \\'esle\' Powell, and, later, Otis
T. \lason, along with the reformers Alice
Fletcher and Thomas J. }Y1organ, stressed the
importance of environment as a cultural
determinant. The l\:ative Americans, in the
\·iew of many American intellectuals, behaved
like "sa\'ages" because their environment dic-
tated such a way of life. This view combined
with the Peace Policy of the Grant administra-
tion and initiatives in Indian education to
introduce a new approach to Indian affairs,
one based on the assumption that the Indians
possessed untapped intellectual potential that,
once unleashed in the confines of the proper
environment, would allow them to evolve into
acculturated members of society.'
Pierre DeSmet's adaptation of the Paraguay
Reduction System to the Blackfeet reservation
was a classic example of architectural deter-
minism, as envisioned and practiced in nine-
teenth-century America. DeSmet's initial
acculturation strategy became the basic Jesuit
blueprint for their Montana missions. His faith
in the transforming power of the built en\'iron-
ment, hO\\'ever, was not put into practice until
the 1870s, when the Catholic Church adopted
more aggressive education programs, largely in
reaction to Protestant gains among the Indians
during Grant's Peace Policy and to the federal
government's renewed interest in Indian edu-
cation. Over the next generation, the Jesuits
on the Blackfeet resen'ation, in hopes of
uplifting the Indians to civilization, established
a built em'ironment that introduced radical
changes in that reservation's landscape.
In 1874, the Catholic Church established
the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, a step
that marked "a new surge in Catholic activity"
in \10ntana and throughout the country.
That year, the Jesuits permanently established
St. Peter's \lission among the Blackfeet. But
also in 1874, the federal government relocated
the southern boundarv of the Blackfeet reser-
vation about sixty miles to the north, isolating
the Jesuits from the center of the Blackfeet
population and making their missionary efforts
ACCULTURATION BY DESIG)\.' 93
rather difficult. St. Peter's mission began with
rudimentary facilities, which primarily served
the twenty-five Canadian me'tis families living
in the vicinity. The chapel was a one-story
rectangular, hand-hewn log building, which
the priests soon expanded with a log addition
that roughly doubled its size. For their resi-
dences, the priests also constructed several
unadorned log cabins, attaching them to the
west end of the expanded chapel and creating
an L-shaped mission complex with courtyard.'
In 1882 the Jesuits separated the log cabins
from the chapel and attached a clapboard
residence for the priests and male students to
the west end of the chapel. They also placed a
free-standing clapboard bell tower at the right
angle where the new residence and chapel met.
In December 1883, Louis Riel became the
mission's teacher, and his first twenty-two
students were almost exclusively me'tis. 1
In June 1884, Riel left St. Peter's to assume
the leadership of the me'tis community of the
Canadian Plains. That October, five Ursuline
nuns arrived at the mission and changed the
direction of its educational program. In 1885
the sisters opened the St. Peter's Industrial
School for Girls with eleven Blackfeet stu-
dents.'"
The establishment of a boarding school
reflected not only the influence of Jesuit
tradition but also mirrored a common assump-
tion of missionaries, Indian reformers, and
educators. As the federal Indian school super-
intendent remarked in 1886, "Only by com-
plete isolation of the Indian child from his
savage antecedents can he satisfactorily be
educated." Federal policy in the mid-1880s
strongly supported boarding school programs
for the Native Americans. This endorsement
largely resulted from the success of Richard
Henry Pratt's Carlisle Indian School, where
students were sent from the western reserva-
tions for a crash course in "civilization."I!
At the boarding schools the children
would be taught the industrial, agricultural,
and domestic skills appropriate for their sex
and future place in society. In Montana the
Jesuits desired to establish an environment
94 GREAT PLAIl' S QLA.RTERLY, SPRI:'\JG 19S i
that wo uld uplift the Indi ans and, by co mbin-
ing the proper en vironm ent with a broad
educ ation, the priests h oped to sh o\\' the
Blackfeet "the white man's road" to civili:a-
tion. They also planned for the boarding
school experience to infiltr ate all native cu lture
eventually. Once basic skills h ad been
achieved, a young adult cou ld select a class-
mate as a spouse and th e couple would be
given farmland near the mission. Th ere , the
young couple would serve as a model of Jesuit
success to Indi ans and whites alike, and their
physical proximitv to the missio n \\'ould
protect the converts from the tem p t ation of
native culture. In time, this \'ital community of
acculturated Indians would expand until the
reserv ation's built environment \\'as in har-
mony with Christian values. As Father L. B.
Palladino argued in 1892, the mission boarding
school and the Indian tip i village brough t
"civilization and uncivilizatio n fac e to face-
FIG , 1. PriC5[S re5Wence dnd bO\5 donmto r :. Sf. Petc r's \fi"iw. E,H
\ !onrana H isrorico/ Societ:, Collections ,
the former \\' ith its home and d\\c ll ing, it:::
food, it s indmtrics, it::: manner , i t~ clean l ines~ ,
its field and gard en, it~ st(xk, it:-: ea-;e , it ~
co mfort and its plenn', and the latte r \\'ith the
whole tr ain of it s \\"fetched contrast:;. " Plwsi-
calk separated from nati\e culture, the ,-choob
would force the Indi ans "to see, hear, srnell,
touch, taste, and compare th e b lessings of the
o ne with th e \\"fetchedness of the ot h er." -
By 188 7 enou gh fun ding h ad been secured
through the feder al " co ntract 5chool" program
a nd private sources to allel\\' the Jesuits to
implement full\" th eir mission b lue;,r int. The\"
co nstructed the boys' sc hool and dormiton' , a
large multi storv st one building \\'it h a m ansard
roof and dormer \\'indO\\'s a nd a centraL
square gab le cupola \fig. 1l. H e re the Jesu it5
subjected the pupils to a highl\' ~tru ctured
educational regime. \ lost imtruction took
place \\ ithin the bui ld in g, \\' ith class\\'ork and
lectures in the morning and indus tr ial shop-
Re-:'~:::,

FIG. 2. COn! em Lmel c1orrnitor, , Sr. Pcrer's .\fission. E.H. Reinrg, pho tographer. .\fontana
\\ork in the afternoon. The building co ntained
both a blacksmith and cobb ler shop, together
\\i th areas for t raining in ca rpentr\· ski ll s,
\\here the Blackfeet coul d learn to co nstruct
buildings in the accepted patterns. The Jesuits
also set aside enough space in t h e bui ldin g to
prm'icle sleepin g qu arters and a dinin g room.
1\ 1uch of a t\'pica l da\' for the Blackfeet male at
St. Pet er' s \\'as spent indoors. The bo\'s,
howe\'Cr, did experience so me stru Ctured out-
door act i\it ies. The 1Tlissio n had a ga rden, a
5m 21l stock of ca ttle, and a herd of forty -ei ght
milk co\\s. The bm's had th e respon sibi lit\· of
managing the garden an d li\'estock, so a pan
or each da\' took pl ace in an outdoor setti ng
ca refu lk defined b' fexes, ga te", an d out-
bu ildi ngs.
A large donation of mone\' allo\\'ed the
Lrsuline siste rs to open a girls' sc hool and
dormito ry in 1692 lfi g. 21. Th is ma ssive buil d-
ACCCL TL~RA TIOl\ BY DESIGN 95
ing mixed Queen Anne and Second Empire
detailing in its mansard roof, dormer windows,
a nd cent ral four-sided domed tower. Inside,
the Blackfeet gi rl s le arned d omestic skills such
as se\\'i ng, washing, housecleaning, and cook-
ing. Some students learned h o\\ to bake, with
o ne of the old residence cabins serving as the
baker\'. Like the bovs, the girls slept, ate, and
studied in the sa me building. T o expand the
education al program, the L'rsuline sisters in
1896 bu ilt the "Opera H ouse," \\·here the\'
taught instrumental music, dancing, painting,
wood carving, and embroider\'. Th e O pera
House also had an auditorium for musical
co ncerts.
But in lS96 the federal government began
to ph ase out its suppo rt of sectarian sc h ools
nationwide. The missionary effort at St. Peter's
\\a5 an immediate vict im, and the end of
federal support forced the closing of both the
96 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRINCJ 1987
boys' and girls' schools for Indians. I', The
closing of St. Peter's allowed the Jesuits and
Ursulines to concentrate their missionary
efforts among the Bbckfeet at the Holy Family
Mission, initially estahlished in 1HH6 and
located some one hundred rn.ill's to the north,
well within the reservation's houndaries. The
mission soon represented a second Jesuit
response to the federal policy encour;lgillg
educational efforts, sectarian if need he, on the
Native American reservations. Holy Family's
boarding school dates to 1890, when the
Jesuits opened a two-and-a-half-story wood-
frame ~chool and clormitory, with physically
separate wings for hoys and girls. Five ye;lrs
bter, the Jesuits estahlished a more perm,lI1ent
presence when they huilt an impressive new
boys' school, using sandstone taken from
adjacent river hluf(-; (fig. 3). Like its Ulun-
terparts at St. Peter's, the new school featured
some Second Empire det;liling in its mansard
roof amI dormer windows. In this huilding,
most of the boys' daily ;lctivit ies would t;lke
place. The h;lsement served as a recreat ion
room while t he first floor held t he superior's
office, a classroom, the lihrary-sitting room,
the mission post office, and ;J ch;lpel. ()11 the
second noor, SP;llT W;IS ;ll1ocated for an
additional cbssroom and dormitory rooms for
hoth t he Jesuits and the BLtckfcct hoys. I,
In W9H the Jesuit priests ,md Ursuline
sisters opel led t he new girls' s(hool ;ll1d
dormitory. Also huilt from S<ll1lbtOIlI' hlocks
taken from the river hluffs, t 11l' first floor
contained ;1 classroom, ,1 kitchen, ;md sep:lrate
dining rooms for the priests, Iluns, hoys and

girls. The Ursulines used the second floor for a
chapel, classrooms, and dormitory rooms. I7
Although the two schools and dormitories
largely defined the physical constrictions the
Blackfeet children daily faced at Holy Family,
the children also worked in other segregated
surroundings. Located adjacent to the girls'
school (and finally attached to it in 1937) was
the mission bakery. A large brick oven stood
nearby. The girls also worked in the preserve
cellar, where vegetahles from the mission's
garden were stored. Several outbuildings de-
fined the boys' outdoor work space. In 1892
the priests directed the construction of an
irrigation ditch. The boys tended the cow and
hay barns, the hog and chicken houses, tool
shed, and grain elevator; learned to manage a
herd of between two hundred and four hun-
dred cattle; and milked between two and nine
milk cows. The distinct spheres of work
assigned to the hoys and girls were mirrored in
the mission's arrangement of space. Rarely did
the girls and boys meet each other. Their
educational activities were carefully segregated
into two distinct physical spaces. They ate
dinner in separate rooms; they sat at separate
sides of the chapel; and, with a board fence
and shed defining the recreation area, they
even played in separate physical spaces. I'
The formal architectural detailing found at
both Holy Family and St. Peter's missions was
a significant component of the designed envi-
ronment. Buildings such as the ornate girls'
school at St. Peter's, when compared to the
quite different rustic surroundings, were more
or less visual absurdities. But although clearly
intrusions on the landscape, these buildings
also reflected the idealism of the Catholic
missionary effort. The Jesuits and Ursulines,
along with a significant number of Indian
reformers in the 1880s and 1890s, believed that
there was hope for the IndIans, that they could
be fully assimilated. Their faith in progress
suggested that Indians could emerge as Indian
Americans, full participants in American
society. Education was the key and the proper
learning environment was very important, for
it would convince the Indians, as Father Palla-
ACCULTURATION BY DESIGN 97
dino commented, of the superior beauty,
cleanliness, and comfort of the American way
of life. Consequently, the elaborate, sometimes
even striking, school buildings and dormitories
at both missions had a double "meaning": they
reflected the missionaries' faith in human
progress and their belief in the shaping power
of the environment while, at the same time,
they allegedly convinced Blackfeet children of
the superiority of Christianity and white
civilization.I'l
For the Blackfeet certainly, the missions'
buildings and their architecture represented a
radical alteration in their traditional built
environment. The cultural conflict inherent in
the different ways that Indians and Euroameri-
cans ordered and shaped their environment
helps to explain why the Indians so often
refused to walk the "white man's road." The
tipi was the basic Plains Indian dwelling. Its
size depended on the number in the family,
but on the average, this conical-shaped struc-
ture, made of thin pine poles and buffalo skins,
measured about sixteen feet in diameter and
was large enough to house a family of eight
and their belongings. There were no inside
partitions in a tipi, although the Blackfeet, like
all Plains Indians, carefully delineated space
within the lodge for each family member.
Within the tipi, the family would sleep, eat,
and entertain most visitors-a strikingly differ-
ent spatial arrangement than that of the
mission hoarding schools, where there were
separate rooms for eating and sleeping and the
sexes were segregated.'"
Tipis, in stark contrast to Euroamerican
dwellings, also were very portable structures.
At times, the tipi might stay in one place for
several weeks; at other times, it might be
moved almost every day. This trait of Plains
Indian lifeways made the Euroamerican tradi-
tion of a permanent homesite quite alien. Even
after the establishment of the Montana reser-
vations, the Native Americans preferred to live
in their tip is or wickiups and would sooner use
army tents as dwellings than cabins or frame
houses.'I
That religious ceremonies at the missions
98 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1987
always took place at the enclosed chapel was
another disorienting experience for the Black-
feet. Plains cultures utilized several separate
structures for religious ceremonies, ranging
from the shelters that individuals constructed
for the vision quest to the sweat lodge to the
much more elaborate and communally used
and constructed medicine lodge. Only the
sweat lodge was an entirely closed space."
But the arrangement of work space was
perhaps the most radical aspect of the built
environment that Blackfeet children encoun-
tered at the St. Peter's and Holy Family
missions. The girls discovered that almost all
of their work took place inside the schools and
dormitories or in separate bakeries, wash-
houses, and cellars. The same was true for the
boys, for even those who worked "outside" in
the gardens or with the livestock found their
work space defined by barns, fences, and gates,
and by the amount of land watered by
irrigation ditches. Rather than exploiting
resources in a seasonal pattern, the Blackfeet
children returned to the same workplace day
after day. In terms of Blackfeet notions of
space, the children lived in a very constricted
physical environment at the mission boarding
schools. For the Jesuits and Ursulines who
administered the schools, that confinement
was the natural and desired result of the
boarding school experience.
By the turn of the century, the Blackfeet,
who hated the confined spaces of the boarding
schools no matter how "beautiful" their sur-
roundings were, might have been surprised to
know that many federal officials and Indian
reformers were having doubts about the whole
boarding school program. In 1895 William M.
Moss, reporting to his superiors in Washington
about St. Peter's Mission, sensed the abrupt
and overwhelming changes the Blackfeet faced
at the school's dormitories. He remarked that
"everything here is so very fine and nice that
when [the children] go home the contrast will
be too great for them to bear." This obser-
vation soon became dogma among federal
officials. In an era of budget cutting, officials
questioned why the boarding schools had to
be so attracti\'e when the homes of the \:ati\'\.'
Americans seemed to them so squalid. In l l )O 1
Commissioner of Indi::ll1 Affairs William A,
Jones reported that "the methods of educmion
which ha\'e been pursued for the past genera-
tion have not produced the results anticipat-
ed," and in time he became con\'inced that the
primary culprit was the boarding school. As
Jones observed in 1904, boarding schools
wasted money because they were grounded in
"the fallacious idea of 'bringing the Indian into
civilization and keeping him there.''' How
could the schools succeed, wondered Jones,
when they taught the Indian "that his resen'a-
tion home is a hell on earth," but a hell to
which "inevitably he must and does return."
Jones was not alone in his criticism of the
nation's boarding schools, Congressman
Theodore Burton with unconscious irony
reminded his colleagues that the true Ameri-
can boy "loves to spend his time in the clear
sunlight and is not penned up within the walls
of a boarding school. . , .If we do our duty to
the Indian we will give something of the
selfsame reliance." By 1904, Richard Pratt had
closed Carlisle; a new era in Indian education
had begun.:'
This new era witnessed quite different
assumptions about the fate of the Native
Americans. No longer did reformers, Chris-
tian missionaries, and federal officials believe
that the proper education and environment
would raise the Indian to "civilization." Social
scientists at the turn of the century insisted
that Indians were hopelessly primitive and
lacked the mental abilities to receive a liberal
education; the specter of genetic inferiority
raised its ugly head, Those entrusted with the
Indian's education agreed; a practical educa-
tion was for the best. In 1900, Superintendent
of Indian Schools Estelle Reel observed that
the Indian student must know hO\\' to read
and write, "but it is not wise to spend years
over subjects for which he will have no use in
later life and for which he has but little taste
now, when the time could be more wisely
employed in acquiring skill in the industrial
arts.":';

DA Y SCHl X,LS ,Y\ THE
NORTHER:--'; CHEYE~;\E RESER\' ATIO:\
In the public schools of America during the
early twentieth century, educators increasingly
turned to vocational education as a progressive
solution to the need for pliant, but skilled,
workers. Literature and history were reserved
for middle and upper-class children; learning a
skill furnished working-class children a way to
earn a living. Francis Leupp, who became the
commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1905, "at-
tempted a thorough-going reconstruction" of
the federal government's Indian education
programs, "based on a belief in Indian back-
\\·ardness." Leupp, in particular, embraced the
new curriculum of \·ocational education. Dis-
apprO\·ing of the idea of the federally support-
ed boarding school, he placed his faith in the
day school, where Indian children would go to
school during the day and return home every
night. Leupp and others did not believe that
the Indians could be assimilated; at best, they
only could be absorbed into society as manual
laborers. :'
This change in direction at the federal level
manifested itself on the Blackfeet reservation.
With St. Peter's Mission closed, the Jesuits and
Ursulines concentrated their efforts at Holy
Family Mission and kept the boarding school
in operation until the Second World War. In
keeping with national trends, the missionaries
developed a more vocational program so that
children would "learn the attitudes, habits and
skills [they 1 would learn in a Christian rural
home" and would "accept the fact that daily
hard work is the common lot of Montana
ranchers. ":-
But the best place to study how early
twentieth-century attitudes about Indian edu-
cation became physically represented in the
built environment of the Native American
reservations of Montana is the Birney Day
School Village on the Northern Cheyenne
reservation. Established between 1907 and
1910, Birney Village was an ambitious federal
attempt to create planned Indian communities
out of the scattered settlement patterns tradi-
ACCULTURA TION BY DESIGN 99
tional to the Northern Cheyennes.
By 1900, 350 Northern Cheyenne families
resided in log houses, but five years later most
tribal members still lived in tipis or tents,
individually located throughout the reserva-
tion. U.S. Indian Service officials considered
this arrangement of domestic dwellings to be
intolerable. The creation of reservation towns
became the Indian Service's new tool of
acculturation. In 1907 agency officials decided
to combine two recent policy initiatives to
change conditions on the reservation. In
keeping with federal programs that encouraged
the irrigation of tribal land, they directed the
construction of the Birney irrigation ditch. At
the same time, they approved plans to build
the Birney Day School. The agency officials set
aside forty acres of the irrigated land for the
school's instructional program and allotted
some of the remaining land to selected North-
ern Cheyennes, who would be required to
move to Birney Village and to enroll their
children in the day school. The Indian Service
hoped that the establishment of Birney Village
would centralize government services, provide
better farming opportunities for the Northern
Cheyennes, and create a better educational
environment for the Indian children.:;
In the eyes of federal officials, Birney
Village was an ideal planned community. By
1910 the day school, large enough to house
forty-seven students, was in operation. Within
a short walk of the school stood the teacher's
residence, a model U.S. Indian Service cottage
of the Craftsman style. The village contained a
Mennonite Church, which served as the
religious center of Birney Village. It also had a
granary, blacksmith shop, barn, storage shed,
ice house, and Indian police headquarters
(fig. 4).>
The log cabin homes of the Northern
Cheyennes constituted the majority of the
village's buildings. The dwellings of Gordon
Strange Owl, Holy Wolf, Clarence Medicine
Top, Clubfoot, and Josephine Limpy were
one-story, one-room log cabins with mud
chinking, wood-board roofs, and wood-framed
windows and doors. These starkly unadorned
100 (JREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPI\ INC; jlJH7

FICJ. 4. Birney f)1l ,\, .'~cllO()1 Village, /JTo/Ja/)/Y emi'Y /()()(k L.A. Illtlfman, /)h()wgra /)ilcr. MOTllilrW

Historical Societ)! Collections.

dwellings , while sh<lring the s in g le ope!) SP; ICl' iI1tl,lIlT lu;d s kill s. Thc <hildn'll, so rl';l soI1l'd
of (l tipi , differed from the tipi ill sc vcr;d kder;li offici;ll s ;md l'dw";uors, hd.: cd rill'
significant W;IYS. TIll' l;lhillS dc(jlll'd s p;Ke in Ilcc eSS:l r y IllCIlt ;d l";lp;llit y. The li:J V se l)( )() 1
terms of ;1 squ;lre r;lther thal1 ;1 UH1C. Com- vi ll;lgl' oIllv rcquired ;111 l'IlvirOllIlH'I1t ill whil"h
pared to the tipi nap, which could Ix- r;lised or the l\:;ltivc i\mcric;llls could lc:lrIl to he ste;ldv
lowered to improve vl'lltiht ion, the c;lhin :llld d e I~ e Jl(bhlc w()rkers. So its lhn'llillgs \\'CrT
windows werl' statioll;lry ;lnd cou ld not he Silllpk d(}Illiciles ()f rl);llllt :li I:zl~()rl'rs. Birl1l'V
adju sled to the wind directioll. Foor c;lhill Vilhge did 1101 pretl'lld tn l'i"e;ltc ;111 l'll\'ir()ll -
ventibtioll ;ll ld hi g h inlerio[ tcmper;ltures mCIlt tll:lt would upli(t IIHli ;lIl <llildn'll :llld
WCfe oflell Ihe [esult. Most imporclllt, the elKollr;lgl' them 10 h(,()IIH ' (ult Ilrt,d !\Illni -
cahin W:1 S a !,c rm ;lllent dwellill g; il cou ld 1101 l ;tII S; f;lt Ill'r it s hllill l' n VlrUIlmeI1t W;IS ;i

be easily rnovcd ([orn (llH' phle I () ;lllothcr. reminder rh;11 till' rd(lrIlll'rS ;Im l cllul:ltl)rC; ()f
Consequ e llt Iy, t he Northern C hcyelllll'S I h;lt t iIll(' IllLTl'Iy hopnl t 1);lt t hc Illdi;ms l"UlIld
found thClnse lvcs physically tied to ()lle p;lrt il- 1X'()Illl' g(l()LI wllrkcrs .
ular locatioll wit Ilill the vilhge. ' Tlw Glhil1s
also deterllliIll,d t he future ;u c hitectur;d lll;lf-
actef of the town's hllilt l'II Vin)lllll en t . ( ~ ;)hin s
huilr thirt y ye; lrs btn Wl'rl' almost idellti c d ill No Ill:ltlLT thl' (orIll tlt:!t ;Inhitl,< tur:d
;lppc;lr;IIICl' to the first dwellillgs ill Biflll' V dl'tl'rillilli s ill took on the northern ['hin s , th e
Vill:1gc . '" Bhd.: iL'l't :llld the Nnrtherzl ( ~ heVl'lllll'S IT-
There W;IS Ilothing in the huildillgs ;11 t;lilll'd llllIlh of t heif I r:rdit i()I1;d lult lilT. Thl'
Birney int ended to uplift t he so ul m l'lllivl'n hllilt l'IlviWIlIlll'llt, wl1<'t Iwr high st vk ('r
the ques t (or kll()\vkdgl'. TIll' hllildings were vcrn ;lluLn, f:lilcd t(~ tr:ln s f(lrm the N:ltiH'
largel y lIll;ldorIll'd, even drah . Whell COIIl- !\llleri(;lIl s. Their V; zilll'S felll;lilll'd ddilll'li Ily
parcd too rhe buildings at St. Peter 's ;IIlllllolv tr:ldilioll:r1 [lldi:IIl v;l llI es :IIHI Ilot hy tlw
F;lInil y missioll s , the "lllc;llling" ()( BirI1C y's log ;l sS lImpt inn s ;1I1d heliefs of till' ;Ivcr:lge middle--
cabins is ev idellt . They were physi c; d artifacts chss whitl' Amcric;IIl l.lr eve ll I ~v th()se ()f til<.'
reprcsclltillg the pessimism of ill<..Ii ;l ll rcfofmers ,lvn;lgl' \\,orkillg-lLIss i\nll'ric1I1. Like the
and cc:luc:1tors in the early twentieth Cl'lltury. prcvil1uS efforts ;II1lung the Bhckfl'l't ;It St.
Birney Day Sc hool Vilbge rl'neltcd the ;IS- Peter\; ;1 11L1 1-1()lv F;llllil y Illi ss iollo.;, the BirzH' V
sumptioll s o( l'duc;lIofs who hclievcd th;lt Vili:J gl' o':pLTiIlleIlI, ;dth()\l g h s killfull y l"llm -
indi;ln s co uld I1(}t he tr;l ir1L'd ill the hi g lwf hining cduc;ltio ll :d :IIld rl'ligi(llI s illdol "trill ;lo

tion Ilith :l con;.;cious manipulation of the
Indian,,' huilt en\'ironll1ent, had failed in its
purpose of ~lhsorhing the i\:ati\T Americans
into the way of life of industrial America.
Efforts arc still heing made to shape the
reservation enl'ironment into patterns that, in
the eves of our dominant culture, arc sensihle,
orderlv, and acceptahle. Rut the past history of
acculturation hv design on the Montana
Indian resen'ations suggests that such planned
e[lVironmelw; reflect more the attitudes and
assumptions of their huilders than the real
needs of the Nati\T Americans. The 1'v1ontana
c:\pericnce calls into question the value of
"~lrchitenural determinism" as a tool of accul-
turation.
NOTES
I, The "lmc tc,t held truc for immigrants and
lliher mil1oritie, elf till' l'fa. In the hte nineteenth
century and during the progressive period, reform-
ers helie\Td strllngly in the transforming power of a
properly designed environment. They helieved that
,dl mil1oritie, ,md ,,'orking-cl:!ss Americans could hc
CT1l (luragl'd t\) hCC0111C (\trul' }\rncricans" if only
they lived in Ihe right type uf dwclling, Architects
,uch '" Cakert Vall:\ and Erncst fLlgg urged
,Jc.,ign, Ihat \\'"uld "ordain" certain kind of family
life," tl1<lt of middle-cia" Americl. Educator, of the
perio,! percein"! the hoarding school ',s 'll1 ide,d
elwironn1l'nt for hoth In,!i,m, ,md working"'la,,
whit"" Ih e,!uc,ning studcnts allay from the \'ice o(
urhan ;\mni,a, they helieved, the prohlems of
urhan j'<lITrtl 'll1d crimc coule! he solved. Sec
Cllcm!olyrl \\nght, nuilding the Dreum (Cam
hridl-(c, ~bS"lcllU,,·tt.s Institute ,,[Technology Pre'",
II):;]), Pl'. 120, 71-1 H.
2, I IO\\zlrd L Ibrrod, \j"lsion "mong the Hillc/,'
tc,'t l:\mmclll: L ni\Trsit v of l,klahulTlCl Prc", I 07 I),
)', ll; Hiram ~1. Chittenden Clnd i\. T. Richardson,
elk, Lik. Lerrerl wlil TrillcL of Father Piene-leun
/)cSmet, \J, \'''1. I INc\\' Yllrk: rrancis P. H<lrpcr,
1l)11,)), p. J17.
L 11u"h \1. Bl,"k, "The History of the H()lv
F<lmilv lvlissil1l1, F<lmily, ~1"nr;1l1a, From II:'ClO to
I'));." \1. A, the,is,:-;1. P:nd Seminar" 1960,1', ;'1;
H<lrw,!, \li"i()rt UllllJllg thc 13lud'feet. pp. ll- 14.
4, Clovi,.s HeimS<lth, fldllLl'iorill Architecture:
T()t( u)(1 un A,'c'Ul{rlwhlc /)elign Pmce,ls (Nc\\ York:
~kC;r'l\I·Hill, 1')77), Pl'. l).jl); ]Z"hcrt Cutman, cd"
People unci/JIlUdingl (Ne\\' Ymk: Basic Books, 1l)72),
pp. 17(104,
), (jutm<ln. Pcu/,Ic "wi nudding', Pl'. 170-04.
ACCULTURATION BY DESIGN 101
6. Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The
Camp"ign 10 Assimilate the Indians, 1880- 1920 (lin-
coln: University of 1\chraska Press, 19S4), pp.
16-21,2;, 41-SI, IlO-n; Francis Paul Prucha, The
Great Father: The United States GOl'ernment and the
American Indians, \'01. 2 (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 19114), p. oilS; Loring B. Priest,
Uncle Sam's Stepchildren: The Reformation of United
States In(/ian Polic'!, 1865-1887 (1\ew Brunswick,
1\. J., Rutgers University Press, 1(42), pp. '57-80,
Il'5-l'l; Henry E. Fritz, The Mor,'ement for Indian
A,lsimilation, 11l6()-IK90 (Philadelphia, University o[
Pennsylvania Press, I')o l), pp. 14-86.
7. Pruch", Cheat Father, 101. 2, p. 707; Francis
Paul Prucha, The Churches and the Indian Schools,
U181l1912 (Lincoln: University of Nehraska Press,
1979), pp. l-4; Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren, p.
1S; Harrod, Mission among the Blaci<feet, pp. '52-'50,
74-79,87; "S1. Peter's Mission Church :md Ceme·
tery," 1\ation'll Rcgister of Historic Places Invento-
ry-Nomination Form, State Historic Preservation
Office, Helen", Monr.; Wilfred P. Schoenherg,
"Historic S1. Peter's Mission: Landmark of the
Jesuits and the Ursulines among the Blackfeet,"
Montana: The Maga,ine of Western Histon' 11, no. 1
(1961): 6S-S5.
S. "S1. Peter's Mission Church," Montana
SHPO; Field inspection o( S1. Peter's Mission sire
conducted hv the author, June 1Cl8'5; Photographs
9'50-776 ,md Cl'50-71:'0, Montana Historical Society,
Helena; C3eorgc f. G. Stanley, et aI., cds., The
Col/ected Writings of Loui,\ Rid, vol. 2 (Edmonton:
University of Allwrta Pre:;s, 19S'5), Pl'. 27l-7'5.
9. "St. Peter's Mission Church," Montan'l
SHPO; Photographs 9')0·777, 950-771:', and
9')0-7,')0, MHS; St<lnley, I\icl Writings, vol. 2, Pl'.
266-68,272-73, 2/')n, 33;, l,)O, 3iS-SO; vol. 3, pp.
lil),261.
10. Stanley, Riel Wntings, \'01. l, pp. 4-;; "S1.
Peter's Mi",ion Church," Mont an" SHPO; Photo·
graphs 9')0-769 am! C),)0-77 I , \1HS.
I I. Harrod, \1ission among the Blackfeet, p. ,')7;
Francis Paul Prucha, cd., Amerimnizing the American
Indian,l: \'x"ritings In' the "Friends of the Indian,"
18KO 19()(l (Camhridge: Harvard University Press,
197 l), Pl'. 194 ·l)S; Hoxie, A Final Promise, p. '56;
Prucha, Creat Father, \'01. 2, PI'. 694-700.
12, Black, "Historv of the Holy Familv Mis-
sion," pp. 'i7,')'); L. B. P<lll"dino, Edumtion for the
Indians: Fann and Ilnmm on the Suhjcct (New York:
Bcnziger Bros., jtl'J2) , p. 14; sec also L. B. Palladino,
Indian and White in the Northu'CSt, 2nd cd., (L.mcas-
ter, Pa., Wickersham Co., [922), pp. 104-22.
Il. "S1. Peter's Mission Church," Montana
SHI'O.
H. Ihid.; Photograph 9;0 ·774, MHS; Schoen-
herg, "St. Peter's," Pl'. SO-8'i.
102 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRINC; /LlH?
IS. "Sl. Peter's :-v1i"ion Church," Monta!);!
SHPO; Prucha, Creilt Father, vol. 2, p. 711; Pruch:l,
ChuTchn dna lndion Schooll, Pl'. 26---fll.
16. H;ucoJ, \I iSlion wnong the Illac/rject, Pl'.
84-1:\5; "Hoi y Famil y Mission," 1'\ ational H.egisrcr (l(
Histnric PLlCl'S Invl'ntory·Nomination Form, Statc
Historic Prl'servarion Office, Helena, ;"'10lH.; fll:lck,
"History of the Holy Family Mission," pp. 21:\-11;
Wilfred P. Schoenherg, }es1lits in \lontan" (PorrlanLl:
The Oregon Jesuit, IlJ(,O), pp. 40-4i.
17. "Holy Family Mission," SHl'l i; Black, "His-
tory of the Holy Family Mission," PI'. )<)-40; "Hoh
Family Mission," RPl SurVl'Y Photographs, State
Historic Prl'sl'n·"tion Office, Helena, :-V1ont.
11:\. Black, "Hi,torY of rhl' Holy Family ~1is·
siLln," PI'. 40-41, 45; "Holy Family ~lissi'lIl,"
MLlntana SI-1I'O; "Holy Family ~1issi()n," Rl'l
Photographs, Montan" SIII)D.
19. I';dlaLlino, Educiltion fur the In,lilllll, p. 1-j;
Hmcic, A Final ['nnniw, Pl'. jl:\(]l:\i; Pricst, Uncie
S"m'l 'ste/,e/Hidren, PI'. Ili-·f5; I'ruLh:!, Creat Filther,
vol. 2, pp. 701-i06.
20. Stanky Camplwll, "Thc ClwYl'n!lL' Tqli,"
AmcriulTl Antlllo/,ologist Ii (Ocl.·De,. 1')]5):
685-<)4; John C. Ewers, The lliilc!,jeL·t: Ediden of the
!\!orthHeltenl [,lains (1'\orman: L1niv'crsity of (ikl:llw·
rna Press, ]L)S,~), p. l)2; C;eorgl' B. Crinr1l'll, flluclrfoot
Lodge Tal",: The Ston of a ['TillTle ['('o/,le (UN2; q't.
Lincoln: lJniv'l'rsitv (If NchrasLl I're.s" 1l)(,2), ,'p.
ILJI:\-')L); John C. bIers, The Horse In l3Iad,/o"t In,lidn
Cultl/n' (Il)')S; rpt. \X""shil1gt(ll1: ilurL'au of An1L'ri·
lan EtllI1()logy, I <)0l1), p. 1,1.
21. Ewers, Ilidciric-t't, I','. :-1:-1-<1-\; JollIl (:. Ewers,
"Thc f)]a, k /(Jut \\':11' L<lLIgc: It, C:, 1l1St rlle! i')Ii :mel
USL'," in In(liml LI}e Oil the (i/l/,('r \li",nlrl (N(Jrrn;lll:
Univcrsit \' ,,{ (,klal)()Ill:1 Prl'ss, I <)(1,0), Pl'. 117- hi.
22. Ewers, Iliuci<j(,l't, PI'. 1(11, 1,4 ,')ll.
2l. C,enL'V-ICVl' ~kllri,k, The Iliy,/ '!t,,1 (!\l'\V
Ymk: V;ll1tagc PrL',IS, 1\),4), p. j(lh; PrllLh:!, Creelr
Father, V·O!. 2, 1'1'. :-II, Ie); H()"il', A /-',n,,1 ['mnll_',',
p. 11)2.
24. l'ru,h,!, (,reat Fmircr, \,,1. 2, p. 82cl; Ilus.ie,
A Final Pronllse, pp. Il)1:\2lH.
25. Hoxie, A Fin'" 1''''nlilL', pp. 20lL 2\1-1; I'rllcha,
Cre"t Father, V()!. 2, PI'. 01l)21.
2h. Black, "Histmy of the Huiv F:lIllilv \b·
,i()n," PI'. h'i-(lh.
27. A elm))lIde of rh(' ,\'mth"nI ( in rhe
l\ewn"twn Erd U';I) J<)~.' (Lll11l' DCL'I" , ~·lont.:
l\:onhL'rIl Cheycl1llc PI:lIlning UnI('L' ! (J~:2), n.p.;
Northern Histon lLlI1ll' DL'l'r, \ IUIlt.:
l\:,mhL'rn Chl'\T11l1l' P]"l1nl ng l,(fill', I <)S(I), Pl'.
5S-h(1, K-IH.
2:-1. "Birney D:,y Scl,,!()] V dl:lgL'," \lo1llan:!
Hiswri':1I .. A,',hitec'tliral IllV'l'llI(lf\, St:lIl' Hisr(lri,
Prcsl'rvari()1l l iffi,l', HL'lella, ;"'lol1!.; ,\'(11 rh,·)))
Chcwnue Histon, ](·H'i-](·147.
2<). Lisring of sl'par(11L' dwcllings in "Birllt'y 1/;)\
Scho()1 Village' Il1\TI11Orv," ~'I()lit:lIl:l SIIPl!.
lll. "fllrl1l'\' ])"y S,h,,,,1 Village," 1'\:tri('I1:!1
Rcgi:-:.tCf of l--list,)J-ic Pbll'S Il1\'l'l1t()r\'~1'-.\)!niI1;ltiuI1
Form, SLltt' Hist'Hi, f'rcs('\'\,:lTilll1 (,nl,\', I klcll" ,