Irreclaimable Savages

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 1885: https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AC5UOFLSZHEGOL8A/pages/AXM4UOEM3FPCO38J

“Before the Revolution charitable individuals attempted to educate Indian boys. These efforts were never successful. They resulted, generally, in the same manner that many of the Governmental efforts to educate Indian boys, made since that time – as many such efforts lately made, have resulted-in failure. One of the most notable attempts to educate Indian youths was made at the College of William and Mary, in Virginia. On the conditions of one of the donations to that college, which was founded in 1692, Indians were maintained at it. The Indian boys, it is said, assumed the white man’s habit while they remained at Williamsburg, ‘but the very day that they rejoined their tribes they threw off their college clothes, resumed their own costumes and weapons, and ran whooping into the forest, irreclaimable savages.’” (page LXXVI-LXXVII)