Thomas Indian School, also known as the Thomas Asylum of Orphan and Destitute Indian Children, is a historic

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...

and national historic district located near Irving at the

Cattaraugus Indian Reservation Cattaraugus Reservation is an Indian reservation of the federally recognized Seneca Nation of Indians, formerly part of the Iroquois Confederacy located in New York. As of the 2000 census, the Indian reservation had a total population of 2,412. ...

Erie County, New York Erie County is a county along the shore of Lake Erie in western New York State. As of the 2020 census, the population was 954,236. The county seat is Buffalo, which makes up about 28% of the county's population. Both the county and Lake Erie w ...

. The institution was first established in 1855 by missionaries Asher Wright and his wife Laura Wright to house the orphaned and kidnapped

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

children of the reservation under the federal policy of

forced assimilation Forced assimilation is an involuntary process of cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups during which they are forced to adopt language, identity, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, way of li ...

. The complex was built in about 1900 by New York State as a self-supporting campus. Designed by the New York City firm

Barney and Chapman Barney and Chapman was an American architecture firm based in New York, active from about 1892 through 1908. The partnership designed significant municipal buildings, churches, private estates, and an asylum complex for the state of New York. Jo ...

, the campus contains the red brick

Georgian Revival Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover— George I, George II, Ge ...

style main buildings and a multitude of farm and vocational buildings. ''Note:'' This includes an
''Accompanying five photographs''
/ref> It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1973. Numerous works address the stories of former residents of

Native American boarding schools American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid 17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Na ...

in Western New York and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, such as Thomas Indian School, Mohawk Institute Residential School (also known as Mohawk Manual Labour School and Mush Hole Indian Residential School) in

Brantford Brantford ( 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by Brant County, but is politically separate with a municipal government of its own that is fully independ ...

, Southern Ontario, Haudenosaunee boarding school, and the

Carlisle Indian Industrial School The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, generally known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918. It took over the historic Carlisl ...

in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; the impact of those and similar schools on their communities; and community efforts to overcome those impacts. Examples include: the film ''Unseen Tears: A Documentary on Boarding School Survivors'', Ronald James Douglas' graduate thesis titled ''Documenting ethnic cleansing in North America: Creating Unseen Tears'', and the Legacy of Hope Foundation's online media collection: "Where are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools".

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control Historic American Buildings Survey in New York (state) Historic districts in Erie County, New York School buildings completed in 1900 Georgian Revival architecture in New York (state) School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Education in Erie County, New York Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) National Register of Historic Places in Erie County, New York 1900 establishments in New York (state) Native American history of New York (state)