Recent scholarship has explored a variety of Native American
experiences at federal off-reservation boarding schools. Schools like Sherman Institute in Riverside, California aimed to “civilize” Native
people through an intense program of assimilation. Through oral histories, former students often express both positive and negative feelings about Sherman while archival sources mostly reveal an elaborate system of surveillance, behavioral control and labor exploitation hidden behind censored publications and public performances. As part of a longer
history of persecution and genocidal action against Native people in
California, Sherman students also faced previously unexamined threats to their survival. I argue that Sherman students were subject to extreme psychological pressures in highly stressful conditions which in some cases, permanently altered Native communities across Indian Country.