Wigwam

Wigwam. “I pray every day and hoe onions.”. , On April 18, 1878, at about midnight, more than 60 former Cheyenne and Kiowa warriors who had been imprisoned in St. Augustine, Florida, arrived by steamer and made their way to campus. Most soon left for reservations in the West, but 17 stayed and were enrolled as students. It was a controversial decision, the idea that Native and African Americans could live and learn together, but Samuel C. Armstrong, Hampton’s principal and founder, embraced it with typical missionary zeal. This new endeavor “will give fresh life and force to the school,” he predicted and proceeded to make several recruiting trips to the plains states, bringing back dozens of new students, male and female., By that fall, with the federal government agreeing to provide $167 for each student, work was hastily begun on the Wigwam, the building that still stands here. It was near this spot that Kecoughtan Indians once lived, although not in wigwams, but bent-pole lodges. Built partly by students from bricks made on campus, it was to be a boys’ dormitory, while part of Virginia Hall was made ready for the girls. In 1882, a separate building for girls, Winona Lodge, was built. Booker T. Washington left a teaching job in West Virginia to serve briefly as house father at Wigwam. Under his influence, and that of other role models, the new students were soon learning trades and studying side by side with their black counterparts. Education was mixed with hard, practical skills. “I pray every day and hoe onions,” one of the students wrote home., Over the span of 45 years, more than 1300 American Indians from 65 different tribes were educated at Hampton Institute. One of the reasons that Congress cut off funds for the program in 1923 was its very success. The institute had inspired the creation of Indian schools throughout the nation., (caption) Native American and African American integration in the classroom Courtesy Hampton University