Native American

Explore the rich history of the American Indian in our Native American gallery. You will see everything from fine basketry and beautiful beadwork to period photographs from the school’s historic American Indian Education program.

Between 1878 and 1923, over 1,400 Native Americans representing 66 tribal groups journeyed to Hampton to participate in a program destined to become the forerunner of the federal government’s late 19th century boarding school system. Beginning with pioneering former prisoners of war incarcerated by the U.S. government at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, and ending with a final Seneca Nation graduate in 1923, the students came from richly diverse indigenous cultures spanning every region of the country. The largest number of participants were Dakota/Lakota (Sioux), followed by Oneida, Seneca, Omaha, Ho-Chunk/Winnebago, Cherokee, and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa/Chippewa).