From about 1850 to 1930, the United States developed an assimilation policy through which Indian people were encouraged or forced to give up their languages, customs, religions, and ways of life. They were forced to live like whites so they could be "civilized" and eventually assimilate or fit into mainstream American society. Many whites did not understand that Indian people already had their own civilizations and cultures that they did not want to give up. The two primary institutions the United States used to implement its assimilation policy were boarding schools and land allotments. Boarding schools were run by the government or by religious groups and focused on teaching Indian boys agriculture and manual trades, while Indian girls were taught domestic skills. The largest and most well-known boarding school was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania established in 1879. The superintendent of Carlisle and other boarding schools believed it was necessary to separate children from their tribes and families so they could be purged of their "savage" lifestyles. The other tool that white reformers used to assimilate Indians were land allotments, which were mandated by the 1887 Dawes Act. Rather than letting tribes hold their reservation lands communally, lands were divided up and allotted to individuals so they could farm. However, most Indians did not want to farm and often sold their lands, often to non-Indians. By 1920, over 90% of the land on some reservations, such as the Oneida reservation in northeastern Wisconsin, was owned by whites.
