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Richard Henry Pratt is a historical figure who is also the novel’s primary antagonist. He runs the prison at Fort Marion where Bear Shield and Jude are held captive. Pratt then helps found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, underlining the connection between imprisonment and the forced residential education of Native people in the U.S. Pratt represents the campaign of the U.S. government as a whole to eradicate Native people and Native culture and traces how those attempts shifted over time from massacres to the institutional violence of prisons and then residential schools. By showing the impacts of Pratt’s bigotry and racism in the present day, the novel underlines how that legacy of racism and bigotry continues to harm Native people in the U.S. today. Notably, in a section from Pratt’s perspective, the novel highlights that Pratt considers himself an upstanding and noble person who acted in Native people’s best interests, highlighting how “good intentions” and a belief in one’s own righteousness can become a way to justify heinous actions.
Richard Henry Pratt Quotes in Wandering Stars
The Wandering Stars quotes below are all either spoken by Richard Henry Pratt or refer to Richard Henry Pratt. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue Quotes
To become not-Indian the way they meant it at Carlisle meant you killed the Indian to save the man, as was said by the man who made the school, which meant the Indian children would have to do all the dying.
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Chapter 2 Quotes
[Pratt] said he would train us as soldiers. Give us discipline and rank. Give us guns to guard ourselves, keep us clean and uniformed and regimented. Pratt said he would make us wolves of the U.S. Army. When he said that, something cold slid up my spine […] that was all we ever did besides school and church—train to be military men, dressed as the very kind of men some of us had seen wipe our people out.
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Richard Henry Pratt Quotes in Wandering Stars
The Wandering Stars quotes below are all either spoken by Richard Henry Pratt or refer to Richard Henry Pratt. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue Quotes
To become not-Indian the way they meant it at Carlisle meant you killed the Indian to save the man, as was said by the man who made the school, which meant the Indian children would have to do all the dying.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes
[Pratt] said he would train us as soldiers. Give us discipline and rank. Give us guns to guard ourselves, keep us clean and uniformed and regimented. Pratt said he would make us wolves of the U.S. Army. When he said that, something cold slid up my spine […] that was all we ever did besides school and church—train to be military men, dressed as the very kind of men some of us had seen wipe our people out.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
