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Economic Factor
By controlling the environment and perspective of young Native Americans, the American government used non-reservation boarding schools as a cost-benefit alternative to military campaigns against Western Native Americans. The assimilation of young Native American children eliminated a generation of warriors that potentially posed a threat to US military. These schools also found an economic benefit in the children through their labor. According to Amnesty International, “School officials routinely forced children to do arduous work to raise money for staff salaries and "leased out" students during the summers to farm or work as domestics for white families. In addition to bringing in income, the hard labor prepared children to take their place in white society — the only one open to them — on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.” This procedure was called "outing." The Mantaka Indian Council wrote, "Government officials found the Carlisle model an appealing alternative to the costly military campaigns against Indians in the West. Within three decades of Carlisle's opening, nearly 500 schools extended all the way to California. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) controlled 25 off-reservation boarding schools while churches ran 460 boarding and day schools on reservations with government funds."

Disease
Throughout non-reservation boarding schools, students became easily susceptible to disease and death. The overcrowding of the schools and the unfamiliar environment contributed to the rapid spread of disease within the schools. Tuberculosis was especially deadly among students, and in order to control the enrollment numbers, boarding schools would often send students who contracted tuberculosis home. Many children died while enrolled in these non-reservation boarding schools. Another report regarding the Phoenix Indian school stated, "In December of 1899, measles broke out at the Phoenix Indian School, reaching epidemic proportions by January. In its wake, 325 cases of measles, 60 cases of pneumonia, and 9 deaths were recorded in a 10-day period." Tabatha Booth wrote that the Meriam Webster Report's findings would show that students that fell ill or even faced death were not given proper treatment. If a child happened to fall sick or even died, parents of these Native American children would often fail to be informed, and only would receive notice once they requested information.

Legality
Indian Child Welfare Act gave Native American parents the legal right to deny their child’s placement in the school. Damning evidence against the morality of Non-Reservation boarding schools contributed to the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Congress approved of this act in 1978 after first-hand accounts of life in Native American boarding schools. National Indian Child Welfare Association explains, “At the time, not only was ICWA vitally needed, but it was crafted to address some of the most longstanding and egregious removal practices specifically targeting Native children. Among its added protections for Native children, ICWA requires caseworkers to make several considerations when handling an ICWA case, including:

1.	Providing active efforts to the family; 2.	Identifying a placement that fits under the ICWA preference provisions; 3.	Notifying the child’s tribe and the child’s parents of the child custody proceeding; and 4.	Working actively to involve the child’s tribe and the child’s parents in the proceedings.”

In 1898, the government issued a “compulsory attendance” law that enabled federal officers to forcibly take Native American children from their home and reservation. The American government believed they were rescuing these children from a world of poverty and depression and teaching them “life skills.” Tabatha Tooney Booth, from the University of Oklahoma wrote in her paper, Cheaper Than Bullet ,

"“Many parents had no choice but to send their kids, when Congress authorized the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to withhold rations, clothing, and annuities of those families that refused to send students. Some agents even used reservation police to virtually kidnap youngsters, but experienced difficulties when the Native police officers would resign out of disgust, or when parents taught their kids a special “hide and seek” game. Sometimes resistant fathers found themselves locked up for refusal. The Hopis in Arizona surrendered a group of men to the military to be imprisoned in Alcatraz, rather than voluntarily relinquishing their children.”"

Carlisle Indian School
Civil War Lt. Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first non-reservation boarding school for Native American children. This school was funded by the government and ran for about 39 years. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School forced assimilation to Christian culture and lose their Native American traditions, as demonstrated by their motto, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” These school s forced children to adapt to Christian by changing their clothes and appearance, forcing them to practice a different religion. Pratt and his companions founded this school with beliefs based on American exceptionalism. Though many Native Americas can testify to the cruelty they were forced to endure, Pratt thought he was helping the Native Americans by "stripped of their “savage” customs and culture ultimately deprived the students of their heritage." Solely at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the death count was in the hundreds.