Students of St. Benedict's Mission School, White Earth, Minnesota

St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). About 85 boarding students and six sisters posed in the inner court of St. St. Benedict's Mission School in the early 1890s. Record keeping for this large a group of children was not simple. While the churches constructed and operated the schools on the reservations, government policy allowed the schools an annual appropriation of a flat rate for tuition, board and clothing annually; the amount varied from $100 to $150 per pupil. This policy required careful quarterly reports to be sent to Washington. All expenditures had to be accounted for - the number of pounds of meat, sacks of flour, bushels of beans and potatoes, barrels of sugar, pounds of rice, and gallons of syrup and soap These accounts show the frugality of the mission school's fare. For example, the 1886 end-of-year record shows $2.00 for candy and $2.50 for a pair of geese. [SBMA, McDonald, pp. 240-241]

Bibliographic Details

Format:	Still Image
Published:	Saint Benedict's Monastery 1890
Subjects:	White Earth Indian Reservation Native American education Native American Education; Nuns; Ojibwa Indians; American Indians; Indian Reservations; White Earth Indian Reservation
Online Access:	https://collection.mndigital.org/catalog/stbm:324