Policies and attitudes: Public education and the Monacan Indian community in Amherst County, Virginia, from 1908 to 1965

Monacan education was affected by Virginia's miscegenation laws prohibiting Indian children from attending white schools and a nuanced, localized construction of race. From 1908 until 1963, Amherst County and the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia collaborated to fund the Monacan Bear Mountain Mission School that provided instruction for first through seventh grades. The Mission School did not directly receive state funds and the contributions from the County and the Diocese were meager. Newspaper articles, from the 1950's until the Mission school's closing in 1963, depict overcrowded and poor conditions. Extant Bear Mountain Mission teacher term reports from 1908–1950 reveal relatively motivated students despite the challenges they faced. In addition, there was a strong home-school connection suggesting that many parents were interested in their children's education. Some of the teacher term reports also show a positive relationship between the students' achievement and the Mission teachers' education. In 1963, the Southwestern Episcopal Diocese planned to close the Bear Mountain Mission School at a time when the County lacked a compulsory education law and the Amherst community rejected funding for a Monacan high school at the Mission. Desegregation of Monacan students began later that year and after the integration of black children into the white schools. The first five Monacan students integrated into the white high school were not prepared for the discrimination they faced and none of them graduated. Sorely needed funds compelled the Amherst County School Board to draft a second and less restrictive integration plan that triggered the release of federal funds for the 1965–66 school term. In 1971, the first Monacan graduated from high school in Amherst County. Through Monacan oral histories and primary and secondary sources, this study sought to provide a better understanding of the historical background of the treatment and education of the Monacan students in rural Amherst County as first step toward a broader examination of conflict and consensus issues in the history of modern education. The findings of this study suggest that conflict and consensus are not independently sufficient explanations for the events that affected Monacan education.