Brigadier-General Richard Henry Pratt (December 6, 1840 – March 15, 1924)[1] was a United States Army officer who founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania in 1879 and served as its longtime superintendent.

Prior to this, Pratt supervised Native American prisoners of war held at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida.

Pratt's father later left his family to take part in the California Gold Rush in 1849, hoping to strike it rich, but was robbed and murdered by another prospector.

After his first three-month term expired, he re-enlisted as a sergeant of the 2nd Regiment Indiana Cavalry; he saw action at the Battle of Chickamauga.

When they were assigned to Fort Sill in the Oklahoma Territory, they were nicknamed by Native Americans as the "Buffalo Soldiers", because of the texture of their hair.

[5] In the 1870s at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, he introduced classes in the English language, art, and craftsmanship to several dozen prisoners who had been chosen from among those who had surrendered in the Indian Territory at the end of the Red River War.

[6] In addition, he worked to give prisoners agency and some independence: enlisting them in guard duty, assigning them other supervisory roles over their community, leading marching and maneuvers for exercise.

At various times, it would be used in attempted assimilation of other minorities in the United States and its territories, including African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Asians, and Mormons.

Pratt was opposed to the segregation of Native American tribes on reservations, believing that it made them vulnerable to speculators and people who would take advantage of them.

This controversy, coupled with earlier disputes with the government over civil service reform, led to Pratt's forced retirement as superintendent of the Carlisle School on June 30, 1904.

[citation needed] The legacy of Pratt's boarding school programs is controversial among modern Native American tribes.

Some have labelled the wider American Indian boarding school system, that Pratt began, as a form of cultural genocide that adversely affected their children and families.