"An Ordinary Case of Discipline": Deputizing White Americans and Punishing Indian Men at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1900–1918.

This article examines the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879–1918), focusing on its role as a punitive institution that extended settler colonial power over adult American Indian men, rather than solely serving as an educational facility for Indigenous youth. It highlights how Carlisle officials and White civilians were deputized to surveil, discipline, and incarcerate adult Indigenous enrollees—many of whom were forcibly infantilized and punished for asserting autonomy—thereby reinforcing racial hierarchies and benefiting settler society through expanded control and profit. Through case studies of adult men such as Justin R.H. (Apache) and George F. (Passamaquoddy), the article reveals how Carlisle functioned as a carceral space intertwined with local law enforcement and community actors, illustrating the broader settler-colonial objectives of Indigenous elimination, land dispossession, and labor control. The analysis situates these historical punitive practices within ongoing patterns of racialized surveillance and incarceration affecting Native American communities today.