Omaha and Osage cultures. As she grew, La Flesche learned the traditions of her heritage, but her parents felt certain rituals would be detrimental in the white world. They did not give their youngest daughter an Omaha name and prevented her from receiving traditional tattoos across her forehead. She spoke Omaha with her parents (especially with her mother), but her father and oldest sister Susette encouraged her to speak English with her sisters, so that she would be fluent in both languages. As a child, LaFlesche witnessed a sick Indian woman die after a white doctor refused to treat her. She later credited this tragedy as her inspiration to train as a physician, so she could provide care for the people she lived with on the Omaha Reservation. Education Early education La Flesche's education began early, at the mission school on the reservation. It was run first by the Presbyterians and then by the Quakers, after the enactment of President Ulysses S. Grant's "Peace Policy" in 1869. The reservation school was a boarding school where Native children were taught the practices of European Americans to assimilate them into white society. After several years at the mission school, La Flesche left the reservation for Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she studied at the Elizabeth Institute for two and a half years. She returned to the reservation in 1882 and taught at the agency school. She left again to study at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, from 1884 to 1886. It had been established as an historically black college after the American Civil War, but had become a destination also for Native American students. La Flesche attended Hampton with her sister Marguerite, her stepbrother Cary, and ten other Omaha children. The girls learned housewifery skills and the boys learned vocational skills as part of the practical skills promoted at the school. While La Flesche was a student at the Hampton Institute, she became romantically involved with a young Sioux man named Thomas Ikinicapi. She referred to him affectionately as "T.I.", but broke off her relationship with him before graduating from Hampton. La Flesche graduated from Hampton on May 20, 1886, where she was class salutatorian. She was also awarded the Demorest prize, which is given to the graduating senior who receives the highest examination scores during the junior year. Female graduates of the Hampton Institute were generally encouraged to teach or to