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After the remains of more than 1,300 First Nations students were discovered at the former sites of Canada's residential schools earlier this year, the U.S. is now facing its own moment of reckoning with its history of Native American boarding schools. In response to these findings, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (a member of the Pueblo of Laguna) announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to review "the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies."

In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, efforts have been underway since 2016 to return the remains of Native children to their proper resting places. Carlisle was home to the first off-reservation Indian boarding school in the U.S. - Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Today, it's an army barracks, home to the US Army War college for senior officers. But from 1879 to 1918, it housed Native students from tribes across America, with the express purpose of assimilating them into American culture.

Barbara Landis, a retired biographer and historian who has studied the school extensively, gives tours of the barracks on occasion. During a tour I attended earlier this month, she pointed out a row of white houses that surround a grassy commons.

"These three cottages you see down along the perimeter of the southern portion of the school grounds," Landis said, "were cottages that were built by Native American children as part of their industrial training." The Carlisle school had academic training for half the day and industrial training the other half - essentially cheap manual labor. Many of the buildings were constructed by students as part of this program, but they would also be sent out into the surrounding community to provide work for non-Native families. The boys were given construction and farm work, while the girls would serve in the home.

But upon entering the barracks, the first thing one will notice is the cemetery: rows of white headstones where students are buried. Over four decades, roughly 8,000 students attended the school, and nearly 200 were buried here. Now, the number of graves at Carlisle is incrementally dropping, since efforts began several years ago to return the remains of students to their tribes and families.

At times, parents of students at Carlisle would receive notice of their child's passing only after they had been buried. The cause was often attributed to disease, although abuse was often rampant at these schools. The entire system of Indian boarding schools has long been condemned by Native Americans as a form of cultural genocide.

The idea for the school, the first of its kind in America, began in 1879 with Richard Henry Pratt, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. "It was born out of his experience as the jailer of a group of Kiowa, Comanche, and Arapaho prisoners of war who were arrested by the United States and sentenced to a three-year imprisonment at Fort Marion, which is now the old Castillo de San Marcos Fort down in Saint Augustine, Florida," Landis said. "And while working with these prisoners, Pratt developed his philosophy in Indian education."

That philosophy is best summed up with a phrase he is often attributed to: "Kill the Indian, save the man."

Pratt was influenced by Puritan beliefs, and in the POW camp converted 12 prisoners to Christianity. He was able to get those 12 prisoners to help him recruit children for the Carlisle Indian School, which became the first class at Carlisle.

"Students, when they came into the school, their hair was cut," Landis said, "They were put in uniforms. They were organized into regiments and units and battalions. Pratt being a military man, he designed the program to be this very regimented structure."

Part of that regimented structure was a ranking system in which the more senior students would mete out punishment to their subordinates if they disobeyed orders.

"So, you can just imagine the psychological impact of that kind of a structure among Native American children and their peers. That was all part of the process of keeping discipline and keeping order at the school."

The government created these schools to assimilate American Indians into the dominant culture of the day - white American culture - says Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert, professor and head of the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, and an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe from Northeast Arizona. "The government had created these schools to teach Indian students, some as young as four or five years old, industrial trades so that they could be 'useful members of American society' and take that training back to back to their communities, or take that training into predominantly white communities that surrounded the Indian school."

Gilbert said he believes Haaland will be in a pivotal position to lead the effort to uncover potential gravesites in America's Indian boarding schools. Denise Lajimodiere, recently-retired associate professor of Educational Leadership at NDSU, and a founding member of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NNABSHC), thinks so as well. She recalls hearing an interview with Deb Haaland on a podcast:

"One of the questions they asked her was, 'Do you think that we will find, in the United States, unmarked graves at boarding schools similar to what we found in Canada?' And she said, 'I don't know.' She said, 'I can't answer that.'"

"But I can answer that. Absolutely. A resounding yes, we will find unmarked graves at boarding schools."

One researcher, Preston McBride, believes the number of graves discovered could be as many as 40,000 here in the US. "That's a big number." says Gilbert. "That's more than I had ever thought. And so there's a story there, and I'm glad that with this revelation taking place in Canada, that it will shed more light."

In Carlisle, the process of repatriation is ongoing. In 2016, at the request of a member of the Northern Arapaho, the U.S. Army began collaborating with tribes to repatriate the remains of those buried at Carlisle. The process takes place once a year (with a pause in 2020 due to COVID). The most recent of these repatriations occurred back in July; the majority of those being returned belonged to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, who held ceremonies in Carlisle and along the journey back to their reservation.

Rosebud Sioux President Rodney Bordeaux attended the final ceremony in South Dakota, where the remains were re-buried. He says the experience was humbling: "Being there, you're basically put back in time just imagining what they went through as young children."

I asked him what he hoped for from the investigation launched earlier this year by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland into Indian Boarding Schools, and he said he hopes it will bring about the true history of what happened to them.

"This history that happened to us, you know, there's been attempts over and over again to whitewash it, saying that it didn't happen. And it did happen. So it's best for America to learn what actually happened," he said. "And then they can understand our plight, our situation on reservations, but then also understand that... we want to be self-sufficient. We don't want to be dependent on our federal government. We want to move forward."
Jess Kung contributed to the audio report.

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Indian Boarding Schools' Traumatic Legacy, And The Fight To Get Native Ancestors Back

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After the remains of more than 1,300 First Nations students were discovered at the former sites of Canada's residential schools earlier this year, the U.S. is now facing its own moment of reckoning with its history of Native American boarding schools.

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"Residential Schools" is a three-part podcast series created by Historica Canada and hosted by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais. It aims to commemorate the history and legacy of residential schools, and honour the stories of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Survivors, their families, and communities.

The Residential Schools podcast series is part of a larger awareness campaign created by Historica Canada and funded by the Government of Canada. Along with the podcast series, Historica Canada also offers a video series, an education guide, and several new entries on The Canadian Encyclopedia about the history and legacy of residential schools.

Illustrations by Halie Finney.

"Residential Schools" is a three-part podcast series created by Historica Canada and hosted by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais. It aims to commemorate the history and legacy of residential schools, and honour the stories of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Survivors, their families, and communities.

The Residential Schools podcast series is part of a larger awareness campaign created by Historica Canada and funded by the Government of Canada. Along with the podcast series, Historica Canada also offers a video series, an education guide, and several new entries on The Canadian Encyclopedia about the history and legacy of residential schools.

Illustrations by Halie Finney.

Heartbreaking, but important

Listening to these first hand accounts is truly heartbreaking, but it is important to remember.

Be kind

Be kind nations any skin colour we related in a way

OK

Not very informative. Would be nice to have more history. How did they changed over time? Were children still being forced out of their homes in the 1950's? It also doesn't separate the experience of a "strict boarding school" verses residential homes.

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‎"Residential Schools" is a three-part podcast series created by Historica Canada and hosted by Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais. It aims to commemorate the history and legacy of residential schools, and honour the stories of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Survivors, their families, and communities. The...

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Byline: Susan Montoya Bryan, ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other federal officials are expected Tuesday to announce steps the federal government plans to take to reconcile the troubled legacy of boarding school policies on Indigenous families and communities.

A member of New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, Haaland is scheduled to outline a path forward while addressing members of the National Congress of American Indians during the group's midyear conference.

Starting with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and policies to establish and support Indian boarding schools across the nation. For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools that focused on assimilation.

The recent discovery of children's remains buried at the site of what was once Canada's largest Indigenous residential school has magnified interest in that legacy both in Canada and the United States.

In Canada, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into society.

They were forced to convert to Christianity and were not allowed to speak their native languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.

After reading about the unmarked graves in Canada, Haaland recounted her own family's story in a recent opinion piece published by The Washington Post.

Past efforts by the federal government to "eradicate our culture and erase us as a people" is a history that needs to be acknowledged, she wrote.

Haaland cited statistics from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, which reported that by 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations.

Besides providing resources and raising awareness, the coalition has been working to compile additional research on U.S. boarding schools and deaths that many say is sorely lacking.

Haaland addressed concerns that removing children from their families and homes has had multigenerational effects on Indigenous communities, from the loss of Native languages and cultural resources to cycles of violence and abuse.

"It is a history that we must learn from if our country is to heal from this tragic era," Haaland wrote.

Haaland has suggested that investments planned by the Biden administration and efforts to strengthen tribal sovereignty can help to heal the wrongs.

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Byline: Susan Montoya Bryan, ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other federal officials are expected Tuesday to announce steps the federal government plans to take to reconcile the troubled legacy of boarding school policies on Indigenous families and communities.

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Byline: Jeremiah Rodriguez, CTVNews.ca Writer

(CTV Network) -- Click here for updates on this story

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan (CTV Network) -- At the age of four, Brenda Dubois was forced to attend a residential school in Saskatchewan.

She attended Qu'Appelle Indian Residential School in 1960 - the same school her father went to decades earlier.

While she has made strides in her ongoing healing from the traumatic experience of being taken away from her family, Dubois told CTV National News: "As the days have gone by, different repressed memories are slowly coming to the surface."

Despite her years of advocacy, Dubois was still shocked at the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation's discovery of unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia.

"Now, the truth is being exposed in the most atrocious way," she said. "I really want non-Indigenous people to sort of take a moment if they can. What if that was their child?"

"I ask people to pray with us, to laugh with us... to cry with us, to use that anger in a good way," she said. "Please help us find answers not only for the ones that are in B.C. but for the ones that are there all over and haven't come home."

Within Indigenous communities, Dubois said there seems to be "a change in the air." She urged more people to show compassion and action.

While she's heartened to see allies, including some lawmakers, express grief publicly, she wants more concrete actions.

"We need ground-penetrating radar. We need teams of people willing. We need forensic anthropologists. We need university students willing to come and give up their time. So wait for the call," she said.

She also wants elected officials to examine why so many First Nations, Métis and Inuit children are in the care of the state.

Indigenous children make up only seven per cent of the youth population in Canada, yet they account for 52.2 per cent of children in foster care in private homes, according to 2016 census data.

Last week, Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq said foster care is "the new residential school system," and took issue with politicians implyingthat horrors inflicted on Indigenous children by the Canadian government are simply history.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several of his cabinet ministers acknowledged Friday that Indigenous children are indeed still being taken from their families in disproportionately high numbers and placed in foster care.

Trudeau called it an "unacceptable" reality that must end. But Dubois said the time for words is long over and that it needs to stop.

"It still hurts my person," she said. "We're still hurting a generation of children and the colonial, archaic systems need to change. We need to start changing the policies."

If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

ctvnews.caproducers@bellmedia.ca

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Residential school survivor urges non-Indigenous people 'to use that anger in a good way'.

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Byline: Jeremiah Rodriguez, CTVNews.ca Writer (CTV Network) -- Click here for updates on this story SASKATOON, Saskatchewan (CTV Network) -- At the age of four, Brenda Dubois was forced to attend a residential school in Saskatchewan. She attended Qu'Appelle Indian Residential School in 1960 - the same school her father went to decades earlier.

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Many Native American children were sent to schools hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their homes and families. They thought they were going to a place that would be exciting where they would get an education, but they were often physically and emotionally abused. The schools were meant to force them to give up their cultures because the federal government wanted the children to learn the culture of white Americans. Many years later, the government said the program was wrong and in 2009 Congress apologized for how the United States had acted and the damage done to the children and their families.

Fast Facts

History

When European settlers arrived in North America, most did not want to learn from the Native Americans. Instead, they thought the Native Americans should learn and live the newcomers' culture.

The US government pushed Native Americans off their lands and forced them to live on reservations. A government agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), tried to break up Native American governments by taking away the power of tribal leaders. The government wanted the Native Americans to give up their way of life, which they had lived for thousands of years. The government wanted them to live as the European Americans did. Federal officials thought they could do this by teaching the children the language and culture of European Americans.

Critical Thinking Questions

Government Schools for Native American Children

The government opened schools near or on reservations. Children went to school during the day or Monday through Friday and went home at night or on the weekends, so they continued to experience their culture. The government decided to send Native American children to boarding schools thousands of miles away so they would be removed from their culture completely. The schools would force them to forget.

The first BIA boarding school, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, opened in Pennsylvania in 1879. More than 350 schools were opened across the United States. At first Native Americans had a choice to send their children to the schools, but a law passed in 1891 said that all Native American children had to go to the schools.

Life at Boarding Schools

When children arrived at the schools, their clothing was immediately taken away, and they were given Anglo clothes to wear. The people in charge cut off their hair, which made children feel ashamed and afraid.

The children were given new Anglo names and forced to follow strict rules. They could not speak their native language, and when they did, they were punished. Punishment might be a beating, the withholding of food, or time locked in dark cellars alone.

Many schools were run by religious groups that forced children to practice Christianity. Children were taught to hate their culture and beliefs. They learned to hate themselves, their traditions, and their people.

Dangerous Conditions

Life at the boarding schools was difficult. The children had to perform manual labor when they were not in classes. Sometimes they did not have enough to eat or warm winter clothing to wear.

Many children became weak. The schools were crowded, so when children got sick, the illnesses spread quickly. Many children died and were buried on school grounds. Sometimes the graves were unmarked or marked with the Anglo names the children were given.

Life at the schools could be dangerous for other reasons, too. Some people at the schools abused children. Many children who were unhappy or afraid killed themselves, while others ran away.

Effects on Children and Culture

Children were away from home for years. They forgot how to speak their people's language and forgot their culture. After they graduated, many of them felt like strangers in their own communities. They felt isolated, angry, and hurt. When the children grew up, they did not know how to be parents.

Some children disappeared, and schools said they had run away. Parents did not know where their children were, and many families of children who died never learned what had happened to them.

Words to Know

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Many Native American children were sent to schools hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their homes and families. They thought they were going to a place that would be exciting where they would get an education, but they were often physically and emotionally abused.