Lost But Not Forgotten: Returning the Children of Native Boarding Schools

Earlier this year, Canada’s schools made major news headlines for the discovery of more than 1,308 unmarked graves found across the Country on the grounds of its residential schools for Native Americans – a number that not only shocked the world, but also helped shift the focus across the border to the U.S., a country notorious for attempting to rewrite the history of its genocide of Native communities. News organizations in the U.S. began to make parallel comparisons between Canada and the U.S.’ Native boarding schools, highlighting how the latter had little records of their treatment of its students and their deaths which likely accompanied the schools. Many of these are believed to be children who were taken from their homes and sent to these schools in an attempt to assimilate them into white society and who never returned home.

In fact, in 2016, the U.S. had already begun quietly returning the remains of children from its first and most notorious off-reservation boarding school, Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Carlisle, a school established in 1879 by Richard Henry Pratt, would become the blueprint for how these boarding schools across the U.S. would operate. Pratt, a lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and devout Puritan, would use his experience as a jailer for Native American prisoners of war to create his doctrine on Native American education. Most notably, his principle of “Kill the Indian, save the man,” which was founded on the belief that by fully eliminating a Native American’s cultural ties they could become a successful member of society.

Pratt would go on to run his schools similar to the military prison he came from with a focus on Christian conversion and forced labor. With the creation of the Civilization Act of 1819, children were taken from their homes and often sent hundreds of miles away to boarding schools like Carlise. Once they arrived at Carlisle, these children were forced to cut their hair and strip off their traditional garbs, and were subsequently placed into regiments. If caught speaking their Native languages or practicing cultural traditions, students would face harsh corporal punishment. This was mostly enforced through a ranking system in which older students would enforce punishment on younger students; this ranking system created a cycle of psychological abuse that would turn Native students against each other. The days were divided into two sections, the first half being for academics, the second half for industrial training, or rather — child labor. Boys were sent out to work at local farms and girls were sent out to work in homes as free labor.

Carlisle ran for nearly four decades during which as many as 8,000 students passed through its doors and 186 children never returned through them. Though there are marked graves on site, headstones show no birthdates, no ages, include misspelled names, or are simply marked “unknown.” For years, many whitewashed these deaths as simply disease-related but once put under a more scrutinizing scope, it became clear that many Native children succumbed to malnourishment, overcrowding, physical abuse, or forced labor. Native studies scholar Preston McBride believes there could be more than 500 students that died at or shortly after leaving Carlisle. He also believes that across all of the boarding schools established in the U.S. there could be as many as 40,000 missing children.

With the recent findings of unmarked graves, initiatives from organizations like the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), who have been championing a need for thorough investigations into these deaths since 2011, are finally gaining momentum.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, announced in June the creation of the Federal Boarding School Initiative. The initiative's main goal is to locate boarding schools across the U.S., locations of known and possible burial sites located at or near school facilities, and the tribal affiliation of the remains found so that they can be properly returned to their communities. But the task is difficult as there have been over 367 boarding schools across the U.S. and organizations have struggled to find records for the majority of these schools as NABS has only been able to find records from 38% of boarding schools. Though the media likes to report on large findings of unmarked graves or schools that have had their share of recognition, there’s a strong need for the initiative to remain focused on the lesser-known boarding schools to ensure that all children can be found and returned home. Although Pratt and others tried to “kill the Indian,” they weren't able to kill the fight to return these children home.

Want to support the Native American community in healing from the loss of its children? NARF is an organization that has been fighting for Native rights since the 1970s.

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