During the Allotment & Assimilation Era (1887-1930) the U.S. government moved to assimilate Native peoples into American society and the economy. One of the most devastating tactics was the Indian Boarding School, which aimed to strip Native children of their culture and train them for manual or domestic labor. Students resisted in many ways: attempting to run away, stealing food, and even setting fire to their schools. Students also formed their own kinship networks.Although the schools changed over time, some remained in operation until the 1980s. Among the many long-term impacts, these institutions disrupted the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and practices related to traditional diets. For some community members today, reconnecting to ancestral foodways helps them reclaim parts of their identity and history.

In this episode of Spirit Plate, Shiloh chats with:

• Eric Hemenway, the Director of Repatriation, Archives, and Records for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians 

Episode highlights:

Please know that discussion about abuse toward children may be disturbing for sensitive listeners.

What are Indian Boarding Schools?

• Part of a larger system of “civilizing” Natives, Indian Boarding Schools are the hardening of the U.S. government’s assimilation policies.

• They began in the 1880s and spanned the entire country. Although they varied in size and leadership (i.e. - some were run by Christian denominations, some were run by the government), they all had the goal of forcibly assimilating Native children into white culture.

• Much of the learning in school focused on trade or industrial skills, prepping the kids to go right into the workforce. Many schools were also run in strict, military-like fashion.

Creation of the System

• Richard Pratt, a military man, is credited with creating the Indian Boarding School system. He got the idea while overseeing a prison camp of Natives: “If you have individuals in these institutions long enough, you can start to enforce your will on them.”

• Taking young kids into the system was a way to cut them off from their traditions and cultures at an early age to teach them to grow up assimilated. And as Eric points out, it only takes one or two generations to lose this knowledge.

Varied Reasons for Attending the Schools

• Shiloh points out that reasons for attending the schools were varied. Toward the end of the Great Depression, many families tried to enroll their children into Indian Boarding Schools because the schools provided clothing and food. Other times, children ended up at the schools because they were orphaned and had nowhere else to go.

• Many other families did not want to send their children to these institutions at all, and consequences varied for this resistance. Funding to some communities was restricted because school attendance did not reach a certain quota. In some cases, children were snatched from their communities and put into the schools.

• As in Shiloh’s example of the Depression era, Eric has seen cases of economic pressure forcing families to make the difficult choice of putting their children in an Indian Boarding School in order to feed them.

• Eric also cites the societal pressure that existed, especially in the early 1900s, that Indian kids would go to Indian schools. They were not welcomed in or recruited to go to public schools.

Boys’ vs. Girls’ Education

• Focusing mainly on Holy Childhood boarding school where the Odawa of northern Michigan went, Eric shares some of the differences between boys’ and girls’ education.

• Boys learned skills like carpentry and how to become a cobber. Girls learned skills like cooking and cleaning.

Funding the Schools

• In some cases, the schools would send the kids—even very young kids—out to farms or nearby households to labor under the guise of “continuing their domestic education.” However, Eric says that the real reason to send kids out was for funding for the schools.

• For example, Holy Childhood operated for decades even after federal funding was pulled, and they did so through a plethora of means: fundraisers, donations, working kids, etc.

Stories of Resistance

• Eric shares some stories he’s heard of students resisting against the schools. In one account, a teenage girl attempted to burn down her school, Mount Pleasant in Michigan.

• Many kids attempted to run away, but not all of them were able to make the journey home. In one newspaper article from the 1940s that Eric read, two boys ran away from Holy Childhood in the middle of winter, but unfortunately, one froze to death just north of Cross Village.

• Eric also emphasizes that just surviving the system is a form of resistance.

Why Should We Share the Stories of Indian Boarding Schools?

• Eric shares his perspective on why the stories of Indian Boarding Schools should be shared. Rooted in federal policy and funded by federal money, the system directly and profoundly impacted—and continues to impact—an entire population. 

• Language revitalization and recovery efforts in Native communities exist today because of acts like the boarding schools.

• Intergenerational trauma from these schools reverberates through communities.

• As evidenced by a mass grave of Indigenous children found in a similar assimilation school in Canada, loss of life occurred in these institutions.

Eric’s Personal Path

• Eric traces the path of how he came to perform the historical and the repatriation work he is currently engaged in. He shares the powerful influence his mother and his community had on him growing up.

• Regarding repatriation in particular, Eric says, “When you physically repatriate a person… It changed me. You’re honoring them and you’re putting them back into the ground. Because without them you wouldn’t be here. This is a continuation of that work of honoring ancestors.”

Parting Words from Eric

• Eric reminds listeners that Native people, that Anishinaabe, are still here. While he does not want to be defined by the bad, he simultaneously does not want to ignore it.

• He also encourages listeners to seek out Native people if they want to learn more about Native people.