{"id":34582,"date":"2024-01-17T19:15:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T00:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=34582"},"modified":"2024-07-16T14:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T18:30:00","slug":"winnebago-tribe-sues-for-return-of-children-buried-at-indian-boarding-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/01\/17\/winnebago-tribe-sues-for-return-of-children-buried-at-indian-boarding-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnebago Tribe sues for return of children buried at Indian boarding school"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DVIDS: Tribes reclaim children lost at Carlisle Indian boarding school<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Winnebago Tribe sues for return of children buried at Indian boarding school<\/div>\r\n
Wednesday, January 17, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Acee Agoyo<\/div>\r\n
Indianz.Com<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe Winnebago Tribe<\/a> is suing the federal government to recover the remains of two children who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School<\/a>, one of the most infamous legacies of a genocidal era in U.S. history.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nA lawsuit filed on Wednesday accuses the U.S. Army of failing to follow the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act<\/a>, a federal law commonly known as NAGPRA. Tribal officials are invoking NAGPRA in order to ensure the military returns Samuel Gilbert and Edward Hensley to their people<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cThe traditional name for the Winnebago people is \u2018Ho-Chunk,\u2019 which translates to \u2018the big voice,\u2019” Chairwoman Victoria Kitcheyan said in a news release<\/a>. “As we have always done, we will use our voice to hold our federal partners accountable for undermining NAGPRA and diluting the protections it guarantees to all Tribal Nations. Many leaders before us fought for that law and we will carry the battle forward.\u201d\r\n

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BREAKING: the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska has filed a complaint to repatriate two children held at Carlisle Cemetary. Learn more: https:\/\/t.co\/WFT70wUM8j<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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<\/p>\r\nAccording to the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center<\/a>, a project of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, Samuel Gilbert<\/a> died at Carlisle barely a month after arriving in the fall of 1895. He was just 19 years old.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nEdward Hensley<\/a> also entered Carlisle in 1895, on the same day as his fellow tribal citizen. He died four years later, at the age of 17, according to boarding school records.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nHowever, the lawsuit filed in federal court alleges the families of Samuel and Edward were never informed of their deaths and were never informed of their burials at Carlisle. The boarding school site in Pennsylvania is located more than 1,100 miles from the Winnebago Reservation in northeastern Nebraska. \r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cAs a mother and grandmother, I stand for Samuel and Edward, knowing that their parents and grandparents were never able to properly bury them and send them on their final journey,\u201d said Sunshine Thomas-Bear, the NAGPRA representative and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer at Winnebago.\r\n

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PDF: Winnebago Tribe v. U.S. Army<\/a><\/div>\r\n
Winnebago Tribe v. U.S. Army<\/a><\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nCarlisle was founded by the U.S. government in 1879. By the time it closed in 1918, more than 10,000 children from over 140 tribes were sent there as part of a federal policy aimed at disconnecting them from their nations and communities.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“Everybody here knows that for the better part of two centuries, the United States policy was to decide what was best for us as Indian people, to make decisions for us without talking with us, without consulting with us and even coercing us to take paths that we didn’t want to take,” Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland<\/a> said at the 80th annual convention of the National Congress of American Indians<\/a> in November.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“One of the ways that the government carried out this policy of deciding what was best for Indian people was through forced assimilation in the boarding school system,” Newland, who is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community<\/a>, said at NCAI’s conference<\/a> in New Orleans, Louisiana.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nUnder the leadership of Secretary Deb Haaland<\/a>, whose own ancestors were also sent to Carlisle from their homes at the Pueblo of Laguna<\/a> in New Mexico, the Department of the Interior<\/a> initiated an unprecedented accounting of the boarding school era. According to the initial report from the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative<\/a>, the federal government operated or supported 408 boarding schools in 37 states between 1819 and 1969.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“It is undeniable that federal policies set out to break Indigenous peoples, to destroy our cultures, our life ways, and our inherent connection to the land,” Haaland, who is the first Native person to serve in a presidential cabinet, said at the opening of the White House Tribal Nations Summit<\/a> last month. “I think it is also undeniable that those policies failed. They failed to break us, and now, we\u2019re bringing every resource to bear to restore what they set out to destroy.”\r\n

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Indianz.Com Video: Secretary Deb Haaland at White House Tribal Nations Summit<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nBut while Carlisle is included in Interior’s accounting of Indian boarding schools, the site of the former boarding school — as well as the cemetery where Indian children are buried — falls under the control of the U.S. Army as one of its active facilities<\/a>. As a result, tribes have been forced to navigate complex military regulations, instead of NAGPRA, in order to reclaim their loved ones. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nFor example, the Army regulations<\/a> only allow \u201cclose relatives\u201d of an Indian child to request disinterment from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery. The Winnebago Tribe’s lawsuit says the requirement is difficult to meet, given the genocidal legacy of the former boarding school.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nAccording to the lawsuit, Thomas-Bear, the tribe’s NAGPRA representative, “knew that identifying closest living relatives would be challenging, if not impossible, because neither Edward nor Samuel had any direct descendants, since they died at Carlisle without any children.” \r\n

<\/P>\r\nA study completed by the Army in 2017 acknowledged that at least 179 Indian children were buried at Carlisle. Since that year, when the first disinterment project took place, only 36 requests from \u201cclose relatives\u201d have been approved under military regulations, the lawsuit states, citing notices that have published in the Federal Register<\/a> over the past six years. Secretary Haaland attended one such ceremony in 2021, when 10 children were returned<\/a> to their tribal families.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n“In a series of Federal Register notices issued in connection with the disinterment of other Native American human remains at Carlisle Cemetery, Defendants have asserted that disinterment of students from Carlisle is not governed by NAGPRA for various reasons, which have changed from 2017 to 2023,” the 54-page complaint states<\/a> in reference to the U.S. government defendants.\r\n

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