{"id":6653,"date":"2021-01-18T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T05:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=6653"},"modified":"2021-01-18T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T05:18:13","slug":"gaylord-news-indian-boarding-school-era-still-lives-on-for-many","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/01\/18\/gaylord-news-indian-boarding-school-era-still-lives-on-for-many\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaylord News: Indian boarding school era still lives on for many"},"content":{"rendered":"\"carlisleindianindustrialschool\"\r\n
The tombstones of students who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School sit on the grounds of the Army War College, which occupies the school\u2019s former campus in central Pennsylvania. Photo by Addison Kliewer \/ Gaylord News\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
\u2018Kill the Indian, save the man\u2019: Stories of Indian boarding schools still echo<\/div>\r\n
Monday, January 18, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Addison Kliewer, Miranda Mahmud and Brooklyn Wayland<\/div>\r\n
Gaylord News<\/div>\r\n
gaylordnews.net<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWASHINGTON \u2013 About 180 white tombstones \u2013 each belonging to a child who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School \u2013 stand row-by-row in the dewy grass of central Pennsylvania, bearing the names of those who died while being forced to learn the white man\u2019s way.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nFrom 1,500 to 1,800 Native American students from Oklahoma attended the Carlisle school, said Jim Gerenscer, co-director of the Carlisle Indian School Project<\/a>, a database that provides information about the school and the students who attended. But some never made it back home, dying from unknown causes at Carlisle.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe purpose of school, as well as others across the nation, was to remove Native Americans from their cultures and lifestyles and assimilate them into the white man\u2019s world.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nCarlisle, which opened in 1879 and operated until 1918, was among the first and best-known boarding schools for Native children, and its operational model set the standard for most that came after.\r\n

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\r\n\"carlisleindianindustrialschoolstudents\"\r\n
Recent arrivals at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School pose with upperclassmen. About 8,000 students attended the school before it closed in 1918. Photo courtesy of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nFor many tribes in Oklahoma, the horrors of the Carlisle model were experienced closer to home.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nRiverside Indian School<\/a>, outside Anadarko, is the nation\u2019s oldest federally operated American Indian boarding school. Organized by Quaker missionaries in 1871, it was known as the Wichita-Caddo School until 1878.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nJoe and Ethil Wheeler were educated there. Anthony Galindo, the grandson they raised, recalls hearing their stories about conditions at the school.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nEthil was one of many students who tried to run away from Riverside but always was sent back. Eventually, she was loaded into a cattle car and shipped by train in the dead of winter to Phoenix, where she stayed until she was 19. Galindo said his grandmother remembered huddling together with other children to keep warm. Some didn\u2019t survive the journey.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nJoe was abused at Riverside, Galindo said, and he never forgave. But as much as he held on to that grudge, he said, Joe clung to his belief in the creator, part of the traditional Big Drum religion practiced by Wichita people.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cFirst they cut my hair, then they made me eat soap and then they beat me for speaking my language,\u201d Galindo said, recalling his grandfather\u2019s words.\r\n

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\r\n
\r\n\"tomtorlinobefore\"\r\n
Tom Torlino, a Navajo student who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1882, poses for his \u201cbefore\u201d picture upon his arrival at the school\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\"tomtorlinoafter\"\r\n
Navajo student Tom Torlino in his \u201cafter\u201d photo in 1882. About two dozen such photos were taken to promote the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to tribes around the country.\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
Photos courtesy of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center)<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nJoe\u2019s father found out his son was being tortured at Riverside and removed him. Having learned English and completed the sixth grade, Joe became an interpreter for his people to assist in dealings between the federal government and the tribe.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nAlthough many of the Indian boarding schools have closed, Riverside, now run by the Bureau of Indian Education, remains open. All that remains of the original Wichita-Caddo School campus is an eerily sparse graveyard atop a hill.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nQuinton Roman Nose, a Cheyenne Arapaho who is president and chairman of the Riverside Advisory School Board, said some schools are operated by the tribes under old treaties with the federal government. The treaties often included an educational component; the boarding schools today derived from components within the old treaties, making education the tribe\u2019s responsibility.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOfficials at Riverside and the Bureau of Indian Education did not respond to requests for comment on this story.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe trauma from Riverside Indian School stayed with Joe Wheeler all his life, Galindo said. In fact, Joe\u2019s feelings about Riverside make up Galindo\u2019s first memory of being raised by his grandparents. Joe told him the government\u2019s purpose was to wipe the Wichita people off the face of the Earth through cultural assimilation.\r\n

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<\/IMG>
U.S. Army general \r\nRichard Henry Pratt is seen here with an Indian boarding school student, circa \r\n1880. Pratt was the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and \r\nadvocated the Kill \r\nthe Indian — Save the Man<\/A> approach to the education of Indian children. \r\nPhoto: U.S. \r\nMilitary Institute, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, \r\nPennsylvania<\/A> <\/FIGCAPTION><\/figure>

<\/p>\r\nRichard H. Pratt<\/a>, founder and superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, championed efforts to strip Native students of their cultures.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cA great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres,\u201d Pratt said in an 1892 speech<\/a>.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cIn a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.\u201d\r\n

<\/p>\r\nGerencser, with the Carlisle Indian School Project, said Pratt got the idea for the Carlisle school as an Army officer in Oklahoma Territory. While moving 70 Native captives to Florida, he said, Pratt invited Floridians to teach the prisoners English.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n\u201cSo that\u2019s where Pratt got this idea that, \u2018Hey, if you isolate them from their families and their tribal life and you immerse them in standard American white culture, they\u2019ll be just like everybody else,\u2019\u201d Gerencser said.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nUnlike other boarding schools, Carlisle housed older students, with some enrolling as old as 18. Many boarding schools, including Riverside, recruited much younger students.\r\n

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