Indian Boarding Schools
The trauma of Indian Boarding Schools is reflected in the faces of these children.
There is no expression of joy or even a smile in the entire assembly.
The children have the same haunting look as Holocaust survivors!
Many of these children never made it home. Most who died were buried in unmarked graves on school grounds.
The Indian School experience was as variable as the students. For most Indian children it was traumatic. For some, it was a stepping-stone to a better life.
Chiracahua Apache children as they arrived at Carlisle November 4, 1886.
Before Carlisle
Carlisle and other off reservation boarding schools instituted their assault on Native cultural identity by first doing away with all outward signs of tribal life that the children brought with them.
The long braids worn by Indian boys were cut off. The children were made to wear standard uniforms. The children were given new “white” names, including surnames.
Students were forbidden to speak their Native languages, even to each other. The Carlisle school rewarded those who refrained from speaking their own language; most other boarding schools relied on punishment to achieve this goal.
After Carlisle Initiation
Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart is a Hunkpapa, Oglala Lakota, and a professor at the University of New Mexico. She is the first person to develop the theory of historical unresolved grief, and she describes historical trauma as “the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over one’s lifetime and from generation to generation following the loss of lives, land, and vital aspects of culture.
The same group of Chiracahua Apache children 4 months after their arrival at Carlisle, March 1887