Newark Earthworks Center's Blog: 'Bring Them Home': Rosebud Sioux Seeking Return of Relatives Buried at Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Thursday, February 18, 2016

'Bring Them Home': Rosebud Sioux Seeking Return of Relatives Buried at Carlisle Indian Industrial School

From 1879 until 1918, more than 10,000 Native American children from 140 tribes attended Carlisle.
Only 158 graduated. (c.1900).
Image Courtesy of Frontier Forts, Wikipedia and Indian Country Today.

February 8, 2016.

Rick Kearns, of Indian Country Today, has written an informative article about the efforts of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to bring home the remains of several Lakota children buried at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Carlisle Indian Industrial School was used as a model for the federal policy of forced assimilation; developed with the goal of eradicating American Indian cultures. The Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975 recognized American Indian nations' right to 'plan, conduct, and administer programs and services [affecting them]'(Page 2). Today, only a few boarding schools are still in operation.

"Last month, Soldier Wolf wrote a letter to LTC Greg W. Ank, Garrison Commander of Carlisle, saying that, “Our ancestors should not be a tourist attraction. Our ancestors are no longer considered objects of research; they will no longer be considered roadside attractions. These children were people; they were sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, future war chiefs, future mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and caretakers of this land. For them to be taken away and never given back is appalling.” "

-Rick Kearns, Indian Country Today.

To read the full article, click here.

For more information,

Visit:

Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Northern Arapaho Tribe

Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office

Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association (Facebook)
National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
"The Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office hopes to return the remains of three Carlisle Indian School students buried in Pennsylvania to the Wind River Indian Reservation and their respective families"

Alejandra Silva, Daily Journal, February 10, 2016.

Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

Student Files
Images
Publications
Lists & Rosters
Collections
Websites

Carlisle Indian School Students Database

Gettysburg College

U.S. Army Garrison, Carlisle Barracks
"American Indian Boarding Schools: An Exploration of Global Ethnic & Cultural Cleansing; A Supplementary Curriculum Guide" (PDF)

Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways, 2011.

The Residential School System (Canada)

Indigenous Foundations, The University of British Columbia.

Death by Boarding School: "The Last Acceptable Racism" and the United States' Genocide of Native Americans" (PDF)

Ann Piccard, Gonzaga Law Review, Vol. 49. 2013.

"Let All That is Indian Within You Die!" (PDF)

Native American Rights Fund Legal Review. Volume 38, Number 2. Summer/Fall 2013.

"American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many"

NPR, May 19, 2008.

"Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act as Amended" (PDF)

Bureau of Indian Affairs

"Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act"

1975 Version.

" "Kill the Indian, and Save the Man": Capt. Richard H. Pratt on the Education of Native Americans" (United States)

History Matters. .
"Beginning in 1887, the federal government attempted to “Americanize” Native Americans, largely through the education of Native youth. By 1900 thousands of Native Americans were studying at almost 150 boarding schools around the United States. The U.S. Training and Industrial School founded in 1879 at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, was the model for most of these schools. Boarding schools like Carlisle provided vocational and manual training and sought to systematically strip away tribal culture."

"Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948." (PDF)

United Nations Treaty Collection
"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."