Harsh Lives
Reports of students being beaten, malnourished, and forced to do heavy labor had been expressed for decades, but were largely ignored. Even when the Meriam Report, which recognized these injustices, was published in 1928, true organized change took many more years to occur.
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Many tried to escape the cruelty of boarding schools.
"Many boys ran away from the school because the treatment was so bad, but most of them were caught and brought back by the police."
- Lone Wolf, Blackfoot tribe |
"Two of our girls ran away... but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell, fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she'd get out there and whip them and make them stand up again."
- Helma Ward, Makah |
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“We had to go all that time with nothing to eat [on Sundays]. I used to get so hungry I could hardly walk.”
-Harriette Shelton Dover
-Harriette Shelton Dover
"[There was] now and then a little mouse in your milk pitcher, a little dead mouse. And in the hardtack, if you'd crack 'em open ... there'd be a few little worms in there"
- Girl at Chilocco Indian School |
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"Bless this mush, I hope it doesn't kill us"
- Basil Johnston, an Ojibwe boy who attended a boarding school in Ontario, and made a joke of saying grace |
"We were having breakfast. All of the smaller children ate it, but it wasn't much. It was in a bowl and it was probably about four tablespoons with about two tablespoons of milk on it and very little sugar. But there were little white worms in it. I looked at it when I was small, but I was too hungry so I just ate it up. Anyway, the matron went around to all the tables and ordered everyone to eat it. If you didn't eat it, then you had to stay there, and if you stayed there, then you got a good 'lickin.' So you'd better eat it."
-Harriette Shelton Dover
-Harriette Shelton Dover
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"Busted his head open and blood got all over. I had to take him to the hospital, and they told me to tell them he ran into the wall and I better not tell them what really happened."
-Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian (Referring to a student beaten by a teacher) |
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"It broke me up-and the other boys and girls too- because it took those boys two or three hours to get back up to the building [after being beaten]. They could hardly walk. They were almost dead. That’s a long, long road to being civilized."
–Harriette Shelton Dover |
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Homesickness
"I don't want to stay here... Come after me please, papa, I am so lonesome for home."
-from a letter by Nora Cailis, who attended a boarding school in Oklahoma
-from a letter by Nora Cailis, who attended a boarding school in Oklahoma
"These children are very obedient and appear to have confidence in their teachers, but I think their love of home is greater than in white children... there is not one that will not leave everything, delighted to go home."
- Unnamed Teacher
- Unnamed Teacher
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"Well, after we grew up we found out that they censored the mail, and anything that was said against the school, like if anybody was sick or anything, they never mailed them... My cousin got sick and died there too, at Holy Rosary, and his parents never knew until after he passed away that he was sick."
- Mildred Stinson, Oglala Sioux
- Mildred Stinson, Oglala Sioux