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American Indian Boarding Schools: A Small US Town Digs for the Truth | Foreign Correspondent — Transcript

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0:10in the united states midwest a harrowing
0:13search is underway
0:16to locate the graves of native american
0:18children taken from their tribes and
0:21sent to boarding schools
0:24these were not schools
0:26it was a prison camp
0:29from as far back as i can remember i've
0:30heard this story you know my mom would
0:33say she's still lost somewhere
0:37the recent discovery in canada of more
0:39than a thousand graves at former
0:41boarding schools exposed the
0:44state-sanctioned abuse of indigenous
0:46children
0:49the blueprint for these schools came
0:51from across the border in the united
0:53states now native american tribes in the
0:56u.s are demanding justice for the forced
0:58removal of their children and a bigger
1:01untold story is emerging a landmark
1:04federal government report now estimates
1:07tens of thousands of indigenous children
1:10could have died at us institutions
1:16i don't like calling these uh these
1:18things grave sites or cemeteries i don't
1:20call them that call them crime scenes
1:22that's what i call them
1:25in this report
1:26foreign correspondent gains exclusive
1:28access to one community
1:31as it begins a journey to uncover the
1:33truth
1:36[Music]
1:47[Music]
1:55[Music]
2:06wakata
2:10on a cold winter's morning these native
2:13american children are having a lesson in
2:15language okay that's your format are you
2:18ready here we go
2:20sapa black
2:27the language
2:28is literally the heart and soul of our
2:31people it holds our identity and it
2:33holds our our practices our beliefs our
2:36philosophies our world views
2:39all inside the language so our existence
2:42is directly tied to it there was the
2:44weed
2:45red wing thomas is one of a few who can
2:47speak dakota
2:49his tribe's language practice this word
2:51with me saying
2:56less than
2:575 of my people we don't know our
3:00language
3:01we are on the verge of reclaiming it but
3:04it's an uphill walk you know and we have
3:07a long way to go it took generations to
3:09wipe the language out it's going to take
3:11generations to restore it
3:15she ignored him
3:17he blames the us government's boarding
3:19school policy for destroying his
3:21people's culture
3:24as native people we've been severed from
3:26our language from our culture from our
3:29practices
3:30over a whole course of time but the
3:32boarding school era in the course of
3:34history did a number on our people where
3:37we almost
3:39did not recuperate from it
3:43from 1819 to 1969
3:46hundreds of thousands of indigenous
3:48children were taken from their tribes
3:51and placed in state and church-run
3:53boarding schools across the u.s and its
3:56then territories
4:02the schools under the guise of education
4:05were a dark experiment in assimilation
4:09the model for the schools was devised by
4:12military officer richard henry pratt
4:15an indian hunter
4:19[Music]
4:24by stripping away culture
4:27pratt believed he could kill the indian
4:30and save the man
4:34when you have a motto kill the engine
4:35save the man i mean come on that says
4:37this is as genocidal as it gets
4:40the schools were created for one purpose
4:43only and that was to destroy our belief
4:45system to destroy our family system
4:48and to
4:50change our identity
4:53by 1926 83
4:56of native american children were
4:58enrolled in these institutions
5:01everyone in this room literally descends
5:03from a boarding school survivor i mean
5:05that's just the truth
5:08redwing's grandfather albert was sent to
5:10boarding school at the age of eight
5:14he attended one of the largest and
5:17longest running institutions
5:20the genoa u.s indian industrial school
5:23in nebraska
5:26he never really talked about it
5:28and it wouldn't be until later
5:30you know later in his life where stories
5:33would be shared
5:34one experience shared that a soiled
5:37sheep
5:38would be used to be wiped in the mouths
5:40of the other children who spoke their
5:41language
5:43you know and if they didn't want those
5:44dirty sheets and soiled sheets shoved
5:47into their mouth well then you stop
5:48speaking your language and start
5:50speaking english
5:52that's pretty hateful you know that
5:54that's that's pretty evil
6:03[Music]
6:12this entrance
6:14and a few buildings and barns are all
6:16that remain of the indian industrial
6:18school in genoa
6:23once a sprawling campus housing children
6:26from more than 40 tribes
6:29today it's a place where people come to
6:32learn the history of what happened here
6:35[Music]
6:39this building once the school's workshop
6:43is now a museum run by the genoa
6:45foundation
6:46a group of local volunteers
6:50hi nancy
6:52it's so good to see you
6:53[Music]
6:55judy gashkabash's mother eleanor went to
6:58school here
7:00i'll let you look at your mom's window
7:02that was donated in her honor
7:05like many survivors her mother didn't
7:08talk about her time at boarding school
7:11she would talk about it and there was
7:13sort of a
7:14haunting look or a sadness to the tone
7:16of her voice
7:18she tried to tell the good things it
7:20says my mother's name there but i don't
7:23know
7:24i don't have a lot of pictures of my
7:25mother because for one thing they made
7:28them be photographed for everything and
7:29my mother detested having her picture
7:31taken
7:33so i look at that photo they have and i
7:35say one of those girls is my mother
7:39my mother cooked and baked breads and
7:42rolls and food that the children ate
7:45however most of the time they went a bit
7:48hungry
7:48[Music]
7:50to try to learn more judy began
7:52attending the school's reunions
7:55i started going to the genoa indian
7:57school reunions after my mother died so
8:00i got to learn about what it was like
8:02and meet people that could have been at
8:03school with my mother
8:08the genoa foundation's secretary nancy
8:10carlson started the annual gatherings
8:13more than 30 years ago
8:16former students were coming back asking
8:19information about the school and saying
8:21they wanted reunions and this sort of
8:23thing and so we thought you know what
8:26these people have this real need let's
8:29try to help them and do that three good
8:32super i got you this reunion was the
8:34first
8:36filmed in 1990 these pictures have never
8:39been broadcast
8:41first year i came i stayed two years
8:43as the school has no living survivors
8:46they offer a rare glimpse into what life
8:49was like for some former students
8:52so what was it what was your day like
8:54what time did you have to get up and i
8:55had to get up at four o'clock in the
8:57morning
8:58you never got any other time off to make
9:00up for it what did you learn here
9:02well i guess i i don't know i learned to
9:07i'm not really sure i guess i learned
9:08how to get along you know with other
9:10people you know strangers being around
9:11strangers here too
9:13this was just like a military school we
9:15had to march everywhere when it comes to
9:17dinner we went to march for church
9:20remarks
9:22[Music]
9:24these were not schools
9:26it was a prison camp
9:28a work camp
9:31it wasn't a
9:33lovely place to learn your education
9:37they were little soldiers
9:39[Music]
9:42every morning you know the whistles blew
9:44you had to get out of bed
9:46there was nothing of home
9:49you were stripped of all your cultural
9:51belongings
9:53your hair which is so sacred for the
9:56boys it was all cut off
10:00it was a self-sufficient school so the
10:02children were used as labor
10:08you learned the three r's half the day
10:10but it was a very watered down
10:12curriculum it wasn't stimulating it
10:15wasn't
10:17with the goal that you could be anything
10:19dreams could come true at the genoa
10:21indian school for these children no the
10:23dream was you will be a servant
10:31many students left the school with their
10:33culture broken
10:35others didn't return home at all
10:39[Music]
10:45what is important about where we're
10:46standing now as far as you know
10:49only that
10:51it's where we think the cemetery is
10:54the only reason
10:56why why would there be a
10:58cemetery with the school
11:02well
11:05kids started dying at an early age i
11:07mean at the
11:09early time they were at the school they
11:11had to do something with them
11:15i don't think it was possible those days
11:17to send them home the bodies i mean
11:20so they buried them here
11:24james nash attended the school in the
11:26late 1920s
11:28at the reunion he revealed two of his
11:30classmates died at the school
11:34he believes their deaths were covered up
11:38i searched the archives in washington dc
11:41for a week
11:42and i never found any record whatsoever
11:44of these two deaths
11:46that i personally knew about
11:49why do you think that is
11:51i think probably the
11:54whoever was
11:56operating the general indian school
12:00had those records destroyed because they
12:02were derogatory to the
12:04their image
12:06he took some of the people from the
12:09foundation board or some of the guys and
12:11they went out and they looked where he
12:13thought it was but they couldn't find
12:15any
12:16any markers or anything there the next
12:18day they had like a
12:21a grater that came in and just removed
12:23the topsoil to see if they could find
12:25where their graves and they did not find
12:27anything
12:28and so it was because of that they
12:30didn't find anything that they decided
12:32we were going to do this
12:34set up a marker that's just east to the
12:37east of this building to honor those
12:39former students that die
12:41[Music]
12:47the remains of
12:49215 children some as young as three
12:53buried for decades on the ground more
12:55unmarked graves uncovered at another
12:57catholic residential school
12:59last year in canada the discovery of
13:02mass graves at the sites of former
13:05boarding schools shocked the world
13:07but with more than double the number of
13:10schools in the us the government says
13:13tens of thousands of indigenous children
13:16could have suffered the same fate
13:18at no time in history have the records
13:20or documentation of this policy been
13:23compiled or analyzed to determine the
13:25full scope of its reaches and effects
13:28we must uncover the truth about the loss
13:31of human life and the lasting
13:33consequences of these schools
13:35[Music]
13:36a historic federal investigation into
13:39america's own boarding school era is now
13:42underway
13:45in nebraska's capital lincoln judy
13:48gashkebash heads up the state's
13:49commission on indian affairs
13:52she says it's time to tell the truth
13:55about what happened at her mother's
13:57school
13:59when we first heard about
14:01what was going on in canada i said we've
14:03got to focus on
14:06the children that died here
14:09a cemetery at a school is not the norm
14:12that you could die at school and then
14:14you're going to be buried out the door
14:19this whole history is almost invisible
14:23people aren't aware of the fact that
14:25we're going to find these kind of graves
14:26we're going to find missing children
14:29here in the united states too
14:33judy asked historian dr margaret jacobs
14:36to find out how many children died at
14:39genoa
14:40[Music]
14:44when i started trying to find out what
14:47happened to the children who died the
14:48first place i looked was the government
14:50records
14:50[Music]
14:53nothing
14:54so that's when i started doing some
14:56newspaper searches
14:58she soon began uncovering reports of
15:01students deaths
15:03spinal paralysis
15:06heart failure
15:08there's a lot of accidental deaths we've
15:11come across a drowning
15:13a child who was hit by a train
15:17their diseases were sweeping through
15:19these schools
15:20but in many cases they weren't returning
15:22the children to their homes when they
15:24died and they were burying them on site
15:28and
15:30it's just kind of chilling to me
15:32you know to think that
15:34first for so many children the schools
15:36were death traps
15:38[Music]
15:43those who grew up in genoa knew and
15:46understood what happened here it was a
15:48point that we were taught in school
15:49about
15:50native american boarding schools
15:52assimilation but we weren't aware of the
15:55cemetery at least i know
15:58myself i didn't stop to think about the
16:00students that died here what happened to
16:02them
16:03nikki drewes volunteers with the genoa
16:06foundation and is helping investigate
16:08student deaths
16:10she recently discovered more children
16:13had died
16:14[Music]
16:15we have found 86 students that have died
16:19but without having the actual government
16:21records it's hard to say how many there
16:23really are
16:24it's
16:26almost 100 that there are more students
16:28that have died
16:30[Music]
16:44one of the 86 children who died at genoa
16:47was carolyn fiskus's aunt mildred lowe
16:53i have an old picture of my grandmother
16:55and my aunt mildred and mildred looks
16:57like she's about three years and they're
17:00wearing
17:01white people's clothes and shoes my
17:04little my auntie must have moved you
17:06know how little kids wiggle
17:10in 1927 mildred lowe was taken from the
17:13winnebago tribe and sent across the
17:16plains of nebraska to school in genoa
17:20they put her on the train and it started
17:23moving and
17:24that train whistle would blow and then
17:26she got to genoa and she got off and
17:30that was how it was it was horrible
17:32lonely and scary
17:35mildred died three years later
17:37she was 12 years old
17:40to lose a child and then to lose them in
17:42that way you don't know what happened to
17:44them
17:45it's a very sad story for our family
17:50[Music]
17:52this is my wall of fame of my family
17:54this is my mom and dad
17:56this is on their 50th wedding
17:57anniversary i think we had this taken my
18:00dad's little ball-headed white guy and
18:01my mom is ho chunk
18:03and then this this my son and daughter
18:05their graduation pictures
18:09and these is my pride and joy my
18:11grandchildren
18:13put my aunt mildred up there with my
18:15grandmother there they are
18:18for me it's like this is missing this
18:20piece
18:25carolyn has spent the last decade trying
18:28to find out what happened to mildred
18:30after she died
18:32she's probably at the spirit world but
18:34she didn't get a send-off but
18:36everybody's there we believe our
18:37ancestors are there to greet her
18:40but you know we want her spirit to know
18:43that we know that too
18:46carolyn has recently received mildred's
18:48death certificate
18:51it reveals mildred died from influenza
18:54and meningitis
18:55[Music]
18:57when i got it i was like oh you know
18:59just reading that is just kind of like
19:01you uh say oh now this is real
19:04she really did die there
19:07and here's the evidence and it's hard i
19:09think it's hard for me
19:12pray for all the spirits who haven't
19:14come home yet pray for them to find
19:16their way on this smudge and um
19:21the document states mildred's body was
19:23sent home to the winnebago reservation
19:26but carolyn is skeptical
19:29they didn't have any record of her being
19:31buried in the winnebago cemetery
19:34and
19:35my grandmother's record was there
19:38but we didn't have mildred
19:42she believes mildred was buried at genoa
19:45in the school's lost cemetery
19:53you want more than just to come here and
19:55see this right
19:57that's right
19:59i'd like to
20:02definitely locate the cemetery
20:05defensive
20:07probably a monument of some sort
20:15[Music]
20:19more than 30 years after james nash
20:21first mentioned the cemetery a new
20:24effort is underway to find the
20:26children's graves
20:28in this situation with this story
20:31of native american boarding schools
20:33there's a certain that feels like
20:34there's kind of a sense of urgency
20:37be nice to be involved in that first
20:39step of finding them
20:42state archaeologist rob bozell is
20:45overseeing the field work
20:48the only
20:50map
20:51that has been found
20:54that depicts a cemetery is this 1899
20:57nance county atlas
20:59and i don't know if you can see that but
21:01right there the word cem for cemetery
21:04and across that's a symbol that
21:05cartographers use for cemeteries
21:08uh
21:10this is a very coarse scale again
21:12they're depicting something
21:14south of the railroad tracks and east of
21:16this property line
21:18but it doesn't give us enough detail to
21:20say exactly where it is we've also got
21:23air photos it shows that the cemetery is
21:26somewhere in this area
21:30it's a big area
21:31probably 200 acres
21:38[Music]
21:52using ground penetrating radar rob and
21:55his team are looking for disturbances in
21:58the soil which could indicate a grave
22:00shaft
22:02this pyramid looking thing
22:04represents a difference in soil
22:07compaction could be a grave could be a
22:09big animal hole that's different than
22:11the surrounding
22:13natural soil
22:15we have another one here same shape
22:19and we also had two
22:22same shape
22:24going up a little farther here
22:28so we have potentially
22:31four
22:32three or four anomalies
22:35the discovery creates cautious optimism
22:38it will take months to analyze the data
22:42it's more than we've seen on our other
22:45two or three trips out here i don't
22:47think we saw any anomalies any place
22:49else so we're at least seeing those
22:51whether they're signatures of graves or
22:53not don't know yet
22:58my name is philip swantec
23:01born and raised here at genoa
23:04phil swantek owns the land where the
23:06search for the children is taking place
23:09he believes the canal which was
23:11constructed shortly after the school's
23:13closure in the 1930s destroyed the
23:16cemetery
23:18and you have to realize when they dug
23:20that canal
23:21they had a dredge or a drag line
23:24that you could fit a big truck into
23:26on the scoop
23:28you know and
23:29in the 1930s i don't think anybody was
23:32too much concerned
23:33if they run across bones or anything
23:35[Music]
23:37but no records have been found that
23:39construction disrupted any graves
23:43phil says he has mixed feelings about
23:46what will happen if the cemetery is
23:48found
23:49i own the land and my opinion is if they
23:52did find something there
23:54i would probably want
23:57it memorialized some way
23:59but not disturbed
24:03[Music]
24:10[Applause]
24:13eight of the children who lost their
24:14lives in genoa belong to nebraska's
24:17omaha tribe
24:21you know they're they're speaking from
24:22the grave you know that's just how we
24:24see it we're here find us bring us home
24:29chairman leanne demeric says if the
24:32cemetery is found the omaha tribe will
24:34repatriate their children and lay them
24:37to rest on their ancestral lands
24:40[Music]
24:42they have to come home this is this is
24:44their home to bring them back here is
24:46going to bring closure for
24:48for for them their spirits and their
24:50loved ones and
24:52and our community as a whole
24:54this is shining a light on the united
24:56states
24:57it's not a good light
25:00they wanted to eradicate us they wanted
25:02to they didn't want us
25:04to be a threat to them because of what
25:05they were doing you know they
25:07the bottom line is they wanted our land
25:14across the country native american
25:16tribes are mobilizing
25:18as they begin searching for their lost
25:20children
25:22there are calls for a reckoning for the
25:24trauma caused by boarding schools
25:29dr samuel torres is from the national
25:31native american boarding school healing
25:33coalition based in minneapolis
25:38this moment as hard as it was
25:40it has been an important moment to
25:42remind
25:43folks from every background that this is
25:46an important part of the story
25:48of
25:49the forming of the united states of
25:51america that this land
25:54was once indian land and it still is and
25:56it always will be
25:58he says there needs to be a commission
26:01of inquiry as the first step towards
26:04reconciliation
26:06boarding school survivors are are not
26:08getting any younger and and there's a
26:10wealth of knowledge and a wealth of
26:12information that uh that needs to be
26:16shared
26:17truth cannot be done without
26:20a focus on accountability and justice
26:22and only through that can substantive
26:25healing actually take place
26:34[Applause]
26:39[Music]
26:47for redwing keeping the culture alive
26:50is key to healing from a painful past
26:55so in my classroom
27:00we reverse it
27:05[Music]
27:08for the ones who had to go through it so
27:11we reverse it
27:13instead it's a it's a happy atmosphere
27:16instead it's joyous and it's exciting
27:18and it's enthusiastic
27:21and it's everything that our ancestors
27:23were forbidden to have
27:26that's why there's so much
27:28energy
27:30in my room
27:31it's it's for them
27:39[Music]
27:51so
28:04this is real they really were here
28:07it was 20 years ago that i was last here
28:12and we're still
28:14looking for those children that died
28:22in genoa the recent search failed to
28:25locate the cemetery
28:28they're there somewhere we know they're
28:31under the ground somewhere and they need
28:33to be honored
28:36efforts to find the children who never
28:39came home
28:40continue
28:43i can't rest until
28:46i feel i've exhausted every possible
28:49avenue to find the children
28:51[Music]
29:07[Music]
29:18[Music]
29:25is
29:34[Music]
29:53you

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