Researchers identify 102 children who died at Nebraska residential school
Neb. Indian Affairs director says children were casualties in 'a war to steal our lands'
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Researchers say they have identified more than 100 Indigenous children who died at a notorious government-run boarding school in Nebraska, but they are still searching for their remains.
For decades, the U.S. government operated Christian boarding schools designed to strip Indigenous children of their languages and culture — a program that's strikingly similar to Canada's residential school system.
As in Canada, abuse and neglect were rampant at the schools, and the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Neb., was no exception.
Using old newspaper archives, school newsletters and government records, researchers have learned that at least 102 children died there between 1884, when it opened, and 1934, when it closed. Common causes of death were tuberculosis, pneumonia, the flu and heart failure.
"Some other strange, unusual incidents were reported as accidental shootings, drownings, spinal paralysis and a freight car accident — [not] typical happenings at most schools in the world," Judi gaiashkibos, executive director of the Nebraska Commission in Indian Affairs and a citizen of the Ponca Tribe, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"So I suspect that wasn't an accident in some cases, and some kids may have committed suicide and some were killed when they were running away from the school."
The research was conducted by the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project, a collaboration between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation, descendants of survivors, and representatives from five Indigenous tribes in Nebraska.
Searching for burial grounds
Between 1831 and 1996, Canada's federal government took more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children from their families and forced them to attend church-run residential schools.
Thousands of children died at the schools, and over the last year, First Nations across Canada have been using ground-penetrating radar to locate their remains. But the records needed to identify those remains are largely lost, scattered among different goverment agencies, or closely guarded by the Catholic church.
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The Nebraska researchers have so far been able to find the names of 54 children who died at the Genoa school. For the others, they have confirmed gender, tribal affiliation and, in many cases, cause of death.
"We're kind of the reverse of you [in Canada]. We have the names, the records, but we don't have the cemetery where the children are buried," gaiashkibos said.
They have begun scanning the former school lands with ground-penetrating radar, but have yet to make any discoveries.
"We're probably going to have to do more surveying, which could take a long time on a big, huge campus like this. [It's] hundreds of acres."
To do that, she says they'll need more funding. She's hopeful that will come from the federal government, which announced plans in June to launch an investigation to the history of Native American boarding schools.
'Soldiers of the last Indian war'
Life at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School was strict and regimented, says gaiashkibos, whose mother and two aunts were sent there from the Ponca Indian Reservation in the 1920s.
The schools were self-sufficient, so the children were expected to perform unpaid labour after classes to keep things running. They weren't allowed to go home for holidays, and during the summer, gaiashkibos says they were "farmed out to work in white families."
The three sisters were of Ponca and Sioux ancestry, and would speak both languages among each other, gaiashkibos said.
"That was forbidden. And if you were found to be doing that, you were beaten, deprived of food, punished, made to kneel down on the ground for hours until your legs were numb," gaiashkibos. "So it was a real, sad, lonely place."
There's no government data on how many Native American boarding schools operated in the U.S., how many children were taken to them, or how many never came home.
But the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition estimates there were 367 — more than double the 139 residential schools in Canada.
The organization's CEO told As It Happens in June that she suspects twice as many children were taken from their homes in the U.S. as in Canada, and that twice as many may have died.
Gaiashkibos sees those students as casualties of a war waged by the U.S. government against Native Americans to destroy their cultures and steal their lands.
She says the schools operated in concert with the 1887 Dawes Act, which paved the way for the U.S. government to convert tribal community land into private property and allot it to Native American heads of household — as determined by the government. Surplus land was opened up to non-Indigenous settlement.
"They didn't want the children to have their culture. And … most of them, in many cases, wouldn't be returning to their homelands," she said.
"I see them as soldiers of the last Indian war in America, a war to steal our lands, and they used our little children. And in war, some children die. So sadly, these are those children, our soldiers that died. And we're going to do like the American government and find those children and honour those children and bring our soldiers the honour they deserve."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Chloe Shantz Hilkes.
Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools, and those who are triggered by the latest reports.
A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
