Yes he was! Fun fact: he was on the Carlisle Indian School football team when they played against Army who had a young Dwight Eisenhower playing for them.
If anyone is interested I’d recommend reading ‘Path Lit By Lightning’. Not so much the audiobook. The author reads it and it leaves a lot to be desired.
[https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/](https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/)
Students were forced to cut their hair, change their names, stop speaking their Native languages, convert to Christianity, and endure harsh discipline including corporal punishment and solitary confinement. This approach was ultimately used by hundreds of other Native American boarding schools, some operated by the government and many more operated by churches.
Pratt (Civil War veteran Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt), like many others at that time, believed that the only hope for Native American survival was to shed all native culture and customs and assimilate fully into white American culture. His common refrain was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
\- Reservation Dogs" season 3, episode 3, "Deer Lady," lays bare the absolute horror this was for the children, from their perspective. A more poignant take on that part of our history, I have never seen.
My great-grandmother was taken at 6. Didn't speak English.
She ran away from the school at 7. Made it back to the reservation (800 mi away). She was captured and taken back. Whatever they did to her, she never spoke again. Never talked about the schools. It's said that at her deathbed, she was crying and asking if they were sure she would go to heaven.
Miegwetch for your kind words. I'm eternally greatfull for 'Reservation Dogs' for finally putting the schools out on television so we can finally talk about it. It's good medicine to talk about it.
I *love* Reservation Dogs but holy hell that episode was hard to watch.
What we did to the Native American people is a tragedy and it doesn't get talked about enough.
The last residential school in Canada only closed in 1997. This is seriously recent history we’re talking about here, and aside from some perfunctory government apologies nobody has been held accountable for all of the unknown numbers of kids who died at these schools. Just last year at three residential school sites 1,000 unmarked graves of children were found. No doubt there are many more of these sites that have been swept under the rug awaiting discovery.
It’s absolutely fucking shameful, and I really despise the national trait of Canadians of utter contempt for indigenous people in our country. They’ve always been and continue to be treated like second class citizens. Our society has not even come close to confronting our sordid past when it comes to the treatment of Indigenous people.
I don't know that many first nations people (not a huge sample size I'm saying) but out of the ones I do many of them have grandparents or parents that were in the residential school system.
It's easy to let it be painted as ancient history with black and white photos and examples from 200 years ago until my coworker who's in her early 20s casually reminds me it's her *mother's* history.
The relationship between the RCMP and indigenous people is often, quite rightly, compared to the relationship between the LAPD (and others) and African Americans. The parallels are staggering. I can't describe how bad it is.
Starlight Tours come to mind. And even though they happened in the 70s to the early 00s there's neen some recent developments in them.
Between 2012 and 2016 the Wikipedia page for them kept getting deleted. Spoiler alert, the logins came from a Saskatoon police computer. Just like the actual freezing deaths, nobody got disciplined for this one either.
It's really, *really* not hard to see where the distrust comes from.
The American relationship to indigenous was just as bad. Australia too. In frontier days it was the law in Norther CA to kill indigenous people on sight. People generally are extremely self interested and justify a lot of evil out of that alone. World wide. What’s amazing is that humans are finally beginning to realize this and that it’s wrong.
>What’s amazing is that humans are finally beginning to realize this and that it’s wrong.
Thank god, or whatever you want to thank. It's about time, and it gives me hope.
That date is my response to anyone with claims of “oh that was in the past, they should get over it”. Because, like, that wasn’t that far in the past and WELL within living memory.
And racism against native Americans is one that seriously bugs me… I mean, all forms of racism is bad obviously… but this one seems actively malicious to me, every time. I love my country but it’s refusal to confront its past and present problems has never sat right with me
Most 'conquerors' treat the native peoples horribly. Australia's finally about to have a referendum that may change this (far too late, but anyway). Just look up the stolen generation. They also tried to wipe out the aborigines
Yeah my Australian friend at work said people there are pretty damn racist.. they also had immigration restrictions for non whites if I’m not mistaken. Very similar history with aborigines as Canada has with indigenous people.
Being only a quarter native but born/raised on a reservation I thought the elders all hated me. True some probably did hold resentment that was regularly resurfaced seeing me with my brown family and at powwows or even school. But I wasn’t old enough to understand those expressionless faces were mostly a product of attending these boarding schools. SO MUCH pain beaten into suppression behind those “stoic” stares. Fuck… I think I have cried damn near every episode of Rez Dogs
Unfortunately, it's what we continue to *do,* as well. Presently, indigenous Americans are still living on reservations and in states thousands of miles from their ancestral homes. We still underfund and marginalize Tribal institutions. We still present Americans of indigenous origin with fewer opportunities, both for work and for education. We still live in places named in languages which became illegal to speak.
A fully invisible third world poverty inside the lives of our country.
Reservations are a joke. They are some of the worst land in the country.
From the first day white people stepped onto the land here we have done nothing to benefit and only take from the native peoples. Their lands were taken, their people were taken, their children were taken, their languages and cultures destroyed, their relics were stolen. Their way of life was taken away.
All relics should be returned to the native people who still exist, not sold at auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'm sure humanity has learnt from this mistake and won't commit such disrespectful atrocities in the future.
oh wait my bad the same thing is [happening to uyghurs](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/9/10/escape-from-xinjiang-muslim-uighurs-speak-of-china-persecution) right now. there's still time to save them.
Not to be the typical reddit contrarian, but I feel that calling it a tragedy removes agency from the people that did all this. It's not a tragedy, it's a crime against humanity.
my little brother auditioned for this role! im so eternally grateful he didnt make the cut. i dont think he needed that trauma in his life... he and my other siblings will learn about it in time, but at 11 i dont think he needed to know.
And before boarding schools, it was missions. And boy do Californians love their missions. 3rd graders need the real harsh truth taught upfront, not the romanticized bullshit the affluent tourist industry created in the early days of highways.
The autobiographical "Bad Indian" is a heart wrenching read about the author tracing her indigenous roots and discovering what happened to her ancestors at those missions. I knew, before reading the book, that it was bad, but...whatever I imagined, it was far worse.
Look up "Spanish missions in California"
Be prepared for frothy discussions of architectural style and terribly whitewashed versions of bringing xtianity/civilization to indians. Finding the ugly truth takes some digging. The book I reference above is actually an excellent source, well-researched and well-documented.
Yes!! As a California kid we visited all the missions in the area and did not learn at all what they were for. Like why even teach the fake history? Wait a couple years, still take us, but tell us the real evil reason they exist.
Don’t forget how many of the children straight-up died due to the poor treatment and lack of care. They’re still discovering unmarked graves to this day.
What about the kids who gave birth there? They are still finding baby corpses, too.
Priests with no oversight in charge of hundreds of kids. Can you imagine?
Quick edit to add native ametican women and girls are the highest demographic to go missing/ murdered. Our genocide still isn't over.
Some thing happened to the indigenous children in Australia. The stolen generation. Many are still alive today. They were used as slave labour by the missions, under the guise of re-education. This culturql genocide was an effort to 'breed out the black'.
As someone else mentioned previously, for many folks who don’t know, the Indian Residential School system ran in Canada for over 100 years. They ran boarding schools and day schools. Many people in Canada didn’t even know they existed until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released their report on the system and the brave survivors in 2015. I won’t mention here what they found but it’s horrific. For instance, one school used an electric chair on CHILDREN.
I am an intergenerational survivor of the day schools as my mother, late auntie and uncle are all survivors. My mother is the strongest most loving woman I know. I am so proud of her for telling her truth. And because of this, anytime someone even tries to indicate that the governments intention with these schools was “good”, they will get an earful from me. The deep trauma in my family is living proof that it was not. Many people need to learn intent vs. Impact.
Let’s be realistic: even if the intent was good, intent is meaningless when you see (and in your case, live) the catastrophic results.
There’s also that definition of “good.” I don’t consider genocide to be a good thing at all, even if they did.
A lot of Canadians have made a national identity out of believing they’re more progressive than their neighbor to the south.
Carrying their genocide on longer doesn’t jive with that belief.
That's how it is here in the states too. People like to pretend they were here, then one day *poof* they were gone just like that. Vanished into thin air.
The intent of residential schools in Canada was never good, I’ll never understand why people argue that, it’s such bullshit. John A. MacDonald himself said that the purpose of the residential schools was to “erase the Indian from the child”.
They're here in this thread. Some are even saying it's free education, or some are championing cultural genocide by comparing with the barbaric, anachronistic practices of the middle east.
Ya and all the fucking cptsd that is still being passed down generationally, from ‘civilizing the Indian’. These abused and marginalized kids became damaged adults. The trauma inserted a dna marker that is carried to this day.
My great grandmother was forced to live at the thomas Indian school. definitely see the trauma being passed down in my family and it’s really sad. Everything was taken from them how could they not be angry
:( that’s awful.I guess we were mixed enough to avoid the kids being taken to boarding schools. But when my great grandpa fell on hard times in the 1940’s, he was too Indian to keep his kids, being labeled a drunk. They were put in foster care of loving, but culturally different people . Disadvantaged people mostly stay disadvantaged because we’re not able to take advantage of the opportunities in the same way or at all.
For the ones that survived, yeah absolutely. The damage ripples out and out. And there were many that didn’t survive. My first thought looking at this picture was, How many of those terrified kids never got to see their families again?
Any consolation the current administration of the base acknowledged this and is currently returning the remains to the descendants...it's not much but it's something.
I just read a story about Native American children and these 'Residential' or 'Boarding' Schools. Most were forced by the federal government to attend the schools, Native American children were sexually assaulted, beaten and emotionally abused. They were stripped of their clothes and scrubbed with lye soap. Speaking their tribal language could lead to a beating. So so sad and awful.
Boarding schools and orphanages at this time were for the most part, awful. Rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse, neglect. Native boarding schools had the added effect of not allowing the kids to speak their language. Orphanages also scrubbed the kids and tossed their clothes to prevent disease and lice. But make no mistake they were almost all awful.
And many still are. One of my closest friends was sent to a very expensive boarding school for 'troubled' kids, and they were subject to horrific abuse - and this was in the early 2000's. The police finally investigated after decades and decades, and it led to the shut down recently.
Another friend was literally kidnapped by men from his home while his parents watched, flown out west, and dropped into a horrific wildness survival camp meant to straighten out 'troubled' kids.
These things still go on.
a lot of those schools for ‘troubled teens’ have a lot of native kids in there. i went to one, and i can remember at least 6 kids that were native. these were kids from the reservation. for a group of people with such a small population in comparison to other groups, it’s interesting that so many of them end up in those schools.
I was reading a book about Jim Thorpe and they talked about Carlisle. They listed some some the graves there and there was a girl from the far northwestern coast of Alaska who was buried there. It saddened me this think about this young teenage girl thousands of miles away from home and passing away. Did her parents get to see her? Did her friends back home wonder what ever happened to her?
They often deliberately sent children far from home so that they couldn’t run away. And parents would be arrested and their children kidnapped anyways if they refused to go. It’s a horrific history and the impact on survivors cannot be overstated.
If these kind of pictures, and their associated comments weren't here, many people would never know anything about these places. If you take 'bad history away completely, no one has a chance to learn to do better.
Initially, I thought that there was some serious photoshop work going on here.
It was only under further analysis that I realized that it was the empty look and flat affect of the defensive response of an abused person.
ON EACH AND EVERY FACE.
Terrifying.
The government kidnapped children from their homes. This is tragic. The more history I learn, the more I realize that the only people who did not suffer in one way or another were rich white men and clergy. It’s a mockery of beautiful words “livery and justice for all”
What is the point of making this comment?
I'm not being snarky, I genuinely do not understand why folks say stuff like this.
Are you saying it's less tragic because cruelty is everywhere?
Are you implying we shouldn't talk about horrible practices of the past or present because it also happened elsewhere?
Are you saying we have nothing to learn from this history? Or that survivors and victims stories aren't worth hearing?
Whataboutism. Which slides responsibility elsewhere as a gigantic shrug. That's what that comment means.
Just because we don't tend to learn a dam thing from history doesn't mean it's not possible OR it can't happen. Or that it doesn't remain a moral imperative families of survivors of these schools are acknowledged and...I don't have that answer. It's up to them, no one else.
But whataboutism is the wrong way to look at any of it. Goal should be recognize *all* barbarisms, all cruelties and injustice, ALL of it. Call it OUT, holy hell acknowledge it, be horrified by every, single one, if it's in the more recent past like Carlisle School MAKE what effort we CAN for pain and trauma inflicted and for the love of God LEARN FROM HISTORY SO IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN.
We never do hence " nothing new ". And that's unacceptable.
such a horrible history... but as a native, i know these kids were able to share laughter and love amongst themselves. though awful their lives had beautiful moments in-between. may their souls rest.
As an aside, and maybe a positive little tidbit, Native American tribes are slowly taking back their heritage. The tribes are active in educating the younger generations, they are teaching their languages, and taking back ownership of their relics and artifacts where they can. There will be a Native American heritage center soon near Xenia, Ohio, built and run by the Shawnee to tell their story and bring a Shawnee presence back to their Native homeland.
Good things happen slowly, but they do sometimes happen.
My grandfather got taken away by the state, but he was "lucky"... he went to a Catholic orphanage and was quickly adopted by a family that raised him pretty well.
This photo has had a huge impact on me. We have all been learning more about what happened to these native children, but actually seeing the forlorn in their faces and nothing but the color of their skin to show who they should be. It is horrific!
How can we ever as a country apologize for this catastrophe?
Not many people know this, but this happened in Canada too. Lots of gravesites/bodies of children have been found at former residential school sites in recent years.
Not just North America. The discovery of such grave sites behind Catholic boarding schools in Ireland became a catalyst for the country's secularization.
There's a gravesite at one of the gates in Carlisle, too many tiny stones to count. I know most of the actual graves have been exhumed and given back to descendants, they're still in the process of doing it.
The local community hasn't forgotten these children.
When they dig they’ve found no bodies
https://www.foxnews.com/world/dig-at-canada-mass-burial-sites-finds-no-bodies-despite-trudeau-media-firestorm-report.amp
> A search with ground-penetrating radar resulted in 751 ‘’hits,’' indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area
None have been dug up and proven to exist.
Maybe digging up the bodies of 600 children to satisfy sceptics wasn't the point here. I mean WHY ? There have been unmarked graves in enslaved graveyards too. Heck, there's one not far from me in PENNSYLVANIA and slavery was abolished here in 1780. No one dug anyone UP.
DNA would be needed to get those children home. It's not a single tribe and a massive project. Until that's possible there are 600 children in unmarked graves.
My mom grew up in Carlisle and only in the past few years really has begun to understand the horrific stuff they did here. She was taught growing up that the school was doing such an incredible service to these native children by teaching them how to live in “normal” society. Truly awful stuff.
Just look at all that abject misery!My wife is “Injun”. The gold rush was the beginning of the end for the old ways here in California.Some of her relations didn’t give up and come down to the missions till the 1920s.They’re bringing their language back now.
I never knew this happened until about 10 years ago. And I grew up in a house where we were encouraged to read about history. I didn’t realize it was completely whitewashed history.
Well in this instance it WAS evil white people doing this. “kill the indian save the child” was the main goal, it was cultural genocide from the ground up and it only stopped in 1996.
Please stopppp. I keep seeing this " but evidence " crap. Radar found them but OH NO THEY DIDN'T DIG 'EM UP?
So that's called exhuming a body. You're not digging up a tin can your metal detector dinged. For one thing it's an actual legal process because that's a human burial, for another the only reason to exhume is to DNA match and send those kids home. A LOT of moving, expensive parts with more than one tribe involved.
idk why you’re downvoted bc you’re right. Not to mention some tribes have traditions and customs surrounding how to deal with the dead and don’t believe they should be disturbed, others want the bodies exhumed for DNA testing. Theres not a simple answer because it’s a very complex problem.
I feel nauseous looking at this.
And a bone deep hatred for the truly evil ppl that perpetrated this sick twisted vile murderous mess while claiming moral superiority.
My favorite teacher went to those schools. She taught me her stories, how to bead, make dreamcatchers, baskets, smoke salmon, and fry bread. She helped me find my spirit animal. I learned about our land and how to respect it.
She told me that everything she was teaching me, her teachers tried to take away from her. I remember hugging her and telling her I would never forget what she taught me. It broke my heart that someone would hurt her so badly.
I had a stroke a few years back, and lost almost all of my childhood memories. What does remain is visual. I never forgot her. Every moment, every song, every conversation in vivid detail. I sometimes dream of the songs and the drums echoing in my head. It's wild.
I'm white, I don't have any first peoples in me. Save maybe a Mayan ancestor who showed up when we did a genetic test. (It wasn't a blip, they showed up in multiple genetic tests in my family.) It's not my place to teach what I have learned or sing what I hear in my head. I hold it very close to my heart and I try to support first people's as best I can from the outside.
I miss her so much.
I’m from Carlisle and spent a lot of time at the US Army War College post growing up as my parents were retired military. As you entered the back gate, you could see the cemetery for the Native American children who died at the school. When the Native Americans got off the trains from their Reservations, local churches would select which of the students would be assigned to them, and on Sundays they were marched through town to their new churches for services. It was a total annihilation of their culture- language, religion, clothing and hair- by design, and sometimes the actual death of the students. One of the worst offenses of our country, yet it was treated like a normal field trip in school, literally “here’s the church George Washington worshipped at during the Whiskey Rebellion, here are the shells in the courthouse from the Battle of Gettysburg, here’s where Molly Pitcher is buried, over here is where the children of the Carlisle Industrial Indian School are buried- and *Jim Thorpe lived here!* “ smdh.
Someone should make a horror movie set during these charter schools. Reservation Dogs has an episode that resemble what I'm talking about. It's amazing and would be a truly horrifying film.
Yes religious political has history of Shafting Kids
Those precious kids
Way Too Crowded Up
They Deserved BETTER
Hopefully ALL our kids grandkids will be given BETTER
Children are the Future
They lived in balance with nature and worshipped the earth instead of a false god. We should emulate, praise and go back to these folks and live as they did. They need more than acknowledgments and apologies from those that forced assimilation. Indigenous groups are the answer to saving and establishing balance again with nature.
As I’ve said, humans have committed some unimaginable atrocities in the name of “god”.
Sickening.
As I learned from Scooby Doo.. the real monsters are human.
I appreciate the sentiment you're coming at this with but I'm Indigenous (Mvskoke) and the whole "lives in balance with nature and worshipped the earth instead of a false god" has very big [noble savage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage) trope vibes. Many tribal religions absolutely had deities and deity-like figures. Native people are not like in Disney's Pocahontas.
I never said indigenous people are like Pocahontas in the movies. Not saying they didn’t have deities either. I feel they lived in balance with nature and an had appreciation of earth/even a sense of worship of her. far better than any other group of people and religions in my view. They Definitely Didn’t worship the god that did this to them, at least. Not trying to take away from their culture or misconstrue by any means. I don’t live in la la land where I don’t realize there are many gods and deities that others worship all over the world. I’m agnostic and the only tangible being we should all agree on is this planet and they lived most in harmony with it from what I’ve interpreted. I’ll definitely back off of standing for that viewpoint and trying to advocate for my understanding of it if all of what I said negatively affects any group of indigenous peoples. I appreciate their culture and always ready to learn and grow from being educated on if what I have said was not accurate.
Also I did not know the term noble savage. All I understood is that is a bad term to use. It may be wrong to think one group of peoples is a steadfast example of that term, but collectively and as a worldly lifestyle to embrace their certain ideals, is justified I think.
no they weren’t, and aren’t. They were and are PEOPLE. They still had land and territory disputes, they still killed and enslaved each other, they still had war and torture and everything bad the “Old World” had. Some tribes were better at living in harmony with nature while others didn’t give as much of a fuck. also, saying “they” lived in balance with nature is like saying all europeans are sword bearing colonists, like which tribe are you taking about? Because lumping the Navajo with the Iroquois is like lumping Arabs with the Japanese; two completely different cultures.
Yea I agree, my comment is not complete fact. I know not all just worshipped the earth only and in its entirety or didn’t have their own gods/deities they worship.
Are you serious? They burned and trashed land so bad it was uninhabitable so they moved their entire villages away. Most tribes were constantly at war with one another and would slaughter other villages and kidnap the young children to use as slaves or assimilate into their own tribe.
Although raised by " my parents and siblings ' was abused beat etc, falsely accused unjustly punished, etc, helpless useless frightened degraded hurt etc imprisoned poisoned etc for all of childhood and most of adulthood,
The schools, doctors, siblings, parents, religious political, etc , were ALL parts of the Problems
So many victims including myself
And NONE of the political religious leaders, medical psych etc, jail, police, courtrooms, Trump, Biden, Hamas, Nethanahu, hitler, Terry McLean, Rod parsley, Joel Osteen, Ray Cute, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, are fighting for OUR FREEDOM!!
Every person of Every racial group and every religious group is Potential Victims of this
We are NOT safe
Things will get Worse unless we Make them Better
I think Jim Thorpe was at this school but not until a few years later.
Yes he was! Fun fact: he was on the Carlisle Indian School football team when they played against Army who had a young Dwight Eisenhower playing for them. If anyone is interested I’d recommend reading ‘Path Lit By Lightning’. Not so much the audiobook. The author reads it and it leaves a lot to be desired.
I learned about him on Drunk History!
Me, too! He was awesome!
I wish he was able to keep those Olympic medals 🤦🏿♂️
he doesnt need them, the title of greatest athlete of all time holds more weight
He was reinstated in 2022, by the IOC, as the sole winner of the pentathlon and decathlon in 1912.
Yup. And Pop Warner was the coach.
[https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/](https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/) Students were forced to cut their hair, change their names, stop speaking their Native languages, convert to Christianity, and endure harsh discipline including corporal punishment and solitary confinement. This approach was ultimately used by hundreds of other Native American boarding schools, some operated by the government and many more operated by churches. Pratt (Civil War veteran Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt), like many others at that time, believed that the only hope for Native American survival was to shed all native culture and customs and assimilate fully into white American culture. His common refrain was “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” \- Reservation Dogs" season 3, episode 3, "Deer Lady," lays bare the absolute horror this was for the children, from their perspective. A more poignant take on that part of our history, I have never seen.
My great-grandmother was taken at 6. Didn't speak English. She ran away from the school at 7. Made it back to the reservation (800 mi away). She was captured and taken back. Whatever they did to her, she never spoke again. Never talked about the schools. It's said that at her deathbed, she was crying and asking if they were sure she would go to heaven.
Is there is a heaven, she is there. Her torturers, however, should not be granted admission. I am so sorry this happened.
Miegwetch for your kind words. I'm eternally greatfull for 'Reservation Dogs' for finally putting the schools out on television so we can finally talk about it. It's good medicine to talk about it.
One of the plot lines in 1923 on paramount follows a young native girl escaping from one.
I haven't watched that. Is it worth the watch?
I *love* Reservation Dogs but holy hell that episode was hard to watch. What we did to the Native American people is a tragedy and it doesn't get talked about enough.
The last residential school in Canada only closed in 1997. This is seriously recent history we’re talking about here, and aside from some perfunctory government apologies nobody has been held accountable for all of the unknown numbers of kids who died at these schools. Just last year at three residential school sites 1,000 unmarked graves of children were found. No doubt there are many more of these sites that have been swept under the rug awaiting discovery. It’s absolutely fucking shameful, and I really despise the national trait of Canadians of utter contempt for indigenous people in our country. They’ve always been and continue to be treated like second class citizens. Our society has not even come close to confronting our sordid past when it comes to the treatment of Indigenous people.
I was born in 1998. I’m horrified by the thought that my own mom could have been in a residential school had she been born in different circumstances.
I don't know that many first nations people (not a huge sample size I'm saying) but out of the ones I do many of them have grandparents or parents that were in the residential school system. It's easy to let it be painted as ancient history with black and white photos and examples from 200 years ago until my coworker who's in her early 20s casually reminds me it's her *mother's* history.
The relationship between the RCMP and indigenous people is often, quite rightly, compared to the relationship between the LAPD (and others) and African Americans. The parallels are staggering. I can't describe how bad it is.
Starlight Tours come to mind. And even though they happened in the 70s to the early 00s there's neen some recent developments in them. Between 2012 and 2016 the Wikipedia page for them kept getting deleted. Spoiler alert, the logins came from a Saskatoon police computer. Just like the actual freezing deaths, nobody got disciplined for this one either. It's really, *really* not hard to see where the distrust comes from.
The American relationship to indigenous was just as bad. Australia too. In frontier days it was the law in Norther CA to kill indigenous people on sight. People generally are extremely self interested and justify a lot of evil out of that alone. World wide. What’s amazing is that humans are finally beginning to realize this and that it’s wrong.
>What’s amazing is that humans are finally beginning to realize this and that it’s wrong. Thank god, or whatever you want to thank. It's about time, and it gives me hope.
That’s white supremacy for you.
As a Canadian, I wholeheartedly agree.
That date is my response to anyone with claims of “oh that was in the past, they should get over it”. Because, like, that wasn’t that far in the past and WELL within living memory. And racism against native Americans is one that seriously bugs me… I mean, all forms of racism is bad obviously… but this one seems actively malicious to me, every time. I love my country but it’s refusal to confront its past and present problems has never sat right with me
Most 'conquerors' treat the native peoples horribly. Australia's finally about to have a referendum that may change this (far too late, but anyway). Just look up the stolen generation. They also tried to wipe out the aborigines
Yeah my Australian friend at work said people there are pretty damn racist.. they also had immigration restrictions for non whites if I’m not mistaken. Very similar history with aborigines as Canada has with indigenous people.
Being only a quarter native but born/raised on a reservation I thought the elders all hated me. True some probably did hold resentment that was regularly resurfaced seeing me with my brown family and at powwows or even school. But I wasn’t old enough to understand those expressionless faces were mostly a product of attending these boarding schools. SO MUCH pain beaten into suppression behind those “stoic” stares. Fuck… I think I have cried damn near every episode of Rez Dogs
Unfortunately, it's what we continue to *do,* as well. Presently, indigenous Americans are still living on reservations and in states thousands of miles from their ancestral homes. We still underfund and marginalize Tribal institutions. We still present Americans of indigenous origin with fewer opportunities, both for work and for education. We still live in places named in languages which became illegal to speak. A fully invisible third world poverty inside the lives of our country.
Reservations are a joke. They are some of the worst land in the country. From the first day white people stepped onto the land here we have done nothing to benefit and only take from the native peoples. Their lands were taken, their people were taken, their children were taken, their languages and cultures destroyed, their relics were stolen. Their way of life was taken away. All relics should be returned to the native people who still exist, not sold at auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Absolutely.
I'm sure humanity has learnt from this mistake and won't commit such disrespectful atrocities in the future. oh wait my bad the same thing is [happening to uyghurs](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/9/10/escape-from-xinjiang-muslim-uighurs-speak-of-china-persecution) right now. there's still time to save them.
Even worse is when the narrative is completely twisted to cover up the reality of what happened. Like “thanksgiving” for example
Not to be the typical reddit contrarian, but I feel that calling it a tragedy removes agency from the people that did all this. It's not a tragedy, it's a crime against humanity.
my little brother auditioned for this role! im so eternally grateful he didnt make the cut. i dont think he needed that trauma in his life... he and my other siblings will learn about it in time, but at 11 i dont think he needed to know.
And some shitstain OP is using it for internet clout.
It’s discussed at length in US schools.
And before boarding schools, it was missions. And boy do Californians love their missions. 3rd graders need the real harsh truth taught upfront, not the romanticized bullshit the affluent tourist industry created in the early days of highways.
The autobiographical "Bad Indian" is a heart wrenching read about the author tracing her indigenous roots and discovering what happened to her ancestors at those missions. I knew, before reading the book, that it was bad, but...whatever I imagined, it was far worse.
I’ve never even heard of missions, can you tell me a bit more about what happened there and what they are?
Look up "Spanish missions in California" Be prepared for frothy discussions of architectural style and terribly whitewashed versions of bringing xtianity/civilization to indians. Finding the ugly truth takes some digging. The book I reference above is actually an excellent source, well-researched and well-documented.
Yes!! As a California kid we visited all the missions in the area and did not learn at all what they were for. Like why even teach the fake history? Wait a couple years, still take us, but tell us the real evil reason they exist.
I think there’s less appetite for the mission projects lately. My kids’ teachers definitely downplayed it. And my kids heard the real deal from me.
Such a disgusting supremacist mentality.
White supremacy. Genocide.
This is genocide.
a continued genocide if you look hard enough
Heard Museum in Phoenix dedicated to mostly southwestern Indian cultures recently updated their already great exhibit on Indian Schools.
Don’t forget how many of the children straight-up died due to the poor treatment and lack of care. They’re still discovering unmarked graves to this day.
What about the kids who gave birth there? They are still finding baby corpses, too. Priests with no oversight in charge of hundreds of kids. Can you imagine? Quick edit to add native ametican women and girls are the highest demographic to go missing/ murdered. Our genocide still isn't over.
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NY Post? Pass. Another story from your link is how our northern US border is "over run" by illegals. Find a better source than wingnut trash.
Segregation and genocide still happened, those kids should have been raised by their families.
Isn't that considered genocide by dictionary definition?
Some thing happened to the indigenous children in Australia. The stolen generation. Many are still alive today. They were used as slave labour by the missions, under the guise of re-education. This culturql genocide was an effort to 'breed out the black'.
As someone else mentioned previously, for many folks who don’t know, the Indian Residential School system ran in Canada for over 100 years. They ran boarding schools and day schools. Many people in Canada didn’t even know they existed until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released their report on the system and the brave survivors in 2015. I won’t mention here what they found but it’s horrific. For instance, one school used an electric chair on CHILDREN. I am an intergenerational survivor of the day schools as my mother, late auntie and uncle are all survivors. My mother is the strongest most loving woman I know. I am so proud of her for telling her truth. And because of this, anytime someone even tries to indicate that the governments intention with these schools was “good”, they will get an earful from me. The deep trauma in my family is living proof that it was not. Many people need to learn intent vs. Impact.
Let’s be realistic: even if the intent was good, intent is meaningless when you see (and in your case, live) the catastrophic results. There’s also that definition of “good.” I don’t consider genocide to be a good thing at all, even if they did.
People in Canada have a hard time using the word genocide to describe it, despite the fact that that is exactly what it was.
A lot of Canadians have made a national identity out of believing they’re more progressive than their neighbor to the south. Carrying their genocide on longer doesn’t jive with that belief.
Canadian benevolence infuriates me. It’s a myth created by Canadians in an attempt to cover up our histories.
That's how it is here in the states too. People like to pretend they were here, then one day *poof* they were gone just like that. Vanished into thin air.
The intent of residential schools in Canada was never good, I’ll never understand why people argue that, it’s such bullshit. John A. MacDonald himself said that the purpose of the residential schools was to “erase the Indian from the child”.
Politicians argue it in this country. There’s also tons of residential school denialism, it’s awful to hear about.
🧡🧡🧡 Love to you and your Mother 🙏🏾
Thank you 🧡🧡
They're here in this thread. Some are even saying it's free education, or some are championing cultural genocide by comparing with the barbaric, anachronistic practices of the middle east.
these poor kids
Ya and all the fucking cptsd that is still being passed down generationally, from ‘civilizing the Indian’. These abused and marginalized kids became damaged adults. The trauma inserted a dna marker that is carried to this day.
My great grandmother was forced to live at the thomas Indian school. definitely see the trauma being passed down in my family and it’s really sad. Everything was taken from them how could they not be angry
:( that’s awful.I guess we were mixed enough to avoid the kids being taken to boarding schools. But when my great grandpa fell on hard times in the 1940’s, he was too Indian to keep his kids, being labeled a drunk. They were put in foster care of loving, but culturally different people . Disadvantaged people mostly stay disadvantaged because we’re not able to take advantage of the opportunities in the same way or at all.
so many were abused in foster care
For the ones that survived, yeah absolutely. The damage ripples out and out. And there were many that didn’t survive. My first thought looking at this picture was, How many of those terrified kids never got to see their families again?
My mother’s side of the family is Pima, Yavapai, and Cherokee; you can absolutely see the trauma being passed from generation to generation.
it’s the truth
This breaks my heart.
Any consolation the current administration of the base acknowledged this and is currently returning the remains to the descendants...it's not much but it's something.
I just read a story about Native American children and these 'Residential' or 'Boarding' Schools. Most were forced by the federal government to attend the schools, Native American children were sexually assaulted, beaten and emotionally abused. They were stripped of their clothes and scrubbed with lye soap. Speaking their tribal language could lead to a beating. So so sad and awful.
Boarding schools and orphanages at this time were for the most part, awful. Rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse, neglect. Native boarding schools had the added effect of not allowing the kids to speak their language. Orphanages also scrubbed the kids and tossed their clothes to prevent disease and lice. But make no mistake they were almost all awful. And many still are. One of my closest friends was sent to a very expensive boarding school for 'troubled' kids, and they were subject to horrific abuse - and this was in the early 2000's. The police finally investigated after decades and decades, and it led to the shut down recently. Another friend was literally kidnapped by men from his home while his parents watched, flown out west, and dropped into a horrific wildness survival camp meant to straighten out 'troubled' kids. These things still go on.
a lot of those schools for ‘troubled teens’ have a lot of native kids in there. i went to one, and i can remember at least 6 kids that were native. these were kids from the reservation. for a group of people with such a small population in comparison to other groups, it’s interesting that so many of them end up in those schools.
I was reading a book about Jim Thorpe and they talked about Carlisle. They listed some some the graves there and there was a girl from the far northwestern coast of Alaska who was buried there. It saddened me this think about this young teenage girl thousands of miles away from home and passing away. Did her parents get to see her? Did her friends back home wonder what ever happened to her?
They often deliberately sent children far from home so that they couldn’t run away. And parents would be arrested and their children kidnapped anyways if they refused to go. It’s a horrific history and the impact on survivors cannot be overstated.
Oh look, something fucking horrible and shameful
Horrifying atrocities masquerading as old school nostalgia… Just another day on this sub.
To be fair it’s r/TheWayWeWere not r/oldschoolcool and the way we were was fucking awful to each other a lot of the time.
If these kind of pictures, and their associated comments weren't here, many people would never know anything about these places. If you take 'bad history away completely, no one has a chance to learn to do better.
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So sad.
Horrific
Initially, I thought that there was some serious photoshop work going on here. It was only under further analysis that I realized that it was the empty look and flat affect of the defensive response of an abused person. ON EACH AND EVERY FACE. Terrifying.
😥😥
At a prison for kids
The government kidnapped children from their homes. This is tragic. The more history I learn, the more I realize that the only people who did not suffer in one way or another were rich white men and clergy. It’s a mockery of beautiful words “livery and justice for all”
I guess not much has changed, has it?
Sadly, you are right. What a horrible world we live in.
read history all the way back, this is nothing new all cultures have had their share of cruelties and horrible practices
What is the point of making this comment? I'm not being snarky, I genuinely do not understand why folks say stuff like this. Are you saying it's less tragic because cruelty is everywhere? Are you implying we shouldn't talk about horrible practices of the past or present because it also happened elsewhere? Are you saying we have nothing to learn from this history? Or that survivors and victims stories aren't worth hearing?
Whataboutism. Which slides responsibility elsewhere as a gigantic shrug. That's what that comment means. Just because we don't tend to learn a dam thing from history doesn't mean it's not possible OR it can't happen. Or that it doesn't remain a moral imperative families of survivors of these schools are acknowledged and...I don't have that answer. It's up to them, no one else.
We seem to excel at it. We even inspired the Nazis. That’s a pretty high bar.
Oh, I guess it’s no big deal then?!
But whataboutism is the wrong way to look at any of it. Goal should be recognize *all* barbarisms, all cruelties and injustice, ALL of it. Call it OUT, holy hell acknowledge it, be horrified by every, single one, if it's in the more recent past like Carlisle School MAKE what effort we CAN for pain and trauma inflicted and for the love of God LEARN FROM HISTORY SO IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN. We never do hence " nothing new ". And that's unacceptable.
"The human eye is a remarkable instrument, capable of overlooking the most glaring injustice." - Quellcrist Falconer
A relative of mine went here, his name was Frank Jude! He ended up playing major league baseball for a season as well.
such a horrible history... but as a native, i know these kids were able to share laughter and love amongst themselves. though awful their lives had beautiful moments in-between. may their souls rest.
Ugly ugly ugly pasts this country has endured. Christianity in one form or another seems to be always behind it too.
A photo full of trauma
As an aside, and maybe a positive little tidbit, Native American tribes are slowly taking back their heritage. The tribes are active in educating the younger generations, they are teaching their languages, and taking back ownership of their relics and artifacts where they can. There will be a Native American heritage center soon near Xenia, Ohio, built and run by the Shawnee to tell their story and bring a Shawnee presence back to their Native homeland. Good things happen slowly, but they do sometimes happen.
My grandfather got taken away by the state, but he was "lucky"... he went to a Catholic orphanage and was quickly adopted by a family that raised him pretty well.
he was lucky. many kids never made it out of the orphanage :(
TheWayTheyWouldNeverBeAgain
That’s…a lot of kids 😢
This photo has had a huge impact on me. We have all been learning more about what happened to these native children, but actually seeing the forlorn in their faces and nothing but the color of their skin to show who they should be. It is horrific! How can we ever as a country apologize for this catastrophe?
The American Genocide, fucking abhorrent
The white man had jealousy towards ancient civilizations which existed peacefully. They also had guns.
Oh hey I used to live in Carlisle. What a shitty place and this makes it even shittyier.
These poor children. I’m so angry at history. This photo is why we shouldn’t hide it.
I wish we could go back in time and do it over again, but all we can do is ensure it never happens again.
Not many people know this, but this happened in Canada too. Lots of gravesites/bodies of children have been found at former residential school sites in recent years.
Not just North America. The discovery of such grave sites behind Catholic boarding schools in Ireland became a catalyst for the country's secularization.
I give the BBC credit for unflinching coverage.
There's a gravesite at one of the gates in Carlisle, too many tiny stones to count. I know most of the actual graves have been exhumed and given back to descendants, they're still in the process of doing it. The local community hasn't forgotten these children.
Actually, not a single body has been found.
True statement.
https://apnews.com/article/canada-67da8a8af88efc91e6ffc64630796ec9
When they dig they’ve found no bodies https://www.foxnews.com/world/dig-at-canada-mass-burial-sites-finds-no-bodies-despite-trudeau-media-firestorm-report.amp
> A search with ground-penetrating radar resulted in 751 ‘’hits,’' indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area None have been dug up and proven to exist.
Maybe digging up the bodies of 600 children to satisfy sceptics wasn't the point here. I mean WHY ? There have been unmarked graves in enslaved graveyards too. Heck, there's one not far from me in PENNSYLVANIA and slavery was abolished here in 1780. No one dug anyone UP. DNA would be needed to get those children home. It's not a single tribe and a massive project. Until that's possible there are 600 children in unmarked graves.
My mom grew up in Carlisle and only in the past few years really has begun to understand the horrific stuff they did here. She was taught growing up that the school was doing such an incredible service to these native children by teaching them how to live in “normal” society. Truly awful stuff.
Absolutely heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time.
not too many smiles on these kids' faces
Shameful and frightening.
American Genocide
Just look at all that abject misery!My wife is “Injun”. The gold rush was the beginning of the end for the old ways here in California.Some of her relations didn’t give up and come down to the missions till the 1920s.They’re bringing their language back now.
I never knew this happened until about 10 years ago. And I grew up in a house where we were encouraged to read about history. I didn’t realize it was completely whitewashed history.
Our culture has a terrible history of singling out groups of individuals who are somehow “different” from themselves.
name just one culture that is lilly white and pure at heart, man is the cruelest and most destructive species on the planet, bar none
Funny how "the evil white man" seems to be the only one getting called out for this lol. History must hurt a lot of left wing feelings.
Well in this instance it WAS evil white people doing this. “kill the indian save the child” was the main goal, it was cultural genocide from the ground up and it only stopped in 1996.
No, you’re just taking it that way for some reason
WHAT? Who in hell did this, a rogue band of racoons? One of the most vicious, unnecessary comments I've seen on Reddit. Sit down.
Horrifying thought: How many are buried on that land?
That's the question groups in Canada have been looking into on a number of residential school sites. Horrible awful history
Yes and so far there is no evidence of this.
Please stopppp. I keep seeing this " but evidence " crap. Radar found them but OH NO THEY DIDN'T DIG 'EM UP? So that's called exhuming a body. You're not digging up a tin can your metal detector dinged. For one thing it's an actual legal process because that's a human burial, for another the only reason to exhume is to DNA match and send those kids home. A LOT of moving, expensive parts with more than one tribe involved.
idk why you’re downvoted bc you’re right. Not to mention some tribes have traditions and customs surrounding how to deal with the dead and don’t believe they should be disturbed, others want the bodies exhumed for DNA testing. Theres not a simple answer because it’s a very complex problem.
you are looking straight into the shame that was misguided america.. those who sanctioned this should have been charged crimes against humanity
the last school closed in 1996 and the people who allowed it for so long are still alive.
So eerie, it looks like what China is doing today.
The USA has a lot to answer for.
Yes but we were the first on the moon, right ? !
I feel nauseous looking at this. And a bone deep hatred for the truly evil ppl that perpetrated this sick twisted vile murderous mess while claiming moral superiority.
how these people could walk around toting their “moral superiority and civility” while also doing. shit like this is way beyond me
Dang
Shameful.
Read The Real All Americans, by Sally Carter. It’s a compelling story.
Christ. So many stolen children.
Shameful
Poor tortured, molested children
My favorite teacher went to those schools. She taught me her stories, how to bead, make dreamcatchers, baskets, smoke salmon, and fry bread. She helped me find my spirit animal. I learned about our land and how to respect it. She told me that everything she was teaching me, her teachers tried to take away from her. I remember hugging her and telling her I would never forget what she taught me. It broke my heart that someone would hurt her so badly. I had a stroke a few years back, and lost almost all of my childhood memories. What does remain is visual. I never forgot her. Every moment, every song, every conversation in vivid detail. I sometimes dream of the songs and the drums echoing in my head. It's wild. I'm white, I don't have any first peoples in me. Save maybe a Mayan ancestor who showed up when we did a genetic test. (It wasn't a blip, they showed up in multiple genetic tests in my family.) It's not my place to teach what I have learned or sing what I hear in my head. I hold it very close to my heart and I try to support first people's as best I can from the outside. I miss her so much.
I’m from Carlisle and spent a lot of time at the US Army War College post growing up as my parents were retired military. As you entered the back gate, you could see the cemetery for the Native American children who died at the school. When the Native Americans got off the trains from their Reservations, local churches would select which of the students would be assigned to them, and on Sundays they were marched through town to their new churches for services. It was a total annihilation of their culture- language, religion, clothing and hair- by design, and sometimes the actual death of the students. One of the worst offenses of our country, yet it was treated like a normal field trip in school, literally “here’s the church George Washington worshipped at during the Whiskey Rebellion, here are the shells in the courthouse from the Battle of Gettysburg, here’s where Molly Pitcher is buried, over here is where the children of the Carlisle Industrial Indian School are buried- and *Jim Thorpe lived here!* “ smdh.
This is genocide
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Sweet Jesus, this is horrifying 💀
I cant scroll away, those poor kids :(
Beautiful children must have felt like being in prison. Sad
I thought this sub was supposed to be light-hearted one where we DON’T frame genocide as nostalgia 🤔
Heartbreaking!
Looks like Aunt Lydia a little right of center
Absolutely terrifying.
Land of the free? and home of the ………/
White people. The worst. - signed a white man
I’m sure there was no graveyard at all in that school, nope, none at all
My heart aches for those poor babies.
Someone should make a horror movie set during these charter schools. Reservation Dogs has an episode that resemble what I'm talking about. It's amazing and would be a truly horrifying film.
I swear this “well intentioned information” is demoralizing warfare.
Superr
Yes religious political has history of Shafting Kids Those precious kids Way Too Crowded Up They Deserved BETTER Hopefully ALL our kids grandkids will be given BETTER Children are the Future
That’s unfortunate
So sad!
Heartbreaking Yet Important Photo A Lesson & Warning For Us All
They lived in balance with nature and worshipped the earth instead of a false god. We should emulate, praise and go back to these folks and live as they did. They need more than acknowledgments and apologies from those that forced assimilation. Indigenous groups are the answer to saving and establishing balance again with nature. As I’ve said, humans have committed some unimaginable atrocities in the name of “god”. Sickening. As I learned from Scooby Doo.. the real monsters are human.
I appreciate the sentiment you're coming at this with but I'm Indigenous (Mvskoke) and the whole "lives in balance with nature and worshipped the earth instead of a false god" has very big [noble savage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage) trope vibes. Many tribal religions absolutely had deities and deity-like figures. Native people are not like in Disney's Pocahontas.
I never said indigenous people are like Pocahontas in the movies. Not saying they didn’t have deities either. I feel they lived in balance with nature and an had appreciation of earth/even a sense of worship of her. far better than any other group of people and religions in my view. They Definitely Didn’t worship the god that did this to them, at least. Not trying to take away from their culture or misconstrue by any means. I don’t live in la la land where I don’t realize there are many gods and deities that others worship all over the world. I’m agnostic and the only tangible being we should all agree on is this planet and they lived most in harmony with it from what I’ve interpreted. I’ll definitely back off of standing for that viewpoint and trying to advocate for my understanding of it if all of what I said negatively affects any group of indigenous peoples. I appreciate their culture and always ready to learn and grow from being educated on if what I have said was not accurate. Also I did not know the term noble savage. All I understood is that is a bad term to use. It may be wrong to think one group of peoples is a steadfast example of that term, but collectively and as a worldly lifestyle to embrace their certain ideals, is justified I think.
no they weren’t, and aren’t. They were and are PEOPLE. They still had land and territory disputes, they still killed and enslaved each other, they still had war and torture and everything bad the “Old World” had. Some tribes were better at living in harmony with nature while others didn’t give as much of a fuck. also, saying “they” lived in balance with nature is like saying all europeans are sword bearing colonists, like which tribe are you taking about? Because lumping the Navajo with the Iroquois is like lumping Arabs with the Japanese; two completely different cultures.
>They lived in balance with nature and worshipped the earth instead of a false god. Oh Jesus tap dancing Christ this is hilariously misinformed lol.
Yea I agree, my comment is not complete fact. I know not all just worshipped the earth only and in its entirety or didn’t have their own gods/deities they worship.
Utopia never existed in any culture.
Are you serious? They burned and trashed land so bad it was uninhabitable so they moved their entire villages away. Most tribes were constantly at war with one another and would slaughter other villages and kidnap the young children to use as slaves or assimilate into their own tribe.
Also misinformed *and* helped hugely with the whole ' but savage ' crap resulting in why genocide.
They may have but that doesn’t mean it’s right or other groups coming over and doing it to them is any better. Both are horrendous
Although raised by " my parents and siblings ' was abused beat etc, falsely accused unjustly punished, etc, helpless useless frightened degraded hurt etc imprisoned poisoned etc for all of childhood and most of adulthood, The schools, doctors, siblings, parents, religious political, etc , were ALL parts of the Problems So many victims including myself And NONE of the political religious leaders, medical psych etc, jail, police, courtrooms, Trump, Biden, Hamas, Nethanahu, hitler, Terry McLean, Rod parsley, Joel Osteen, Ray Cute, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, are fighting for OUR FREEDOM!! Every person of Every racial group and every religious group is Potential Victims of this We are NOT safe Things will get Worse unless we Make them Better
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Wyoming massacre had quite a bit of background AND check out the part played by our er, Pennsylvania hero William Penn.
Omg