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| 10/30/2007 9:45:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| The Lac du Flambeau boys’ boarding school is undergoing a massive renovation project to restore the 1906 building to its original form. It was used for housing American Indian children who had been forcibly removed from their parents, as part of a government-driven assimilation policy. |
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Renovated boarding school is reminder of tragic past
Generation of native children removed by government policy
Ana Davis
Freelance Reporter
Surrounded by a construction fence, the Lac du Flambeau boarding school is a stark reminder of one of the many injustices suffered by American Indians at the hands of white settlers only 100 years ago.
The building, now undergoing extensive renovations to return it to its original form, was used by whites from 1906 to 1932 to house native boys forcibly removed from their families with the purpose of teaching them American culture and ways.
The massive renovation project, estimated at $783,000, is set for completion by the end of summer 2008, with approximately $500,000 already secured from a $275,000 Saving America's Treasures grant, a $50,000 donation from the Nau family, and substantial tribal government and community contributions.
The project aims to transform the 1906 building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, into an education and cultural center where language programs and traditional skills such as mat making and basket weaving are taught.
It will also serve as a monument to the brutal regime to which American Indian families were subjected when their children were taken from them.
Ancestors honored
"We have called the project 'A Legacy of Survival,'" tribal historic preservation officer and project coordinator Kelly Jackson said, adding that members of the community have mixed feelings about the reconstruction.
"There is divided opinion," Jackson said, "because of what the school represents. Some wanted to restore it, while others believe it should be scattered to the ground. We feel it is an opportunity to honor our ancestors, who were not allowed to speak our language. When it's finished, it will be a living story."
John Nau III, president and CEO of Silver Eagle, the second-largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products, said his family, who have a long-standing connection with Lac du Flambeau, are proud to support the project.
"My hat is off to Kelly," he said, "and particularly to the elders and elected leaders of Lac du Flambeau. They recognize that it's a story that needs to be told, even though it is a painful memory for the elders."
Children separated from parents
The widespread, government-instituted practice of forcing children, many as young as five years old, into the education system and stripping them of their native culture and language, saw thousands separated from their parents and sent to live in institutions similar to the one in Lac du Flambeau.
"It started here in 1896," Jackson, said. "Hundreds of children were brought in from all over the Midwest by BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) officials. The enrollment process was horrible, with parents being threatened that payments and rations would be withheld if they didn't send their children."
Previously, government officials had found it difficult to keep American Indian children in school, Jackson said, because they were still living a semi-nomadic life, joining in maple sugar camps in the spring, and gathering rice during the fall.
The compulsory boarding school system was enforced under the guise of educating and "civilizing" native youngsters, so they would be successfully assimilated in American culture, Jackson said, with harsh penalties for those who resisted.
Indeed, Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt, who was heavily involved at the turn of the century with this now-highly controversial policy, believed that the only way of educating native youths was by removing them from their culture, and their culture from them.
But, in reality, it separated an entire generation of children from their families, and left them between two conflicting worlds, belonging to neither.
Lost generation
"When they came here," Jackson said, "they were stripped of their possessions and clothing, their hair was cut short and they were covered in powder. The adults in charge didn't speak their language. Imagine how frightening it must have been. It was truly a tragic time period."
At least a hundred boys lived in the building at any one time, with a single live-in matron, which seems incredible given the school's relatively small size. According to records, overcrowding was common.
Life at the school was tough. The building formed part of a much larger complex that has since been destroyed, where youngsters spent their childhoods and adolescence. Some would not see their parents during this entire time.
They had classes in the morning, where they were instructed in subjects such as English, arithmetic and religion, and were then expected to spend the afternoons working in the fields.
While boys learned trades and labor skills, girls were instructed on European expectations of women in terms of dress, comportment and child-rearing.
Yet nearby, adult American Indians were still practicing their culture on the Lac du Flambeau reservation.
"Children would have been able to hear drum beats in the distance," Jackson says.
Letters from the time, as well as interviews with tribal elders who attended the boarding school, also assisted Jackson and a task force comprising of tribal members Christina Breault, Emerson Coy, former historic preservation officer Pat Hrabik-Sebby, Lisa Potts, George Thompson, Dee Mayo, Rose Mitchell and state Historical Society representative Brian McCormick in their goal to build an accurate picture of what life there was like.
"It was a military style, institutionalized upbringing," Jackson said. "It dismantled families, and this community, resulting in dysfunction for generations."
Four-year-old boy taken
A 1898 letter that was found among archives in Chicago, for example, describes the misery of a father whose young child had been taken from him, even though the boy was still nursing.
Written by his neighbor, an American Indian by the name of Charley Catfish, to BIA official J.W. Campbell, the letter seeks an explanation for the child's removal.
"Mr. Agent will pleas tell me," Catfish wrote, "if Mr. Parash has the power to go and take our children away frome us without our consent...one of my nabors has a child taken away from him and the child was nursing yet we think he is too young to go to school...the boy is sick over it."
The response from Campbell simply stated that there were no sick children in the school, and none under the age of five.
"Mr. Perry (a BIA superintendent) informs me," Campbell's letter says, "that there is not a single sick boy in the Lac du Flambeau school and that he has not taken any children under the age of five. I am of the opinion you have no grounds for complaint."
Children abused
Another letter, written in 1907 from a school disciplinarian to the BIA requesting more personal space within the school, and the BIA's subsequent response denying the request, provides detailed measurements and a floor plan of the building, which has helped the task force enormously.
"The BIA letter describes the layout," Jackson said, "taking the building back to 1907."
Other mementos from the past include a child's name scribbled on the wall, and oral histories of tribal members that reveal terrible sexual and physical abuses, and even deaths, of child residents.
One woman Jackson interviewed, who now lives in Bad River, remembers her friend dying there.
"Her whole family were gathered round her when she told me the story," Jackson recalls. "It was as though they, too, were hearing it for the first time. She remembered her friend going missing, and then later seeing her body laid out in the school."
Other survivors had vivid memories of a secret room in the school, which is now just an empty space.
"They weren't allowed inside," Jackson said, "and they didn't know what went on in there."
Volunteers welcome
While much progress has already been made on the project in a short amount of time, Jackson now has to find a contractor who is skilled in historic masonry to complete interior renovations, in addition to finalizing sources of funding.
"There are so many ways people can help," she said, "through sharing expertise, fundraising and volunteering. We've had tremendous support for this project, which has been in our thoughts and minds for a long time."
Jackson hopes that, when completed, the school will serve as a poignant reminder of the suffering and loss of culture and community that countless Native American children and families endured.
"I remember the boarding school as a young boy," Nau said, who used to vacation in Lac du Flambeau when he was a young boy, and made friends with a tribal member who still lives on the reservation today. "It's a compelling way to tell the story - to set foot inside the school building where the story actually took place."
The completed building will signify the incredibly difficult time that all tribes were put through, Nau said, especially the young children.
"(The memory of the boarding school era) is a memory that celebrates a survival during a troubling time," author Clyde Ellis writes in his book 'To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School,' "as well as the cost of that survival. 'Walk quietly at that place, son,' an elderly Kiowa man told me, 'because the souls of those children are still there.'"
Ana Davis can be reached at adavis@lakelandtimes.com.
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