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FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/...0050516/NEWS01
/505160335/1002/NEWS

Native Americans' Haunted Heritage


Diana Louise Carter
Staff writer


enlarge JAY CAPERS staff photographer
Barbara Schlegel of Rochester, whose parents met at Thomas Indian School near
Gowanda, looks at family photographs with her grandson, Zachary Sutton, 10.
Schlegel said her parents found it difficult to be affectionate with their
children because of their experiences at the boarding school.
Day in Photos

(May 16, 2005) — Mohawk journalist Doug George-Kanentiio, 50, remembers
standing at attention, watching a boarding school classmate being beaten with a
leather strap. "They did it until you either broke down and cried or they drew
blood," he said.

During this frequent occurrence at the Mohawk Institute for Native Canadians
in Brantford, Ontario, George-Kanentiio, then 11, and his classmates couldn't
show emotion or else they'd be the next to get the strap, he said. To this
day, Lori V. Quigley, now a 46-year-old linguistics professor at the State
University College at Buffalo, and her four sisters are careful not to use profanity
in front of their parents. "We never said even 'God'" as an exclamation,
Quigley recalled of her childhood. "If we did, we knew our mouths would be washed
out with soap."

It was the same punishment that their mother, Marlene Bennett Johnson, had
received for speaking in the Seneca language at the Thomas Indian School near
Gowanda, Cattaraugus County. And when one of her daughters misbehaved, Johnson
punished all the girls, repeating what she had experienced as a child. Although
most native boarding schools have long since faded into history, their impact
continues to ripple through generations of Native American families. Seminars
on that impact were held in April in Rochester and the Buffalo area. Boarding
schools run by government agencies or churches in the 19th century and first
half of the 20th century aimed to turn Native American and Native Canadian
children into copies of white children. One school that became the blueprint for
others was the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, founded in 1879 by
Richard Henry Pratt, a veteran of the Indian wars and former commander of a
prisoner of war camp. Pratt's assimilation theories were summed up in his motto,
"Kill the Indian and save the man." Pratt's philosophy was also U.S. government
policy until well into the 20th century.

"The whole purpose (of the schools) was to try to explode the extended family
and re-create a sort of nuclear family," said Barbara Landis of the
Cumberland County (Pa.) Historical Society, an expert on Carlisle. Thomas Indian
School, originally a church-run school for orphans, became a state institution,
drawing native students from all over New York.

Forced to speak English and stripped of their religious and other traditional
practices, students often found it impossible to fit into their reservation
communities again. Yet many did return, unaware not only of their own people's
cultural traditions but also of the normal way families interact. "The abuse
there, the lack of human warmth, of contact or praise, has resonated through
Akwesasne and every native community that I know of," said George-Kanentiio, who
comes from the Akwesasne Mohawk community on the St. Lawrence River but now
lives in central New York. Quigley said boarding schools caused
"multigenerational trauma."

The schools also had positive effects, with stories of personal success and
lifelong friendships with fellow students from other native nations. "You can't
describe it as a successful experiment and you can't describe it as a horror
story," said Landis, who, with George-Kanentiio, recently spoke in Rochester.
"Oftentimes, people will tell me that the reason their families have degrees
and advanced degrees is the value for education they learned at Carlisle,"
Landis said. "In that same family, there may be a child buried at Carlisle."

Falling in love

Barbara Schlegel, 59, of Rochester talks with pride about the accomplishments
of her parents, Mohawks who went to Thomas as children, and of her adoptive
maternal grandmother, who earned national recognition as one of the last living
students of Carlisle, which closed in 1918. As teenagers, Schlegel's parents
fell in love at Thomas. Her late father, Oliver White, went directly into the
Navy from Thomas, while her mother, Mary White, now 81 and living at the St.
Regis Mohawk Reservation, earned a scholarship that helped her attend nursing
school at the University of Rochester. Schlegel's father arrived in Rochester
after World War II and worked as a machinist for local companies. But while
Schlegel credits Thomas for providing her parents with a strong education, she
also tells of how the school continued to hold sway over them after they left.

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.

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When her father's older brother, Ernest, was killed in action during World War
II, it took Oliver White eight months to confirm his brother's death. Instead
of informing the White family, the War Department had notified the school
because it was listed as next of kin. The school passed on the information only
after White wrote from the Pacific to inquire about news of his brother. He then
informed his mother. Echoing the story of many children of boarding school
students, Schlegel describes how her parents were diligent workers and providers
but never demonstrated their love for their children physically. "We knew we
were loved, but there were no hugs, kisses or sitting on Daddy's lap," she
said.

As the mother of three and grandmother of six, she has tried to be different.
"We've made sure there's affection shown in our family."

Playing 'matron'

Quigley's mother, Marlene Johnson, 69, describes a much darker Thomas Indian
School than does Schlegel, calling it a "mini-correctional institution."
Johnson said she was made to stand with all the girls in her dormitory for four
hours in the middle of the night with their arms raised over their heads. Their
offense: refusing to tell who started a group giggling fit after lights out. In
the dormitories, the girls often played "matron" instead of "house," she
said, because they had no experience in family settings. The child playing the
matron would tell the others, "Don't be dreaming about becoming a teacher or
becoming a nurse. Little Indians grow up to become drunk Indians." Years later,
Johnson's sister confessed to her that she had been sexually molested by a
matron at the school but was afraid that no one would believe her if she reported
it. Johnson believes the molestation contributed to her sister fulfilling that
fatalistic pronouncement about alcohol; she died at age 51. When Thomas
closed, Johnson's sister was sent to a Kansas boarding school while Johnson, at age
15, was turned over to a wealthy Fredonia family to be a live-in maid for $5 a
week. Eventually, Johnson —"sick and tired of people telling me I was a dumb
Indian and couldn't learn" — put herself through the State University College
of Technology at Alfred and got an associate's degree in business. Later, she
earned a bachelor's in sociology and a master's in counseling from St.
Bonaventure University. She proudly said that all her daughters have college degrees
and professional careers. But she also said it's a wonder they don't hate her
for punishing them the same way school matrons punished her.

'Heck of a shock'

George-Kanentiio's experiences in a boarding school in Canada are bleaker yet
than Johnson's. Ontario provincial authorities intervened after his mother
died; his father struggled to provide for his 12 children but couldn't, he said.
George-Kanentiio and two brothers were told by social workers that the Mohawk
Institute in Brantford, 350 miles west of Akwesasne, would be a good place,
with lots of other native children. "You were told that you would have good
food and clothing. They made it sound very appealing when I was 11. Without any
resistance, my brothers and I agreed to go. We were in for one heck of a shock
when we got there. "It was kind of like a reform school. There wasn't much in
the way of academic fostering or even emphasis on learning trades or skills."

Teachers used corporal punishment and urged older students to keep younger
students in line the same way, he said. Sexual abuse worked its way down the
chain of command, too, George-Kanentiio said. He and his brothers were fighters
and stuck together, so they were never sexually molested. They ran away
repeatedly but were picked up and returned by the Canadian Mounties. Eventually, the
brothers' scrappiness got them all kicked out in 1968, he said.

A provincial investigation of the school led to its closing a year later,
after a student who tried to run away was struck and killed by a train.

Compensation

Only recently have Native American adults started to talk about their
boarding school experiences and the consequences, both negative and positive.
George-Kanentiio said the discussions are prompted partly because the first
generation of native social service workers now works in native communities, making
survivors more comfortable about talking. In Canada, the discussions have led to
pending national legislation aimed at compensating people who attended
government-operated or government-sanctioned schools. George-Kanentiio is part of a
class-action suit against the Anglican Church for its hand in the school he
attended. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled last week that the suit can go
forward.


About Thomas

Thomas Indian School in Gowanda, Cattaraugus County, was founded in the early
1800s, according to historians. Early on, missionaries from various
Protestant denominations ran the school as an orphanage and depended on donations from
private patrons. Over time, the school became a state institution, drawing
native students from across New York. Many, especially those who had been placed
there by social service workers, boarded at the school. Others lived with
their families and attended only during the day.

The school's unofficial historian, Geraldine Gates, who was a day student
there, said the grounds encompassed 174 acres and the students raised farm
animals, crops and fruit. Eventually, the school was converted to a state mental
institution before it closed in 1957. One building — the hospital — remains
standing and recently was renovated for use by the Senecas.

__________________
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear... just sing, sing a song.