Darkest Night : Pine Ridge to Bombing Range (Part 1)

Much had changed since that night we fell asleep. Free upon the plains, living life the only way we had ever known, gone now was most of our land, including Hisapa. Which along with our freedom was taken to satisfy the greed of the new nation that was expanding and developing around us. Ron also was our relative, the buffalo on whom we had depended for so much, taken maliciously and in cold blood to remove our main means of survival. Gone to where many of our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, from diseases, starvation, massacres and struggle. As if colonization had not been destructive enough, the next step of assimilation was meant to make those of us who remain forget who we were, who we are. As eight-year-old Lindy LaCroy White castings, this beautiful song recorded in 1936, we think of the Wakayaja and the future generations that were and will continue to be impacted by all of these things. Hello my relatives, Chante Wastiena Pichu is up here, I greet you with a good heart and a handshake. Welcome to the Wamancha Ogananka Yichanti, the heart of all oral history project. A seven-part series exploring some of the most significant stories and events of the Lakota people promoted widely known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in what is now South Dakota. Our goal is to tell the important history of the Lakota, from creation stories to crazy horse, from Buffalo Nation days to reservations, from Fort Laramie to Mooted Knee, from boarding schools back to the sacred Black Hills, the heart of all, through the voices of elders and community members who have stories that matter. This project is brought to you by Little Moon School and generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information about the project, visit www.heartofallohp.com. This is the hope that my great grandfather had that one day that the people of this country will recognize us as who we are. We're not the rapist torturers, killers, scalpers, that's who the Americans are. They turned it around and took said to us who we are. It's not who we are, it's not who my great grandfather was. My grandson, I was talking to him about Kundalini. He didn't even know where that was, so I had to tell him a story. Bigfoot was on his way down to help negotiate troops between the US cavalry and Red Cloud. He never reached Pine Ridge, he and his people were wiped out at Mooted Knee. She said they put him in a church where they just got done having Christmas and some of them you could just see the blood. And on the wall she said it had peace on earth. I was raised in a boarding school, kids they don't know what boarding school life was like. They would tell you open your hands and stick them out and they would slap you with the ruler. One of those big heavy wooden rulers. My grandparents, they spoke real good Lakota, but they wouldn't teach it to the children. They didn't want us to get in trouble when we went to school. She talked about a time that was known as the time of takings, that's another thing she used to talk about in this conversation. She said you got ten days to be out of here because we're going to start dropping bombs. They was practicing so they could be ready to go to Europe. My dad said they gave him a week to move up and he had a lot ahead of us since he just had to leave him. So here on the reservation we were defenders of our lands, our ancestors, and now we pay the price. The arrival of Europeans to Kiawita marked the beginning of the end of our world as we had always known it. In Episode 3 we explored the processes that led to us being forced onto reservations. Because our land and resources dwindled. Looking back, most of this was the result of a strong sense of entitlement that seemed to stem from the doctrine of discovery or manifest destiny as we discussed, immense grade as we just mentioned, and we don't know how else to put this, the fact that we are in the way of what some people call progress. In this fourth episode we will pick up after the Dawes General, a lot more act of 1887, which, along with the 1883 Code of Indian Offenses, began the Federal Government's new chapter of force assimilation. Before we look more at this process, however, there are a few other important things to consider, including the 1889 creation of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a much diminished version of the Great Sea Reservation that is known by some as prisoner of war camp 334. This is Marcel Bulber. Before what didn't happen in 1890, from 1880 to 1890, it was probably the worst time of the Lakuta's life. It was no food, everything in our reservation was hunted out. Also there was a drop through that time, four years of the drop. After the 77 act, 12 years later, they decided to break down the reservations even further. Oghulala, Shiner River, Standing Rock, Rosebud. After the reservations were organized, all this new land that was available will open up to settlers and farmers and ranchers. The state of South Dakota was turned into the state in 1889. A lot of the government officials started coming out here. Established a post office, you know, all those towns between Shiner River and Pine Ridge and all the way to the river, were all opened up for settlers. They started county seats, board of commissioners, established hospitals, schools, and that's what we started to get now to, get started getting schools, all of those things. We will look more closely at schools, boarding schools specifically, and the broader process of forced assimilation shortly. But first we must discuss the wounded knee massacre of December 29, 1890. By the time Parenthood Reservation was created in 1889, we had become completely dependent on the US government through trust responsibility as we covered last episode. For everything we had given up or what had been taken, the government agreed to compensate us. Nonetheless, that same year the US Congress severely cut our annuities or rations budget. After drought and a harsh winter and unable to live as we always had, we were near starvation. Some of us turned to the ghost ants in desperation. At the same time, men of the local militia, also known as the home guard, were roaming the prairies, seemingly hunting our people. As National Guard historian Richard Croprell, there were some ambitious soldiers who had never killed the Indian, but who would like to. This happened in at least a few recorded events, if not many more. One was in Buffalo Gap, when several wagonloads of Lakota who were visiting their white friends home were killed by militia men. Another was at the stronghold on CUNY table, when at least 70 ghost answers were killed shortly before the Wounded Neumassacre. In November of 1890, the new head of Pine Ridge Agency, Daniel Royer, telegrammed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs saying, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy. We need protection and we need it now." In response, 500 soldiers of the 7th Calvary, Custer's old regiment was sent with the task of arresting several Lakota leaders. It is said by at least one source to be the largest deployment of federal troops since the end of the Civil War in 1865. This is Ernie LePoi, Bernadette Hallohorn, Joe Whiting, Virgil Killstreet, Tom Hallohorn, Cornell, Conroy, and Stella Ironcloth. He wanted to go across what they call the medicine line, which is Canada, because of what happened, he knew what was coming, so instead of hanging around here, he decided to go up there and regroup maybe, you know, or find out how he could do the future. A great grandfather. His name was not afraid of his enemy. He was in a little big one too. to Canada with our sitting booth. So they went to Canada and they were up there, I guess 1877 is when they crossed over. They were up there for a while and then they wanted to miss their homesick so they came back. They came back across and they surrendered to military base for Duford, I think, in North Dakota. And from there they took him and his group to Port Randall, which is in by Yankton, South Dakota there, and they kept them there for two years or so. Eventually they, he went back to Standing Rock. Then he went to Standing Rock, then from there he went to Igobu and he was with the liquids tribe. You know, he was a spokesperson, a caretaker of the people and we'll go off and they didn't like it because they depicted him as some kind of leader, which he was a spokesperson for the people. He wanted to keep his traditional ways going. Eventually the short bull and kicking but brought the ghost dance, which is a guy in the battle, you know, that how you experience your guy or preacher, I think he was, who had a vision of something in his hat and so they all invited all these people to come there. And this is the story that was told to be was that they, the Lakota sent these two representatives, short bull and kicking bear down her to investigate she was going on, what the invasion was about. And all religions came out there to they sent, you know, and even the Mormons sent a group down there to investigate what's happening. And then they left there and you know, they're traveling by horseback, so they come back and camp. And by the time they got to the Arapahul reservation in my own mean, they had conjured up these ghost dance songs and they told the people in Arapahul people that they had to make these ghost shirts and these shirts to protect them from the white man as a bull is in her thing. They said that if there were these shirts that eventually all the white men and all the people the white men killed will come back to laugh along with the buffalo. And then the white man would disappear. The government outlawed, tried outlawed the ceremonies because the city was devil worshipping and pagan religion and all kind of stuff kind of similar to a sundance, you know, they put up a tree and a dance around this tree yelling screaming and singing these songs over and taught to them. But he didn't know how to deal with this or maybe he should have consoles with Ritla while at this time Muglofflin had put a restriction on him. He said he can't go nowhere, you know, without my permission. So when sitting bull said this man, this white haired man can't tell me what I can and can't do or go or I can't why I can go and can't go. He says I'm a man who was born to go anywhere in his country. He had a nephew, one bull. He said sitting with him on his consoles and he was like, they informed him to Muglofflin. Muglofflin was giving him promises and all kinds of things that he would give to him if he would, you know, tell him what they what they talked about. So one bull rode his horse all the way up to Muglofflin and told him what sitting bull is going to do and he turned around and he tried to get it back before he was missed. And my mother said he killed that horse, coming back and he ran the rest of the way. And by the time he got back to camp, the sitting bull's camp, he lived in a teepee outside next to his cabin. The Indian policemen are either to arrest him and that's how they ended up killing him because he didn't want to, he didn't want to be told what he can't do or can't do. This is one of the main concepts of how they killed him. When the Calvary went to Indian police up there was going to arrest sitting bull and keep bigfoot. Keep bigfoot was also known as Spotted Tail. But they was going to arrest him at Eagle Butte and somebody from that area came and told him ahead of time. So he took off him and his followers and they started down, down this way from Eagle Butte. So 1890, sitting bull was just killed about two years before that. And my grandfather's had moved down from standing rock to a place called Bruiser and Cherokee. And Vicfoot, C. Tonka was a negotiator. He was a man of peace. And so he was coming to Oglala to help Red Cloud settle some disagreements with the US government. And here they said they were going to come this way. There's something there that I don't understand. They said that Red Cloud invited him to come down and then some say no, Red Cloud told him, don't come here, it's too dangerous. But somewhere somebody told him something else. And so they came down anyway. They got almost a porcupine view of that. And the Calbury caught up with them. They met him surrender there. They were escorted to two plane rage with a camp that in the evening they camped at Warner Nee Creek. And when they got down, they took him down as far as Warner Nee. And they brought in, who was that lieutenant? I forgot. Out of Fort Robinson. He met him there. And they was going to escort all of these people to Fort Robinson and the rest of all the people are following Vicfoot. Well, when they got into Wounded Nee, what happened there? That shouldn't have happened. In the next morning, for no reason at all, the US Air Cavalry just opened fire on the Indians. The women and children were mowed down. What caused that, the fifth thought was one of the Indians was hard of hearing. His name was yellow coyote, I think it was. He couldn't hear and he couldn't talk. He didn't know what was going on. I mean, he had an idea, but I don't think he really knew because when the Calbury started collecting their rifles, they went to take his rifle away from me because he was a deaf muse. He couldn't tell them and say no or something like that. He held onto his rifle. He wouldn't give it up. So as a result of that, he was shot. One of the young Calbury men shot him. And that's where the name Wounded Nee massacre occurred, started with that shot. The Indians gathered guns in 350 versus 1200 US Calbury. And they fought hand-to-hand and eventually the most of the Indians were being killed. So the others had read into the ravine. When the shots rained out, the weons hollered out, especially the e-nons, the mothers, they hollered out to the children, run to the creek, run to the creek, too high it's better than woods than any somebody else can children. So they took off. They ran, they ran, he said towards the southeast, they ran that way. He would say he held his sister's arm and they were running and he could feel bullets and then he got hit and he said he fell and then he came to and he got up and they start running again. My dad's dad hollered for his mom and dad, hollered for his brother and sister's siblings, but he couldn't, you know, he's just hollered for him and he grabbed his pregnant wife and his two little girls and he ran towards the creek. Well, my family did too, my grandmother, she was shot, she was in a ravine that she had, that she was shot twice. Well, he was running, he got shot, fell down several times but he got back up. And they got into the creek and they ran along the creek and that's how they survived. When it was getting dark, he said, his wife was pregnant with my mom's dad. And his wife was pregnant. They made a mile and a half, almost two miles up north on the creek. They ran as far as the sand hills in Nebraska. Well, my mom told me was how they kept warm, was they put sand on themselves, keep warm, especially my great grandmother because she has pregnant. Which one would I choose? That's what she said to me, my grandma. Which one would you choose? You have a wife and children, you have three little, two little ones and your wife's pregnant and on this side you have your parents, your mom and your dad and your siblings, your brothers and sisters and the government's coming to kill. Which one are you going to make? Which choice are you going to make? Who do I protect? You know, it's hard, it's a lot caught the man and it's hard to even think about it, you know, because I could pick my parents but, you know, there goes my children. I picked my children, there goes my parents, there goes my past. So a lot of stuff was destroyed, a lot of stuff was scattered all over like how the bodies were. They were trying to make it to primary, so they ran that way and they flown a camp so they stayed there. And then from there they went into Pineridge, maybe a couple days later. Well he did lose two sons and that are buried up there. And they took them to Pine Ridge Agency, the agency over there. and she said they put them in a church where they just got done having Christmas. - After all of a sudden, no, they would come in to get bodies and she was still alive. So they brought her to Pine Ridge and it's coincidental 'cause the church they lodged for it is right by my mouth near my house. And so they moved that from Pine Ridge out here so it wouldn't be a eyesore and a historical point of murder. And she said it was Yoke Shicha, it was sad because they laid her on the floor in that church and some of them you could just see the blood from their injuries, from their shock, from them being shocked. And on the wall, she said it had peace on earth. - My grandma remembers the soldiers coming in Pine Ridge. She's in Pine Ridge and her grandma then grabbing her hand and they're running and she says, "And the soldiers "just saying that it a woman and her baby "as we were all running to safety." And so she never ever forgot that. I'm thinking it was after the massacre because probably the soldiers who are still drunk and stuff too. - That's whenever the lieutenant he rode down and they was moving the bodies to get him taken up to the mass grave of when they held the barium. This was on January 4th. And they moved this one lady and the underless lady was a little girl, baby. About six months old, five months old, six months old, something like that. So this lieutenant, he picked her up and he put her inside his buffalo head coat and he turned his, he turned his minions and now I have my souvenir wounded knee. One of the knee was like a, as I said, was a retaliation for Custer being wiped out in 14 years before at a little big horn. When Custer and Ben Teen and Reno and all the major heavies of the Civil War came here and started the wars against Indians and they were defeated. The United States never won any battle against the Galatas or against the Lakota. Beginning in the east, our ancestors in Mancato had beaten the Minnesota volunteers, the Missouri volunteers, the Oklahoma volunteers and then they controlled the area west, or the Republic from the Republican River in Western, Northern Oklahoma to the little big horn to the Grand Tetons as a West boundary. The Southern boundary was, like I said, the Republican River in Northern boundary was all way up to Albert Lee, Canada. Each one boundary was a great lake. But within that area, the Lakota lived. There were over 150 million within a period of 40 years that diminished to about, or 8,000 survivors. So the United States almost did it to us. Most of them were killed at one didn't need it, but that's that massacre. Most of my Indian relatives were Hala Horn Bear, Grey Bull, One Bull, because they killed over 300 Indian people doing that massacre. And the one that survived and said, "I know," he lived, he lived, he used to kill about 68 miles, but he survived one didn't need. He wanted a few people that did. - For his leadership, and then one of them was to go testify at Congress of what happened at one didn't he? Because he came here, he came with Red Cloth when all the bodies were laying there and they were still killing him. You know, he couldn't believe it. But anyway, he didn't get a chance to get at Congress and let them know what they saw there. Instead, they granted them 20 congressional medal of honors to those Calvary. And that's what he had to linger and that's what he had to carry. And one time my dad told me that. And that's what he said. He said, "My grandfather didn't like the fact that they had to come back from Washington from the great right father." He felt bad, he said, "They did something wrong." And see, they didn't tell him that those medals were awarded to the Calvary that were involved in that massacre, but they knew already. He said, "He was yokshi, John here. A little while later, that's when he found out they awarded these 20 congressional medal of honors to put them for murdering the many Calvary people." So that's just something, you know. He always told me about how he lingered that and how he survived through that. - That gully, a lot of them were massacres right there. A lot of the women and children, the women were huddled over the children and they were still shot there. He's the old bridge there. He used to go underneath that one. He even brought daylight to set their spirits under there. They said their blood was spilt there, and once the blood was spilt there, it's sacred. And you never supposed to go through there. You go around it. You been up the mask of grace, right? The more I talk about it, it heals. It heals you inside your spirit. And you need to let that go, that hurt. But the memories will always be with me. - What do you think my ancestors did? What do you think feared by enemy did? You know what? He could have gave up. After the third shot, he fell down. He could have just had run, but he didn't. He got up and he grabbed his pregnant wife and his two little girls and he ran. That's something we ought to think about. Don't give up. That survival instinct was given to our children. - I used to never care about that. It didn't matter to me. That's the past, you know, that happened a long time ago. That was maybe like 20 years ago. I thought like that. And here one night, people would say, "Oh, you can hear the mask "that could really happen even up to this day." One night, it was a nil tonight, and I was awoken. I don't know what, and that's what I heard. I'm gunshot, so I opened my window and keep cotton. How could that be? And I listen and you can hear women screaming, children crying, and in that, you can hear evil laugh. I went out crying, I was standing, and it died down. It stopped, and that's when I said, I'm not, that asked people. And here they said that was a, that's how the massacre sounded. I talked to older people, and, you know what you heard with the spirit, and they said in a history book, and they said there was a Calvary man that ran through the plastic, and all that. And I actually heard it all. I don't know if I was made to, well, I was supposed to hear that, so that I would, you know, change my lifestyle or what, 'cause I didn't really want to change my culture and stuff like that then. So after I heard that, it really affected me, and I changed my lifestyle at night, I went back to our way of life. Even though that massacre happened, and he lost two sons, or he didn't have no hatred towards non-natives, he didn't, he just still, he forgave them and prayed for them. And that's what we were taught to do. And if people still do that, things will be a lot better, life will be a lot better. Instead of teaching their children to hate, oh, they did this to us, don't go in there, don't like 'em, you don't do that. I'm wondering if you're young, well, pray for them, forgive 'em and pray for them, and you live with a good heart. So that's the way I teach my kids and grandkids to live. Nine days before the Wounded Knee Massacre, Aberdeen, South Dakota, Saturday, Pioneer, Newspaper, printed an editorial by its publisher, L Frank Baum. - This was 10 years before he wrote The Wizard of Us. Responding to Sitting Bull's Murder, Bombs Editorial Red. - The whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent. And the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit is broken, their manhoody faced, better that they died and lived the miserable wretches that they are. - Then on January 3rd, 1891, only five days after the massacre, bomb published another editorial that read. - The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better. In order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong, and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of theirs. - Bom himself was born and raised in New York State, not South Dakota. But nonetheless, these statements represent some of the extremely harsh words we heard, and bigotry we faced around the state and elsewhere at the time. The next segment is recorded testimony of wounded knee survivor Wasumazza, our eye-in-hale in Lakota, also known as Dewey Beard. The testimony was abridged from its original form for time's sake. The Lakota language was translated to English by Agnes Gay in 2010, and is read here by Antonio Gaegal. The big guns that Wasumazza refers to are presumably the four hotch-kiss guns placed by the seventh cavalry on a hill above the Circle of Manikōju, as they were ordered to surrender all their weapons. One of these guns was first used against the Nezpirus in 1877, and only 56 of them were ever purchased by the U.S. government. They were capable of firing 52-pound shells per minute, and supposedly ring out for a full hour at wounded knee. On top of the foot soldiers' own gunfire until no more targets could be found. The hill where the cannons were positioned is now the site of the mass grave where 146 minikōju were buried on January 3rd, 1891. It is estimated that in total, between 250 and 300 minikōju were killed at wounded knee. Most half of them were women and children. The Lakota gathered because they let her came that evening. We went to the prairie to see the letter. The letter was made by Red Clown. When you get this letter, come quickly. My place is shaking and it seems like it's going to catch fire. Come quickly. They are a lot of soldiers. You can come barefoot and if you have no horse. It was evening but they left walking. While they started walking, in the soldiers are camped by the creek. They came tonight and they took the guns and said you can't leave. The soldiers came and camped in front of us. They stood up and rolled some big guns and placed them there. The soldier with the big gun said he came and said how how but I thought I will not live. God have pity on me this day if I am going to die or live. I said I will go either way quickly, where is Bigfoot? He is laying in the wagon covered up. His nose is bleeding and can't stop. He is laying there with his face all red. He said there are a lot of children. You told me to put them at the agency so I will put them there. You went towards the agency. We went downhill, passport, you pun, and saw all the white camps. He is getting evening now. The sun is going down. He is my younger brother Joe. His name is Joe Horncloud. We were afraid of them this morning. Brother, the soldiers to guns, acts as knives. He said they even took the knives away. Before that I met him and he offered his pipe. He said he wanted to talk to me. I know that we will be war tomorrow. I am fighting men so I know when. I know for two days. I know how it is. And so there will be war tomorrow. And Bigfoot was with some big men inside. So they are all the old men are sitting warm and it's midwinter. Now it's morning and someone is yelling, "Bring the gun!" I looked outside and saw that. They took away the knives they had on their belt. The soldiers are all standing on the other side. They went in the middle and they surrounded them. They are asking one of the men standing for the gun. No, he didn't give it up. This Lakota is really pitiful but he said no. His name is Black Haudi, the death one. They were trying to take it away but he was really strong. They were murdered. For whatever reason they killed woman and children. The soldiers all started to come and in the smoke they shot me. They shot me in the back and I felt something. I felt my body shudder. And now I saw woman and children laying there. Some crying and some are laying dead. It seems like I don't hurt where I was shot. From there I turned south through the creek. They shot those ones that stood there. This seems like I am the only one that the bullets were scared of. I was shot. Because of all the other things that were happening up in town now and because their direct impact lasted well into the 1900s with their repercussions lasting much longer, we have so far neglected to discuss boarding schools. Education of Indigenous youth by non-Indigenous people in Kauita actually preceded the founding of the United States of America in 1776. As far back as 1634, a mission was established with the goal "to extend civilization and instruction to his ignorant race and show them the way to heaven." In 1775, a year before the country's founding, the Continental Congress funded 10 youth to attend Dartmouth College. By 1793, the Federal Indian Trade and Intercourse Act started authorizing funding to promote civilization. This was followed by the Indian Civilization Act of 1819 which began contracting the involvement of missionaries and "the nevelant societies," meaning agencies of the federal government to teach Indigenous youth "the habits and arts of civilization." The US Congress did not start specifically funding Indian education until 1870, but within 20 years, over $2,500,000 was being expended annually on 148 boarding schools and 225 day schools with almost 20,000 children in attendance. As part of its trust responsibility established an exchange for getting the land it wanted for Indigenous tribes, the US government promised to respect tribal sovereignty while protecting tribes and providing for their well-being. Along with health and public safety, it was also to take responsibility for the education of our youth. At the time, however, it was not specified how this would be carried out. As with westward expansion, it turns out that Christianity would play a large role in this process. After the devastation already caused by colonization, the US government began its strategy of forced assimilation in the late 1800s to address what some people called the Indian problem. schools are intended to make indigenous children abandon their customs and traditions with the goal of having them adopt mainstream America's beliefs and value systems. The founder of Carvio Indian Industrial School, the first government-run boarding school which opened in 1879 and served as a model for those that followed was known to say kill the Indians, save the men. That same men, civil war veteran Lieutenant Colonel Richard Henry Pratt was sent to the Dakota territory by the Department of War to recruit children of Oklahoma and drill leaders. These children were then essentially held hostage to ensure the tribes could behavior. If parents refused to send their children to boarding schools, Indian agents often withheld rations are sent police to strong armed resistors. By 1887, four years after the establishment of the Code of Indian Offenses, which banned medicine men, dances, and many other indigenous practices, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, JDC Atkins, banned the teaching and speaking of indigenous languages and government and mission-run schools. In 1891, a federal compulsory attendance law allowed government officers to forcibly take Native American children from their homes and reservations in order to educate them. It was not until the passing of the 1978 Indian Child Law Offer Act that parents were legally allowed to stop their children from being placed in off-reservation boarding schools. While some of the people we talk to spoke positively about their or their relatives' experiences, keep in mind these were the later years of boarding schools. After support for the strict assimilation of strategies was raining, the majority did not. This is Joyce Hollowhorn, Burjal Coast St, Wayne Weston, Stella Iron Cloud, Genie Janice, Richard Moose Camp, Lisa Whiteball, and Jesse Pulleham. We run over the hill and go to grandma's house and she would have a pen for the private and a pot of tea just waiting for us to get there and she would serve us that immediately before we got to doing other things. And that was just a way of life that I knew what I was growing up and tell I went to the boarding school. Christianity helped the United States government. Three affiliations of the Christian churches, the Catholic Presbyterian and Piscopalans. They came in and they were asked to help set up churches so they came in. The people who were Christianized, whether they knew it or not. It started with boarding schools. It started with government and Christian boarding schools. They said let's kill the Indian but save the man. Boarding schools were a big, big part of reservation life. Karlao probably was the first big one and then there was Hampton Institute and Lincoln Institute in Philadelphia. Bishop Hare, who was the Piscopal priest for Pine Ridge in 1880, founded St Mary's School for Girls, for Piscopal Girls in Springfield, South Dakota, which is over by Yankton and across the river from the Sanctee and Niagara. All of these were Christian churches where the Indian children were taken to try to teach them the ABCs and other educational matters. Then in Todd County, Rosebud, he had hair school for boys, Genoa, down by North Fort Nebraska. That's where my grandpa went to school. So that's where they got their education. They at Pine Ridge, they have a boarding school and they heard the children there and that's where they were taught. Sanctee had the Sanctee Normal Training School, lander Indian School. They were all taught early US history and European history. They were all taught nothing that is Lakota. The one in Chamberlain, Marty had one, Marty mission, over by winner. They were taught about the churches. That their churches had the one true God, which was the white God. Their religions are based on satanic cults and devil worship. So this is how they were treated. So there was just boarding schools all over and of course, then we have Sherman Indian School and Tamawa and Oregon. So when you wonder about how in the world people got to where they got to, usually a boarding school with somewhere in the middle of it. Christian society and the government teamed up and they came after the Indians. This is when they forced us from believing and forced us to not practice our spirituality. In this country that claims freedom of religion, we were not allowed to practice our spirituality. They teased that real clear too. Forget about your culture, forget about your life, learn the white man's ways. And so then this is where you hear all of the horrifying stories about boarding schools and what they did beating our ancestors for talking their language. I spoke Lakota as a kindergarten, so a white teacher broke a ruler on my head. That's a little one, a kind of a school. So from that time on as a five or six-year-old who had a stick was so long broken on his head, I began to resent what the white people are doing today. Like my dad always said when they were in school, they would line them up, put make them put their hands on and they would go through and hit their hands for speaking Lakota and he said, so we wouldn't we'd speak English in the classroom then at recess would go out and would all be speaking Lakota plain. The influence, the Indian Christian practitioners to discourage our language psychologically. So when you speak your own language, they'll make fun of you. You know, back in those days, I remember some of them in the sixties. And then he said, we'd go back in and there would always be one person who would say, teacher, they were all talking Indian. So then they'd get us line us up and boom, boom, boom. So after a while instead of putting you up a lot of unnecessary things, people quietly hit their language and speak all their home or only amongst themselves. And he said, we thought we were doing you a favor that we didn't want you to get hit. So we didn't teach you the language. Well, when our teachers came into our life, our language was almost gone. So I went with the nun and I have a lot, a lot of blank spaces, but little things I can remember is her taking me to the dormitory and showing me where I'd sleep and getting up the next morning and getting into trouble right off the bat because I didn't fix my bed. When we got there, we were taken into the basement of the dorm. And I seen all these little girls sitting in our line on benches as the line moved forward. There was these big curtains and behind the curtains, you went behind the curtains and sometimes I could hear the girls crying. Whatever it was, a lot of the girls were crying. So I just didn't want to go behind her. What it was was they sat you in a chair and these older women, they must have been the matrons. They would comb your hair straight down and then they would cut your hair like bangs right across your forehead and then right below your earline, they would just cut it straight across. We told them, you know, mom don't want me to cut my hair and whatever, but they said, no you have to. I was really fascinated with church too because they had a children's choir and those kids had such beautiful voices and that music was so beautiful. And I remember them telling us that the Catholic church was the one true church. You know, that our people were sinful people bad because we worshiped the devil. You know, a seven-year-old had no idea about any of this, you know, what these things meant. You know, where my parents would talk to us and listen to us and tell us stories and tease us and all of that, you know, there's none of that there. There I learned all the commandments, like I said, and all there is about Christianity. And that's where they continue to tell me that I come from a bad wrong evil society. I must forget all that, forget this language, forget my culture and become a brown white man. Be a good American, good citizen, and I'll be rewarded. Yeah, my God, at some point. That's all BS, but that's what I was taught and that's what every one of us showed at that time were taught. I was there through 3rd and 4th grade in the matron would line us up and four rows in our rec room and she would lecture us and tell us terrible things, you know, using these scare tactics, I guess, to make us do whatever we were supposed to. At one point, I remember one of the things she told us that just sound at horrible she said for us girls never to be outside sitting on the ground because a snake could crawl inside of us. Then after that we were taken to another room where we were told to undress and they took all our clothes and they gave us a towel to wrap up in and then you were marched upstairs and then you were taken to the shower room. So when they told us to take all our clothes off I kept my underwear on. By time we got up there there was a woman there and she was a white matrix. To this day I can just picture her in my mind and she reminds me of one of those isn't guard matrix. She was real big and kind of burly and had that mean rough look. She pushed me in there and she pulled my towel off off my body and she noticed I had my underwear on so she said what is this? What is this? And she gave me a big whack across the back of my legs. I remember my mom saying you know if anyone ever tells you to take off your you know clothes and underwear you don't do it no matter what. So the first thing that happened was I got involved because of what I remember she saying to me. Whatever I did wrong I was sinful. I was gonna go to hell. What my parents did was sinful. They were going to hell. You know my grandmas and grandpas you know the people that I knew and loved you know we were bad people and you know I need it to save them. So she took me to this big faucet and she told me to bend over she would put something in my hair and that stuff burned so bad I was just shaking. Then we went to the next big sink and that was vinegar. Straight vinegar. They would just pour it over our head and then we were told to get in the shower to prevent life to get rid of the life that we supposedly had to control infestation. What my brothers told me with my dad this is after he passed away when he was at St. Van a nun molested him there you know that was just stunning but I helped me understand the times when I seen my dad drinking there were times when he's drinking and he just looked so broken and yet he was skilled he had a good reputation around here for the quality of work he did yet just because of the prejudice racism in this society you know they beat him down. When I was second grade and we had a boy in there that was he hardest spoke English and he spoke more Lakota so the teacher would get really mad and he probably didn't know how to say can I go back so he would end up wet himself and everybody would look and we already knew what was going to happen but she went older and ganked him out of his seat she made him pull his pants down and she bent him over the desk and she beat him with a ruler. The first time I seen that I was just shocked and he had like red waltz all over his behind and then after that she marched him out of the room she would tell us "you sit still don't you move and don't you talk until I come back." The other thing that my one brother told me was that when he was at the van the head priest prayed on him there and that did so much damage to him. My mom wrote to us all the time and she was telling me she was worried for him. She said he's running away from school and the van's way out in the middle of nowhere. She said I'm afraid he's gonna run away and end up dying out on the prairie. He endured that for over a year and he ended up running away from there. He told me about one incident where he and his friend were in trouble about something. That being he said they were six or seventh grade they were sent to the I don't know if it's the high priest or who it was but he ordered them to be punished so the Jesuits came and he said this is crazy because he said a lot of these high schoolers helped the Jesuits. So they took him in a basement, tied him to a pillar and they beat him. They beat him and beat him until they were almost unconscious and he said his friend did lose consciousness. So when they untied him he fell and then he couldn't get up so they had to carry him and because they couldn't revive him they took him to the infirmary. So he said every day he would go check on his friend and his friend finally did come too but he told him I'm hurting so bad he said I can't move. So he would sneak food to him, try to get him to eat and he said he couldn't eat and pretty soon he noticed he was getting pale and he was starting to turn blue around a mouth and dark circles under his eyes and he was really rapidly losing weight. So he said he went to see him and his friend told him can you go get my mom and my dad. So he said it was a big risk but he ran away and he said by the time he hit mission flat he said they were aware of him running away and he could hear them running after him. So he said he ran to the creek and he stuck along the creek line and they chased him all the way to Cheyenne Creek and he said he crossed over on the east side of the highway, didn't belong to the creek there and then he jumped in the creek and he said it was in the winter. So by time he got out he was so chill but he just kept running and running until he got to where they lived and his friend lived a block from him. So he went home first and he said he knocked and knocked and it was late at night and he said find me someone open and he said he fell in and so they were all shocked and they said who is this and they pulled him up and it was him and he was so cold that he couldn't talk so they had to warm him up before he finally told him what happened. So they dressed him warmly, they'd improved and put him in a car. They took him to his friend's house so he told them what happened and the irony that all they all jumped in cars took him back to the school but when they got there the mother insisted on seeing her son and they wouldn't let her so she told him tell me where he's at so he took her he showed her where her son was that so she went up there and they they all seen him. So they got him and took him and the Jesuits were trying to stop her but she said who who is this responsible here tell him I want to see him so they brought him and she said look at my son she said he's ready to die and it's all your fault and she ran she punched him right in the face. She said don't you ever ever do this to my son or this boy and they took him to the hospital and they found out he had a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder and he had fractured ribs. My true feeling about that is they couldn't kill us off in the ward you know the things they did to us and something in them wouldn't let them just take our land so they had some measure of conscience there you know they arrive at this idea boarding school to separate the families take us away from the evil influence of our families and they had no idea they didn't know us. What I know now that I grew up with when I was with my family was these really kind friendly generous people I do remember when anybody came to them their relatives their neighbors strangers and they did help you know they would help them they would share what they had and you know a lot of people I talk to about this they say that never happened but of course it never happened to them. I know I've met a few people who think boarding school is just the most wonderful experience you know but there are many many that I've heard stories from you know that I've shared their story with me that you know we're really damaged. As the years went by we just kind of figured it out we some of us realized that they had rough home life themselves. I kind of believed that they were taken out to anger on us and we we couldn't do anything. I tried going back to church and I heard different things said that I'd heard in the Catholic church and it rattled me I just my heart just stopped and then I just it beat so fast and I just felt like I was in you know like swimming and somebody had come and grabbed my ankles and was just pulling me down and I didn't understand that I prayed and then I got angry and but I kept praying because I need to understand what's happening you know and I realized if I'm going to live in this life sober I I need to learn how to live, and a lot of the Christianity that I listen to doesn't really do that. I hear them condemning, you know, really letting their followers know that they're not worthy and they're sinful. And I thought, God created us. If He loves us, why would He think that of us? You know, that doesn't make sense to me. For a period of time, our mothers and fathers who don't speak English or understand English, this is in the late 40s and 50s. They didn't put any stop to that. My parents thought that we were a little bit better being taught by a Christian, a church school, Holy Rose Emission, or Red Cross School, as it's called out. Once they learn, they begin to take action and begin to question the educational system. I'm glad those wheels fell off that wagon, you know, the things that they raised me to do and be in boarding school. But also in God's goodness, you know, He put people and things there, you know, that have helped me to learn, to, you know, heal, to gain understanding. You can't learn and understand if you can't look at yourself, you know, because I know I've been learning damn thing, it's not because I'm stupid. You know, I just, I was too painful and I was scared to death. Even within, you know, my own family who's going to carry on, like, not much people go out and dig teamsy-law, big choke cherries because it's too hard, you know, and buffalo berries, all of that stuff. Our students, we weren't home to listen to these winter stories, you know, basically you come winter stories because that's when, you know, it gets dark at four o'clock and the kids, you know, quiet in the kids, you set them all down and tell stories, you know. We didn't get to listen to any of those, so that's how, you know, all of that is lost. A lot of our young people have no knowledge of, and even the generations that go back, we lost that. From the start of the, when they first started putting the boarding school, that's what they met was kill the Indian and save the man. Most of the kids don't know anything about their genealogy because their parents didn't know anything about their genealogy because they missed out on these stories to find out how we're related to someone else. You know, that was a conscious plan of the government. Take away our identity, you know, and they call it assimilation, and they put a lot of things in place. They had control over us to rebel out who we were. Well, that was the government's mission was to, you know, make us into nice white people and get rid of our culture, and so they more or less exceeded, you know. I mean, look at us now. Over the years, when I became older, that's when I put together the concept of the college that started, the college began to teach college courses and the college started. And then I moved into a school board, a little one, and I led that group into contracting the educational system. But I learned all of the bad things that I personally experienced from the churches and religions and Christianity and the U.S. government, and probably from Hitler. I can follow orders, I can obey, but I did not learn how to be responsible because I think to teach anybody that you have to see them as a human being, have faith, a real belief that they're capable, you know, of learning what they need to know of being able to do what they need to do, and they didn't give us that in boarding school. You're listening to a Makauganaka Ichante, the heart of all oral history project, brought to you by Little Moon School and generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. You have reached the end of part one of this episode. For more information about the project, visit www.heartofallohp.com.