Healing from the Brokenness

Students were forced to go to boarding schools because of the lack of any other schools in their neighborhood. As teachers were there to merely educate, their health and wellness were not taken into consideration. According to Collins in another one of her essays titled, “The Broken Crucible of Assimilation”, Melville Wilkinson was an army veteran and one of the founders of the Forest Grove Indian school in the 1840s before it moved to Salem. Under his supervision, forty-three Native American children died while on campus (Collins 2000: 469-474). While there were not a lot of details about their deaths in the essay, one can assume that one of the reasons for the high number was the lack of medical care and other necessities at school. Chalcraft, the superintendent at the Chemawa Indian School after its move to Salem, “was aware of the problems common to nonreservation Indian schools: culture shock, family separation, overcrowding, antiquated facilities, unappetizing and inadequate food, poor sanitation, deficient health supervision, among others” (Collins 1998: 391).  Collins pointed out that Chalcraft knew about the poor living conditions and continued with his education plan anyway. Lack of medical care led to numerous problems and was one of the many abuses the young students went through.

Indian schools were also heavily influenced by military-style discipline. The boys wore military-like uniforms and went about their days by a strict bell schedule. Wilkinson took his military experiences and created the same disciplines in the Indian school. If they disobeyed, they were subject to harsh punishments, as the teachers sought obedience and conformity (Collins 2000: 475). This created a high intensity environment with few freedoms or room for mistakes. Harsh punishments for disobedience and strict rules for discipline were two of the most scarring experiences for Native American students. One student named Richard Monette who attended boarding school in North Dakota and is now the Native American Bar Association President wrote,

“Native America knows all too well the reality of the boarding schools…where the sharp rules of immaculate living were instilled through blistered hands and knees on the floor with scouring toothbrushes; where mouths were scrubbed with lye and chlorine solutions for uttering Native words” (Soul Wound, Smith).

Students were subject to all kinds of abuses in an effort to assimilate them into white society. Their heads were shaved, their native clothes stripped from them, forced to study Christianity, given American names, and only allowed to speak English. Teachers had many different strategies for punishment in the event that they broke any of these rules (Soul Wound, Smith). Not only were they vulnerable to these kinds of physicals abuses, but sexual abuse ran rampant up into the 1980s. Joseph Gone is one historian that conducts research for the Boarding School Healing Project, which is just one example of a population’s attempts at healing from the decades of abuse and loss of cultures. Gone stated, “We know that experiences of such violence are clearly correlated with post-traumatic reactions including social and psychological disruptions and breakdowns,” (Soul Wound, Smith). The abuses that so many boys and girls experienced were carried into new generations and clearly affected Native American populations. From these abuses, there are cases of Natives themselves becoming molesters, along with alcoholics and acquiring high rates of suicide. The sexual and physical harm became a threat in their own families as they repeated what was done to them.

While some Native Americans have good memories of meeting their spouses and best friends, many continue to have nightmares and scars to remember their devastating school experiences. The Boarding School Healing Project was created in pursuit of recovering from the decades of injustice. The project set up hotlines and healing services for survivors and is bringing about responsibility from the state of Washington and local churches to aid in the healing process (Soul Wound, Smith). The Chemawa Indian School is still running today and is the oldest school that is still in operation. From their website’s homepage, they have a section on the history of the school. Interestingly, the brief history has no mention of the abuses and pain Natives went through during the early years. They are focused on a new mission,

“to help students reach the highest goals and achieve the most that they can in their life after high school. This is complemented by the help of the IHS clinic located right on campus, the AVID program, which seeks to help under served students with access to higher level classes and college entrance requirements…”

The school is not letting their past hurts and abuses get in the way of success for the new generation of students. For this particular school, they have fought through the challenges and are bringing new opportunities for the Native American students that their parents never had.

Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation faced daily physical and sexual abuses that many have not recovered from. Their culture, language, idea of home, was stripped from them, often times never to return. From this came brokenness and the continuation of a destructive cycle passed on to the next generation. For some, the hotlines and services have become an aid in the healing journey. The Chemawa Indian School has come out of the hardships to provide opportunities for success for its students. In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, allowing parents to keep their children out of boarding schools. Although there were varying outcomes for Native Americans, invaluable culture was lost, families torn apart and children stripped of their childhood through the process of assimilation, scars of which remain today.