Apology for Abuses at US Indian Schools
The White Buffalo Prophecy tells of a time when a white buffalo calf would be born, and that birth would signal a time of Great Healing for All Nations. That white buffalo calf - the first of many - was born in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1994. Her name was Miracle.
It is in the spirit of the White Bison Prophecy, that we call upon all peoples to join us in signing this petition supporting a US apology and healing for the widespread abuse of Native American children at the nearly 500 schools funded by the US government to assimilate Native American people.
There is a growing body of evidence that the trauma Native American children carried home with them from the schools is an underlying cause of the suicides and substance abuse-related deaths that are killing young Native people today in alarming numbers.
This petition will be hand delivered to Washington, D.C., following a 6,800-mile, cross-country journey by White Bison to 23 present and former Indian school sites (http://www.wellbrietyjourney.org/). The vision is to promote awareness, dialogue and forgiveness for what happened at the schools so that we can collectively heal from this tragic chapter in United States history.
This petition calls upon the President of the United States to issue a formal apology for what the US government allowed to happen to Native American children at the schools and for the intergenerational trauma that is still negatively affecting Native individuals, families & communities to this day.
White Bison, Inc., is a non-profit organization that for the last 20 years has provided culturally-relevant assistance and resources to Native American communities in healing (http://www.whitebison.org/)
The White Buffalo Prophecy tells of a time when a white buffalo calf would be born, and that birth would signal a time of Great Healing for All Nations. That white buffalo calf - the first of many - was born in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1994. Her name was Miracle.
It is in the spirit of the White Bison Prophecy, that we call upon all peoples to join us in signing this petition supporting a US apology and healing for the widespread abuse of Native American children at the nearly 500 schools funded by the US government to assimilate Native American people.
There is a growing body of evidence that the trauma Native American children carried home with them from the schools is an underlying cause of the suicides and substance abuse-related deaths that are killing young Native people today in alarming numbers.
This petition will be hand delivered to Washington, D.C., following a 6,800-mile, cross-country journey by White Bison to 23 present and former Indian school sites (http://www.wellbrietyjourney.org/). The vision is to promote awareness, dialogue and forgiveness for what happened at the schools so that we can collectively heal from this tragic chapter in United States history.
This petition calls upon the President of the United States to issue a formal apology for what the US government allowed to happen to Native American children at the schools and for the intergenerational trauma that is still negatively affecting Native individuals, families & communities to this day.
White Bison, Inc., is a non-profit organization that for the last 20 years has provided culturally-relevant assistance and resources to Native American communities in healing (http://www.whitebison.org/)
We, the undersigned, call upon you to formally apologize on behalf of the US Federal Government and the People of this Great Nation for the widespread abuse of Native American children at the nearly 500 schools funded by the US government to assimilate Native American people.
There is a growing body of evidence that the traumas experienced by Native American children at the schools is largely responsible for the alarming levels of suicides, substance abuse, domestic violence and child sexual abuse in Native American communities today.
We ask you to join the leaders of Canada and Australia by apologizing to First Nations people here for what was allowed to happen to children at the schools, and for the scars of hurt and pain that it left on generations of Native American people.
We seek this apology not to go after monetary reparations from the government, but to promote a collective healing of all Americans for this tragic chapter in our nation's history.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
I, having been a resident of a Catholic boarding school can enpathize to a certain degree the isolation from friends family and the daily business of life. The audacity to take someone and force your way of life onto them to me is a great injustice and shows illusions of grandeur from the one inflicting this on others. Admitting a wrong is the raod to right.
I have done much reading on the systemic abuse waged on Native American families and children during this time and was horrified. The first step to healing from the legacy of pain that it has brought to Native American families is to apologize.
So many non-Natives assume that this happened many years ago. They don't realize that for many Indians, it was just a generation ago, our parents.
Apolgies can lead to forgiveness, the Native Americans of our contry deserve more than just an apology. But healing can start there.
former boarding school alumi. cheyenne agency,south dakota
denied our culture,language,traditions,customs.etc.
President Obama, I am a member of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in Michigan. I wrote my thesis on Native Amercian Education in the USA. You would be horrified to know of the abuse and humiliation that took place in the "Indian" schools. Several of my relatives were taken from their families and put there. Many children grew up in these environments and were deprived of the nurturing that is necessary to become a compassionate human being. In turn, they were unable to nurture their own children. I hope that you will be supportive of Native American people. Sincerely, Julie Fordham
See above.
I truly do believe that understanding the underlying cause of profound harm done to Native Americans as a result of exiling them to "un-chosen" land and boarding schools, will bring healing and liberation in many forms. The indian schools were American concentration camps. That is shameful. We all need to heal and never again, as a nation, do such a thing to our brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers.
U.S. Indian Schools have affected all beings, as all communities are connected. What hurts one hurts all.
the government had no right to do what they did to those people. they obviously didn't realize that they are people too. i don't understand how someone or some people could stand doing that to children. youre always in my heart. i love everything about native americans.
the schools have forced people to become violent. these people became violent because it is what was shown to them. there is nothing they could do to control it. things were forced apon them and they did not deserve that. no one does! they obviously don't see the genocide they were trying. they obviously don't realize that the original words of extermination means genocide. instead they chose these schools which in my eyes were no better. your honor lies in my heart forever, and sores as high as the eagle.
I was 14yrs. old and adopted by a Navajo family in ceremony. I am now 72yrs old. I saw things that was hurtful and cruel being done to these people. I have worked with many of the Native American youths. I don't have the answer, but I know this, that the drug abuse with these young people is so sad. Just sending money is a band aide on a broken bone. I don't have the answer,but we can bail out big companies. What has been going on with our country? We need to care for our children and our elders. .These are the words of Black Elk. Native American's are the first people of this beautiful America. I pray for the Native American and their healing. Mitayuye Oyas'in Willette
Please add your comments about why you support this petition.
How have US Indian schools impacted you, your family, your community, or the nation?
I support this petition because many generations of First Nation people have been impacted by the historical truama of our elders.
My grandmother is a boarding school survivor of Flandreau Indian School. The instructors taught her to sew and how to live a civilized life. The personnel at the school stripped them of their pride, language and native traditions. When she had her own children she was unable to nurture her children. She became an alcoholic at a young age. Alcoholism is a direct effect of board school survivors. These survivors need an apology to rectify their thoughts and feeling toward the government as many probably are hurt by the actions of the school personnel.
i still encounter stereo typing in society and law enforcement.
The Piaute reservation here in Reno, NV never received the help and attention it needed, especially in terms of drug & alcohol abuse. As a result our city has been deprived of a great source of information about our natural history and prehistorical society.
My grandmother attended Carlisle Indian Boarding School.
An apology is the least we can do, a healing fund and widespread education for both Natives and non-Natives is imperative!
Please add your comments about why you support this petition.
How have US Indian schools impacted you, your family, your community, or the nation?
I believe it was such an injustice to our people! To think that children were taken from their parents to make them assimilate to the white culture is so sad! I would love to have an apology on behalf of the U.S. Government presented to all Native Americans!!
My Father told me a story not too long ago about his chidhood, which was very uncharacteristic of him. He told me about his Mother trying to keep his brothers and sisters from being taken from her, so the government could take them to the boarding schools! She would work in the woods cutting pulp for any extra money, so she could hide them and pay the feds off! How sad! I can't even imagine as a mother, to give your chidren away, not to mention the thought of trying to change their culture and their heritage. This, I believe, was actually stolen from these poor innocent children! My Father never spoke too much of his childhood, but now I know why! He had tears in his eyes as he told me this horrible memory!
I support this petition because the creation and implementation of Indian Boarding schools was a terrible atrocity. It deprived many children of their own culture and sense of being. These schools caused an enormous amount of psychological trauma that continues to to have a profoundly negative impact on American Indian communities today.
I went to the Chemawa School in Salem, Oregon and began to understand more clearly just how pervasive and destructive the practices were for families and for our culture. We all suffer and carry the burden of abuses. President Obama, our Nation as a whole needs to face and move forward. Growth can only occur when the entity, faces the past in clarity, acknowledges the pattern of abuse and neglect and commits to an open acknowledgement of harm; so that forgiveness may take shape.
R ecognition of a historical injustice I nsight into to the causes G ood leadership implies a clear recognition of past injustices, present dilemmas and futur challenges H igh road to reconciliation T ogetherness in healing and reconciliation Joseph Elias
Even as a non Native American I feel this is of the utmost importance to the spiritual remaking of America in its growing time of need to cleanse its national soul.
I am polyglot white, and married a Cherokee 32 years ago when we met when I was in residency training at Duke. As I came to meet and gradually get to know personally many of my wife's older relatives, I began to learn of the boarding school history. For instance it took years for my wife's grandmother to open up to me to give a small porition of her experiences as a child. My mother-in-law never has been able to to do so and is now in her 80's. Their generation was scarred irreparably and as a psychiatrist, and my wife as a psychiatric social worker psychotherapist gradually realized her mother's experiences with losses and the boarding school experience had made her the distant person she is.
This apology is long over due. I pray that the Native American people can find some healing in this.
i believe in order to heal we must forgive our abuser or we keep our spirit in prison
some of my family was abuse and it affected all of us i was abuse and have forgiven my stepfather whom also try to raise me as white.
We have hurt the Native Americans in so many ways. For us to apologize is such a small thing that they ask of us. Please speak for me, Mr President, and tell these people how sorry I am for what happened to them.
Please add your comments about why you support this petition.
How have US Indian schools impacted you, your family, your community, or the nation?
I think the Journey of forgiveness is one of the most inspiringly good actions in the USA today.
Keeping our country as a whole from benfiting from the goodness and talent and culture of the Indian people among us. We have always made a point of our children remembering that Sacajewea married Charbonneau and their son was a noble man. Our grandson is partially decended from the Cherokee Indians who escaped the Trail of Tears and took refuge in the southern mountains. In turn, they gave refuge to the slaves who escaped and reached them, among them some of my grandson's other ancestors.
It is time for forgiveness.Those who ask for forgivenss must also se able to give it freely back to others,or else they will have two tongues and two hearts.Only one heart that flys as straight as the arrow and as high as the eagle may walk in fields of tall sweetgrass one day with the Creator.
The elders in my family told me as a child of how three great grandfathers was a scout on the Trail of Tears,and 400 years ago that my 16th great grandmother was a cousin to Pocahontas of the Powahatan tribe in Virginia.I was born in southern West Virginia,where are all my fellow human beings?
I am white and grew up in upstate New York but my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law are Native American and were raised in Indian boarding schools, where they were mistreated and forced to practice religions other than their own in order to see their families. If we were to hold hearings on these schools like Canada has, we would hear thousands of stories of abuse and molestation. Although Canada still struggles, they have taken huge strides towards reconciliation. Ireland has recently started the same process with their juvenile institutions. It is time to acknowledge what occurred in these schools.
How can we say these are the be United states when the First People have suffered and still suffer the genocide and long-term disrespect of invading Caucasian arrogance and greed? There are ways to make peace to the benefit of all. Our red brothers bring us good ways to pray.
Never forget, forgiveness is hard but possible. This is a good thing. No amount of time,hoop journey, help, therapy, drugs, abuse or wellness can distinguish for each person what ropes bind them together and hold them together as a person, and which need to be re-examined and placed in keeping for later because they are stopping your growth as a human, only YOU can do this work. Defense mechanisms are there because people have worth and are worth protection. This Journey is a first step for all Nations and a good one.
My brother and I were dropped off at Concho, Oklahoma by a babysitter who was drinking and had two daughters with many problems also in his care. We escaped three days later. We suffered and saw much suffering there and it haunted me for years. NdN boarding schools decimated many people but I will never forget the girls who helped us escape. Many of us celebrated when Concho was closed forever.
Our country should apologize publicly for the Indian School Abuses as well as the genocide of our Native brothers and sisters throughout history. We would do well to remember that we are all connected through the Circle of Life and that there is ONE who watches over us ALL. We must learn to walk beside one another and hold each other up not tear one another down...... Bright Blessings to all -
How have US Indian schools impacted you, your family, your community, or the nation?
i support this petition because it is much needed on both sides of the track. I am african american and my ancestors had their history and knowledge of themselves taken in the course of making them slaves, by white america. We need to look at each other in the eyes and see human beings and not free labor and animals..We need to come to the table of justice and cry and heal. we need to get it out in the open. It is the only way to grow. there is a saying "if you want to get someone off your back, then stand up and they will fall off"
I grew up in Phoenix Arizona and as a child going past the Phoenix Indian School I thought it was a prison. I saw all the children on the grounds,all behind high fences and wondered how is this possible.
I have always been sadened by how these children were treated
As a lifelong white resident of Nebraska, I have been aware for a number of years of the damage done by the abuses of the Genoa Indian School to native American children. This Apology is the least we can do.
An apology is so very long overdue and such a part of the healing process. Please acknowledge the intergenerational pain caused by US Indian Schools and take the steps now for a formal apology.
This is long overdue. Now is a time of healing and coming togeather. I believe this administration is a sign of this. We must heal, come togeather and move on. I believe this petition is a step toward reconciliation, brotherly love,and peace.
The time has come for the United States government to acknowledge the pain and suffering of the boarding school experience. The time has come for the United States government to acknowledge their wrongful judgement in creating the boarding schools for Native Americans. It is time for the United States government acknowledge and make remedy for the intergenerational trauma it has created from the boarding school experience. The time has come...the time has come. Ho.
My mother's experience at the Chemawa Indian school in Salem Oregon has left a lifelong scar on her identity as an Native American woman. It has affected her ability to parent her children in the ways of her elders and her ancestors. It has affected her ability to teach her grandchildren the ways of her people. It will affect the next seven generations to come unless we first forgive. On behalf of my mother and my family we forgive for the sake of our children's future and their children to come. Ho.
I support this petition because even today, my grandmother tears up at the mention of her past because she was ripped from a relative's arms at six years old. Though she's back with her people, the damage is astronomical. American Indian communties have been devastated by the loss of so much of their culture. It is important to heal in order to redeem the values and overcome the hurt that exists.
to openly admit any wrong doing
President Obama,-------- We are blessed to have the last fluent speaker of the Wintun language to teach us, many tribes are not so fortunate. Today we can't pick up our phones, read an instructional manual, food labels, sort through mail or vote without being exposed to foreign languages. Stripping the language from the First People was a major goal of the US government boarding schools, if this is not the time to acknowledge and apologize for this cultural genocide----WHEN?
By brother James a non registered Cree Indian was adopted by our parents from Canada in the early 1970's. I have seen the impact that taking Indian children out of their cultural environment has devastating consequences.
The Indian school movement affected our family back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. My great great grandmother Henrietta Mills had a large farm in Wheaton Wisconsin. One day she saw 2 Indian boys running across one of the fields, one boy was obviously very ill. He later died a few years later from TB. She offered to help them. The boys lived with her and my great grandpa Harry Mills for many years. They helped her farm and she helped them and their families.They must have lived near Wheaton because the boys went home several times to visit their families, but could never stay too long. Anthony the oldest boy lived on the farm until Henrietta passed away.Anthony and my great grandpa were great friends and called themselves brothers. After her death Anthony moved back to the reservation. My grandma had many great memories of her family going to visit Anthony and his family and Anthony and his family visiting them. Anthony passed away in 1957 as far as I remember. Given the times it was a very brave thing for a woman to do, especially given that her husband was either hospitalized or away looking for gold in the Dakota's. My grandma said that the boys were from the "ojibwa" tribe.
Also, please do not assume that the US Indian schools were an anomoly. Be very conscious of any English-only policy or ELL policy anywhere and look at how it requires troubling assimilation.
My great grandfather was a member of a Native American Tribe. Through the mixing pot of American life my blood is not "pure" enough to continue in that tradition. It is sad to me that the Native American community has to keep so many secrets, has to hold their cards so closely to their chest, to ensure that their traditions remain pure and respected. I hope that someday we can remember the acts of assimilation and learn from them without the pain of the betrayal clouding our thoughts. Thank you for your consideration, Rachel Sherwood
I was at a a.a.meeting and a brother told me check this site. Iam out oof Ft. Berthold North Dakota. I am Hidatsa
I am of Native descent and active in the Native community of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Four of my ancestors went to Native schools and my mother and her siblings were sent to catholic schools to avoid the Native schools.
Not sure what happened t the school as it was never talked about in my family. I just know my mother and her siblings were sent to a catholic school to avoid the Native schools.
As a graduate student at UND, I fully support this. I also grew up on the Leech lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. Please, please do this act of kindness.
I am a "mestiza" which means that I have Indian blood as well as Spanish blood. As a child my father would tell me how his father and his ancestors were great people and very intelligent. I live a world of duality because I know that I am Native American my roots have been lost. I believe that this American Nation owes my ancestors a long over due apology. I know what is like to be told that you can not speak your mother tongue...it was very painful not being able to be allowed to express yourself in your own language. This government has demeaned and burden them with adversity and great obstacles that has prevented them to live a fruitful and to slowly kill what is left of our legacy.
This atrocity has left my father with a great emptiness and without an identity of who he is or exactly where he comes from. I see the overwhelming sadness in his eyes of not knowing what has happened to his family. It has left him with a sense of abandonment.
I believe it is time for recognition of the wrongs done to Native Americans. Lands, hunting rights, ceremonies...the very way of life, as well as children were ripped away. A formal apology will be instrumental in helping this country to recognize these things and grow toward understanding and forgiveness.
Dear Mr. President, As a non-Native, but authentic melting pot American citizen, I urge you to apologize for the misguided attempts at forcing assimilation of this land's original inhabitants to fit a preconceived mold of what constitutes "an American." Forcing anyone to give up his or her heritage or making a person feel ashamed of his or her culture is something enlightened people now understand to be harmful, hurtful, and heinous. I feel you agree that diversity is a blessing and that you have empathy for the wrongs committed against Native peoples. Please redress the wrong with an official apology so that many will be healed.
My entire family has been effected by the boarding school era, and my grandmother is still healing to this day. We are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Both of my mother's parents, and their parents before them were forced to attend these schools. They were taught to be "civilized" as the "white" man saw fit. My grandfather was a full blooded Cherokee and spoke his native language. Later in his life his developed alzheimer's disease. As the disease took its course he began to relive his boarding school days. I watched in horror as he relived the pain of the beatings, and emotional/mental abuse he endured for just being himself- A CHEROKEE INDIAN- for simply speaking the language his forefathers taught him, and living traditional Cherokee life. My grat grandmother attended Carlisle. Our tribe, along with many other I am sure, have living elders that vividly remember these terrible days. It is time to heal- Please join us on this journey.
I think of my grandma telling of the children so scared and crying in the night. Her voice was so sad remembering the ones who died so far away from their home and families. This mass separation and emotional/physical abuse of children had a huge impact on parenting skills. My question to President and Mrs. Obama is please think of how you as parents (who love your children dearly) feel if your two beautiful girls were taken from you?
All four of my grandparents and both of my parents,aunties, uncles and oldest brother were boarding school "products". When it came time for me and my youngest to start school, my father volunteered (WWII) and my mother moved off the reservation and struggled so we younger ones could attend a public school system. Even there we learned of racisim, but we remain proud LAKOTA!
