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Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER
/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.
Doctrine of International Copyright Law:
FROM: THE ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE NEWSPAPER
/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.
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