... Walking the outlying acres of the Haskell campus he had already come across the Indian cemetery, which had not been used since 1913. He counted a hundred grave markers, but when the chiindii of those children came to talk to him, Ko-yo-teh knew there were far, far more spirits there. The Dine´ chiindii among them spoke to him and told their stories: how they had been forced to come to Haskell, forced to cut their hair, beaten if caught speaking their language, ordered to wear uniforms and march in order like white soldiers, made to sit through the White Man’s sermons, taken to White Men’s homes in town and do chores for next-to-nothing money. They had died from sickness; they had died from sadness.... amazon/Heart-Chants-Phillip-McGuire-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00HMQAJQK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1388610892&sr=1-1&keywords=heart+chants ...At Haskell’s dedication, then KU Chancellor Lippincot had told the audience: “When an Indian boy or girl leaves this school with an education, the Indian problem will be solved for him and his children.” Just eight years prior was Custer’s debacle. Just six years later would be the massacre of Sioux women and children at Wounded Knee. Haskell’s first leader, Superintendent Ayers reiterated that assimilation was the primary goal of Federal Indian policy. In a few years, he would proudly point to statistics he kept showing 23 percent of his graduates married non-Indians. As late as 1926, agents went out in mounted groups among Navajo families and forced them with threats of prison terms to give up their children so Indian boarding schools could be filled. These children had their heads shorn. If they didn’t have an English name, the principal or teacher would give them one. They were often underfed, hungry and made to rise at 6 a.m. to military drill, then marched to breakfast where they were forced to say grace aloud and whipped with a rope if they did not. On Sundays, they were forced to go to church and endure two-hour sermons on righteousness and the evils of sin. Speaking in their native tongue was forbidden and cause for lashings...
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 06:30:24 +0000
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