Indian boarding school history won’t go away

Post reporters wrote, “The findings provide the most complete public accounting to date of how many Native American children died at the boarding schools, but many historians said they believe the death toll is far greater.

“The Post documented deaths at 202 schools and the causes of death for about 1,500 students. Of those, the leading killer was infectious disease, claiming 3 out of 4 students who died, records show.”

Unlike the Department of the Interior’s report, which was limited to federal records, journalists at the Post were able to draw on data collected from additional sources such as historical newspaper clips, death certificates, cemetery maps and others. The investigation represents a lot of original shoe-leather reporting, according to Dana Hedgpeth, one of the lead reporters on the investigation. She noted, however, that reporters drew from the work of others as well. “We didn’t create the wheel; a lot of our work was built on information that was already out there,” Hedgpeth said in a telephone interview with ICT. Hedgpeth is a citizen of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe.

The investigation included data and research conducted by Native journalists and others, such as Eva Guggemos and SuAnn Reddick, who created a database of children who perished at Chemawa Indian School, Preston McBride, whose dissertation focused on not only those who died at the schools but also on children sent home to die after falling sick, Louellyn White, who conducted research on children who died during the Carlisle Industrial School’s outing program, the Native American Indian Boarding School digital database, the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center and others.

Of the over 3,100 children who died at the schools, the Post’s team were able to identify the names of 1,783 students. Reporters and editors struggled with the question of publishing these names. Although they gained access to documents about children’s deaths from the Department of Interior investigation through a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency redacted the students’ identities. According to Hedgpeth, Department of the Interior staff cited privacy issues regarding releasing children’s identities despite National Archives policy indicating that no screening is necessary for records over 100 years old.

Hedgpeth reached out to several of her Native sources about publishing the names. Survivors and families overwhelmingly supported making their identities public. “Those names should be published,” said James LaBelle, Iñupiaq in an interview with ICT. LaBelle survived the Wrangell Institute and Edgecumbe High School in Alaska and is past president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. “The names add dimension; we’re not just numbers on a spreadsheet, which tends to depersonalize the tragedy and the gravity of what happened.”

He added,”We are finally giving names to those who basically were sacrificed on the altar of assimilation and acculturation.”

Until Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo launched the agency’s Indian boarding school investigation in June 2022, the history of the schools was largely unknown outside of Indian Country, according to Hedgpeth. Although ICT, for instance, has reported on boarding and residential schools here in the U.S and Canada for decades, the legacy press seldom covered the story prior to the Department of Interior’s investigation. Hedgpeth recalls that reporting for her initial boarding school stories was usually conducted on her own time. She expressed surprise at how many non-Native people know little about boarding school history. “We write for a well-educated population in the nation’s capital; many of our readers had never heard of these schools, sadly,” she said.

Hedgpeth’s hope is that the investigation will help elevate the boarding school reporting work of Native journalists and researchers who may not be known in the mainstream press. “The Post is a platform that can elevate their work; we just have a larger mouthpiece,” she said.

Hedgpeth noted the Post ran a seven-page special section about the investigation. “The Washington Post doesn’t do that everyday,” she said.

Next steps

“There’s so much out there that hasn’t been uncovered yet,” Hedgpeth said.

She said the National Archives alone has over 103 million records that specifically deal with Indian Affairs. Of that number, roughly one quarter deal specifically with boarding schools.

“There’s a million more stories out there and tons of records we haven’t yet looked into,” Hedgpeth added.