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“For American Indians here, the past is present. And Carlisle means one thing – a brutal, turn-of-the-century effort to cleanse natives of their “savage nature” by erasing their names, language, customs, religions, and family ties. When school founder Richard Henry Pratt went looking for Indian boys and girls in the late 1870s, he came here first.
Many children did not survive the school experience, among them Kills In Sight’s relation, Friend Hollow Horn Bear. He lies next to a roadway, among nearly 200 native children in a cemetery on the grounds of what is now the Army War College.
After 130 years, he may be coming home.
During formal government-to-government consultations that took place here Tuesday, Army officials surprised a tense meeting-hall gathering by consenting to tribal demands to return the remains of 10 Rosebud children – and to pay the cost of doing so. Two other tribes have made similar requests. The government pledged that, through the official process for disinterments, it would accommodate all tribes that come forward.
At least five descendants of the Rosebud children live here on the plains of southern South Dakota. Still more dwell in distant communities or Western states. For them, the potential return of the remains provokes a particular ache.
“She was just a child when she died,” said LaDonna Allard, a descendant of Dora Brave Bull.”
– The Morning Call, Army’s promise to Carlisle Indians’ kin creates hope, skepticism.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #20 – Carlisle Indian School (200).
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
