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From the Center for Investigative Reporting

0:36

in PRX this is REVEAL.

0:39

I'm Outlets. In

0:42

the early nineteen nineties, a guy

0:44

named Justin Portior was working at

0:46

a school in South Dakota. So I was

0:48

a maintenance man and I started working on the boilers

0:50

because I had some experience with diesel

0:53

mechanics and stuff. One afternoon,

0:56

Justin is down in the school basement

0:58

working on the heating system. He's

1:01

following a steam line through a labyrinth

1:03

of dark tunnels. The school

1:06

is over a hundred years old,

1:08

and the basement is dimly lit.

1:10

And went into the door, and when I opened

1:12

that door, There was a dirt

1:14

floor there, a very

1:17

poorly lit. I've

1:19

seen three not

1:21

one, but three small graves in

1:23

that in that dirt, dirt floor, in

1:25

that room. So right away,

1:28

I I knew that that wasn't right.

1:30

I knew I had to tell somebody. Justin

1:35

says he sees three small

1:37

graves Mounds of dirt

1:39

evenly spaced, marked with little

1:41

crosses.

1:43

He heads straight back upstairs to tell his

1:45

supervisor then he got, like, he

1:47

got real mad and start you cussed

1:49

at me and said, oh, no.

1:51

You shouldn't have been bleeping

1:53

nose and round on air and don't be, you know,

1:55

going where you're not supposed to go. So I was like, you know,

1:57

of course, I heard you back. I said, well, you told me to

1:59

chase

1:59

that line. So

2:02

so, you know, just from his reaction,

2:04

I didn't really

2:06

carry it any further. I just knew that.

2:09

I knew what I've seen, and

2:11

it just I

2:13

just kept it, I guess, all these years.

2:18

For nearly thirty years, Justin

2:21

would be haunted by what he saw down

2:23

there. But he didn't tell anyone

2:25

except his wife. He didn't know

2:27

who else to tell or where to start.

2:30

but it kept eating at him. Who

2:33

or what is buried in those mounds?

2:36

Could it be students?

2:40

By twenty twenty two, he just

2:42

couldn't hold it any longer. So

2:44

Justin reached out to some folks at the

2:46

school which is why nearly

2:48

three decades later, on a cold

2:51

spring day in May, he and a

2:53

group of ten people are making

2:55

their way back down to the basement of

2:57

the Red Cloud Indian School.

2:59

Those were native children down here after

3:02

hopefully their spirit was able to travel along

3:04

to whatever whatever is

3:07

beyond this world for them.

3:13

Red Cloud School was started by Jesuit

3:15

priests in eighteen eighty eight,

3:17

who at the time called it the holy

3:20

rosary mission. For about

3:22

its first hundred years, Red Cloud

3:24

was a residential boarding school. Kids,

3:27

mostly from the Pine Ridge Indian reservation,

3:30

were forcibly taken away from their families.

3:32

and lived there for years at a time.

3:35

There are many stories of kids who survived

3:37

the difficult conditions at the school and

3:39

stories about some who didn't, which brings

3:41

us back to the basement.

3:47

Justin, a radar technician, and

3:50

some people from the school are gonna

3:52

run a ground penetrating radar

3:54

scan to see if the Earth has been

3:56

disturbed, so they can determine if

3:58

there are graves there.

4:01

A door behind the staircase opens

4:03

to old steps, smooth

4:05

with a hundred years of footsteps. They

4:08

lead down to an unfinished basement

4:10

space. The heating and air conditioning

4:12

unit humps.

4:15

So

4:15

we opened that door and ended you know,

4:17

that's where the grades are at that I've seen.

4:20

And but now there's

4:22

concrete. There's concrete

4:24

over it. the back wall that

4:26

was there is gone.

4:30

A pad of concrete now sits

4:33

over the dirt floor where Justin

4:35

remembers seeing the graves. The

4:37

ground penetrating radar can go through

4:39

concrete a few feet, so the technician

4:41

is scanning the area to try and get a

4:43

picture of what's underneath. I

4:45

just felt when

4:47

we went into side rooms

4:49

that weren't the rooms that I've seen those

4:51

great sight then then we went into

4:53

that area right there that

4:55

just felt. I felt like a

4:57

heaviness, uneasiness, I

5:00

said, this is the place, even though there's concrete

5:02

here, this is this is where those were.

5:08

The hunt for unmarked graves of native

5:11

children isn't just happening at Red

5:13

Cloud School. Red Cloud is

5:15

one of over four hundred Indian

5:17

boarding schools across the country. These

5:20

schools were part of a program designed

5:22

by the federal government to, quote, kill

5:25

the Indian and save the

5:27

man. Those were the actual

5:29

words of one of the architects of the plan to

5:31

destroy native culture.

5:36

But native identity proved to be more

5:38

resilient than the government expected.

5:40

Despite best efforts,

5:43

many native people help on to their language

5:45

and spirituality. And now

5:47

for the first time, the federal government

5:49

is acknowledging its role in the boarding schools

5:52

and the harm they caused.

5:54

For more than a century, tens

5:56

of thou thousands of indigenous children were

5:58

taken from their communities

5:59

and

6:00

forced into boarding schools run by

6:03

the US government. specifically

6:05

the Department of the

6:06

Interior and religious institutions.

6:09

Deb Holland is the secretary of the

6:11

Interior. a member of the Laguna

6:13

Pueblo tribe. Last

6:15

year, she launched the Federal Indian

6:17

boarding school initiative. The federal

6:19

policies

6:19

that attempted to wipe out native

6:22

of identity, language, and culture,

6:25

continue to manifest in the pain

6:27

tribal

6:27

communities face today,

6:29

including

6:29

cycles of violence and abuse,

6:32

disappearance of indigenous people,

6:34

premature

6:35

deaths, poverty, and

6:37

loss of wealth,

6:39

mental health disorders and substance

6:42

abuse. The

6:44

Federal Indian boarding school initiative is

6:47

creating a series of reports investigating

6:49

the consequences of the boarding school

6:51

system. Former students from

6:53

across the country are sharing their stories.

6:56

and a warning some of them describe

6:58

sexual violence and child abuse and

7:01

will be difficult for some listeners to

7:03

hear.

7:04

I remember being afraid to sleep

7:06

at night, fearful of the

7:08

matron's son

7:10

who walked the halls at night using

7:13

a flashlight it to spot me

7:15

in bed.

7:16

He touched me,

7:19

like a little child, should

7:21

ever be touched.

7:24

Ramona Klein is one of many survivors

7:26

who spoke at a hearing in May. For

7:28

a bill that's making its way through Congress,

7:31

called the Truth and Healing Commission on

7:33

Indian boarding school policies act. She

7:35

went to a school at Fort Todden

7:37

in North Dakota starting in nineteen

7:39

fifty four and

7:40

she was seven years old. I remember

7:43

being hit by the matron with

7:45

a big green paddle that everyone

7:47

called the Board of Education. while

7:50

I melt on either

7:52

a broomstick or a mopstick

7:54

with my arms outstretched from

7:56

my body. I

7:57

remember thinking, you will

7:59

not get the best of me,

8:02

and I was determined not to

8:04

cry.

8:07

Tim Gallego was a student at

8:09

Red Cloud School during World War two

8:11

and went on to start Indian country

8:13

today, the first independently

8:15

owned Native American newspaper in the

8:17

US. Most priests and nuns

8:19

knew how to use a leather belt. and

8:23

they use it frequently on the kids.

8:25

So we experienced the

8:28

abuse physical abuse writer

8:30

from the very beginning. His

8:33

memories were still vivid

8:35

even after eighty years. They were

8:37

priests and they were brothers and

8:39

some of the sisters that were sexually abusing

8:42

the children there. You

8:44

know, my my little sister

8:47

was raped by one of the

8:49

school and police. And

8:52

that man had been there for ten

8:54

or fifteen years and had a room right on

8:56

the reservation. and he was taken little

8:58

girls all along.

9:04

Tim told his story to porter,

9:06

Mary Annette, Pamper, and a few weeks

9:08

later, he passed away.

9:11

Mary Annette is a national

9:13

correspondent for Indian country

9:15

today, now known as ICT.

9:17

She's been reporting on boarding

9:19

schools for over twenty years. Much of

9:21

her work focuses on the role the

9:23

Catholic Church played in shaping federal

9:25

policy towards native people

9:27

and what the fallout of that legacy is

9:29

today. For the next two

9:31

weeks, we're partnering with Marionette

9:33

and ICT to explore

9:35

how one Catholic school is

9:37

trying to bring truth and healing to its

9:39

community. And

9:40

how complicated that is when

9:43

history is an open wound.

9:45

I am not gonna accept no cheap

9:47

apology. The

9:49

Catholic church needs to own up. We need

9:51

to find a path We're

9:55

gonna explore many questions that need to

9:57

be answered by the church in order to

9:59

get to

9:59

the truth. questions of

10:02

land ownership and finances. That

10:04

means giving back all the land that

10:06

the church owns back to the tribe. Questions

10:09

about dusty church records and the

10:11

secrets they hold. They're hiding them and they

10:13

don't want show them or they did

10:15

burn them because they don't want proof. And

10:17

of course, questions about

10:19

the children who were sent to these boarding

10:21

schools and never came home.

10:23

Who were they? And how did

10:25

they die? Our

10:32

journey with Marie Annette begins on the

10:34

great plains of South Dakota.

10:40

I'm

10:46

driving

10:47

across a great expanse of Prairie on

10:49

the Way to Red Cloud Indian School on the

10:51

Pine Ridge reservation. So beautiful

10:53

spring day and everything is new and

10:55

green. Run a back road. It's a

10:57

little shortcut I learned from the local folks

10:59

here. I'm not from

11:01

Pine Ridge. I'm a citizen of the Red

11:03

Cliff band of OJibwe tribe in Wisconsin,

11:05

which makes me an outsider here in

11:07

Dakota country. But I've done some

11:09

reporting here over the years and I know some

11:11

folks. I'm the daughter and relative of

11:13

generations of boarding school survivors, and

11:15

I share that common bond. with folks

11:17

here in Pine Ridge.

11:19

I decided to come to Red Cloud because

11:21

this school has started its own truth

11:23

and healing effort and raised money for it.

11:25

Turning

11:26

from the highway into the school's parking

11:29

lot to send a hill, the

11:31

campus is tucked away almost hidden.

11:33

seeing the school and the church or that's

11:35

tall white stebo. I can't

11:37

help but recall memories of my own time at

11:39

Catholic school. Inside

11:42

the school, students move through the cinderblock

11:44

and brick hallways making their way to

11:47

class. In one

11:49

classroom, portraits of native leaders

11:51

cover the walls. The kids some

11:53

unstacking feet move freely about the

11:55

room, their arms swinging. They can't

11:57

sit still. They're ready to sing

11:59

and dance.

12:07

Speaking, Dakota could have gotten the kids

12:09

a beating from the nuns and priests in the same

12:12

classroom sixty years ago. Now,

12:14

this being embraced by the school

12:16

and a new generation of

12:18

Dakota youth. And

12:26

I tell them whatever you do as a

12:29

lakota be proud because

12:31

our

12:32

ancestors couldn't do

12:34

that. And when they did, they, you know,

12:36

they would sometimes get killed

12:39

or abused

12:42

Jason Trapot teaches Lakota

12:45

language and culture here at Red Cloud School.

12:47

He's fresh, phased, and energetic. His

12:49

passion for the culture is infectious and the children

12:51

are drawn to him. The

12:53

first thing they took was their voice,

12:55

and, you know, they're they're

12:58

pride. So that's what I want to give

13:00

back right away. You know, I want you to

13:02

be proud. and I want you to use

13:04

your voice because we used

13:06

to get whipped, we used to get beat

13:08

just by speaking or just

13:10

by singing. There

13:13

are about twenty kids in the class, fourth

13:15

graders. Jason sings and

13:17

drums and they

13:18

follow along. So at

13:22

the

13:24

beginning of the year, nobody was singing

13:26

and nobody was dancing. And

13:29

now every time these

13:31

guys come in, all they

13:32

wanna do is singing dance

13:34

now. What are some reasons why

13:36

we sing? anymore. Take

13:39

a moment

13:39

to keep our local coach coach

13:43

alive. So when it won't fade

13:45

in to non existent?

13:47

Yeah.

13:47

So we we're seeing keep our law

13:49

code away is alive, so it doesn't fade into

13:52

non existent. What else? Why do

13:54

we see in that? It's

13:56

just a part of us that we can't

13:58

keep hidden

13:58

away from other people. To

14:00

be

14:01

proud? Yeah. To be proud of

14:03

it. Yeah. because

14:05

the local other people did and they

14:07

were not ashamed of what

14:09

other people think. Yep. So

14:10

now we do that too. Right? Yeah.

14:13

So that that's how we learned.

14:16

You know, we we're just not sitting here,

14:18

singing, or

14:19

we're sending our voice

14:21

We're sending our emotions. We're

14:24

sending our love for

14:25

our people in a prayer prayerful

14:28

way. even if we're here at

14:30

school. Right? Yep. So

14:32

in the beginning, I talked about these

14:34

things, but everyone was still just,

14:36

you know, real shy.

14:38

And now now that we

14:40

understand what a singer is and

14:42

why we dance,

14:43

then once they got past

14:45

that everyone stepped up and was brave,

14:47

and now you guys got to witness

14:50

what what it has done to

14:52

a class who didn't

14:54

sing or dance for months.

14:56

Everyone who is dancing today out

14:58

of nowhere, they just start asking

15:01

every day. Can

15:01

we dance? Can we dance?

15:11

The

15:14

Jesuits, the order of Catholic priests

15:16

who founded Red Cloud, have changed their

15:18

position on Dakota language since the

15:20

old days. But for the older generations,

15:22

the scars of that repression run

15:24

deep. There's legitimate grievances and

15:26

concerns and and

15:28

history that is

15:30

certainly

15:30

divisive and and

15:33

also at

15:35

the very minimum.

15:38

incredibly wrong.

15:39

Macau Black Elk is a person who's been put in

15:42

charge of the truth and healing process here at

15:44

Red Cloud. And

15:45

and the Jezovitz, I think, are coming to terms

15:47

with that, especially the older Jezovitz

15:49

started to be

15:52

a bit more culturally sensitive and

15:54

more Aware. Macau

15:55

is a big man, long, black hair, and

15:57

a welcoming smile. He's from Pine

15:59

Ridge and graduated from Red Cloud School

16:02

in two thousand and five. and he

16:04

taught here for five years, the code of studies,

16:06

world history, and geography. And so

16:08

there's full start to shift in the sixties

16:10

and seventies to, like, start teaching

16:11

La Cote for first ever -- Yeah.

16:13

-- teaching luck with the history and

16:16

culture and making sure that those things

16:18

are included. So

16:20

there are some

16:23

changes that happen over time. But

16:25

I think we all sort of agree that

16:28

especially prior to

16:30

that that era from the fifties and

16:32

and before, the

16:34

project was specifically

16:35

a stimulative in a destructive way.

16:37

And there's no

16:39

excusing that.

16:40

Yeah. What's the best way

16:42

to address that do you think? Well,

16:45

I think what we're

16:47

trying to do is first

16:49

and foremost acknowledge

16:53

that when I first do a came in

16:55

employee here and the a hundred and

16:57

twenty fifth anniversary when came and went without

16:59

any acknowledgement of our boarding school

17:01

history. Right? That's that's painful

17:03

for people. So acknowledgement

17:05

is the first thing

17:07

and the easiest thing we can do

17:09

is to say, yes,

17:11

like this history happened

17:14

and there is pain in that

17:16

history and we don't

17:17

deny

17:18

that. In some

17:23

ways, Macau was born for this

17:25

job. He's Lakota on both sides. His

17:27

mother, traditional, his father, a

17:29

practicing Catholic. Macon

17:31

is also Catholic but has lots of ties

17:34

to the traditional community here in Pine

17:36

Ridge. So yeah, he's right in the

17:38

middle of this and has been ever

17:40

since he was hired as the executive director

17:42

for truth and healing in twenty twenty.

17:44

It's a big job With

17:47

no easy answers, Macau

17:49

hopes to mend the relationship between the

17:51

school and the native community by

17:53

getting to the bottom of what

17:55

happened here. there are things that we can do as an

17:57

institution to help individuals

17:59

maybe achieve a greater sense

18:02

of healing by acknowledging

18:04

their experiences, by listening

18:06

to their stories, by providing

18:10

things that might help individuals to overcome

18:12

those experiences and and that

18:14

painful history. But

18:16

it's always an individual's journey and

18:18

every person sort of has the power

18:21

to pursue and achieve healing

18:23

on their own, and we can't make

18:25

anyone get there.

18:28

What all these kids went

18:30

through at Red Cloud and afterward

18:32

is central to the journey Macaws

18:35

talking about. Today,

18:36

the students are happy to be singing

18:38

their songs and dancing, but it used

18:40

to be different. I

18:41

want to hear from the elders. people

18:44

who survived the harsher times at

18:46

Red Cloud when kids didn't go home to

18:48

their parents at the end of the day.

18:52

When we

18:56

come back, a former student

18:58

who went to Red Cloud eighty years

19:01

ago is still grappling

19:03

with what happened there. A lot of

19:05

my friends who went to school to

19:08

drank to cover up that pain. lot

19:10

of them can't commit suicide. Lot of

19:12

them ran away and went to war.

19:15

You're listening

19:17

to reveal.

19:28

Hi. I'm

19:30

reporter Anujamsidias

19:32

Cortez. In twenty

19:34

fourteen, I was living in

19:36

LA when a story hit the news

19:38

that shook me to the core.

19:41

Forty three students were kidnapped by

19:43

police in Mexico and

19:45

disappeared without a trace. In

19:47

our three part series, after

19:49

Iyotinapa, we pieced together the

19:51

crime, the investigation, and

19:53

how four forty three families were determined to

19:55

hold their government

19:56

accountable. We've

19:57

just re released it to make it easy

19:59

to binge. look for review

20:02

presents after Iyotinapa

20:04

on your podcast app.

20:06

That's review presents

20:09

after Iyotinapa.

20:10

From

20:14

the

20:17

center for investigator porting

20:19

in PRX. This is Reveal. I'm

20:22

outlets. Today,

20:23

we're on the Pine

20:25

Ridge Indian reservation in South

20:28

Dakota. with Mary in September from Indian country

20:30

today, now known as

20:32

ICT. She's looking into the

20:34

legacy of Red Cloud, the

20:36

Catholic school that's been on the reservation for over

20:38

a hundred years. This

20:41

afternoon, she's on her way to visit a

20:43

former student who lived there decades

20:45

ago.

20:49

One of

20:49

the first survivors I sought out is

20:51

basal brave heart. He started

20:53

boarding at Red Cloud a very long time ago

20:56

before World War II, back

20:58

when it was known as holy rosary.

21:01

Beza lives on the western side of Pine

21:03

Ridge, about seventeen miles from

21:05

the school. The reservation

21:07

is huge, almost four and a

21:09

half thousand square miles,

21:11

about

21:11

twice the size of the state of Delaware.

21:13

There's like this

21:16

lump in a road, holy It's a

21:18

a res dog and

21:20

he's kinda seeing us coming

21:23

and kinda getting

21:25

up to see if knows this first, and

21:27

then he gets out of the way. It's

21:29

just a bit of typical of reservation

21:32

dogs. A lot of dogs here in

21:34

Pine Ridge. is

21:36

there are on most reservations,

21:38

where Mesa lives, there are clusters

21:40

of houses, little trailer homes, some

21:42

with satellite dishes outside.

21:45

Some young fellows are riding around mowing a lawn.

21:47

A lone horse stands out in the

21:50

grass. to

21:52

you. You're still kicking in. You're kicking in.

21:55

I'm eighty nine. Get I'm in.

21:58

Bysl has big flags flying

21:59

out side in the yard, including a Lakota

22:02

Nation flag and a black POW

22:04

MIA flag. There's a mural of a

22:06

horse with lightning coming out of its mouth

22:09

on the outside wall of his garage. Bezos in

22:11

his late eighties seated

22:13

in a whimsical garden his wife

22:16

planted His eyes are sharp. He's a veteran

22:18

and wears a cap emblazoned with a

22:20

Korean war patch. My name is

22:22

Batesville Brehaut. Oguadalajara

22:25

tribe

22:27

here in

22:28

Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

22:32

honor

22:32

to share

22:35

my experiences at

22:39

at that time. Holy rosary

22:43

mission. You boarded at this called

22:45

holy rosary. Didn't you what can you tell us like

22:47

about what years that you did that

22:49

you attended? It was in the late

22:51

thirties, early forties. My

22:53

grandma, Mary Red Hair, was

22:55

one of the first female

22:57

students here at She enrolled

23:00

in eighteen eighty eight.

23:02

And in the decades that followed, his

23:04

father, his brothers, and sisters, his

23:06

own kids and grandkids, all

23:08

went to school there too. Baza was just

23:10

sixty years old when he was brought to live at

23:12

Red Cloud. I was in a state of

23:18

shock, traumatized.

23:20

I couldn't understand

23:23

what was happening. I

23:26

cognitively understand what

23:29

abandonment and not, but I know

23:31

what I feel like. being

23:34

left at a school,

23:36

I felt out taken

23:38

away from my parents.

23:42

It was very complicated. You block

23:44

your emotions. And I

23:47

always wondered, was that the beginning

23:50

of PTSD? I

23:52

can say, yes.

23:54

Basil

23:55

squeezes his eyes as he transports himself

23:58

back to those days. His

24:00

memories emerge slowly, lending his

24:02

words an arresting monumental quality.

24:05

Listening to him creates a mood

24:07

of ceremony.

24:08

One memory that stands out for Bezel is what

24:10

they did to kids when they first got there. Oh,

24:12

they cut her hair. That

24:14

again was, to me,

24:17

Larry's spiritual violation

24:20

because in our culture,

24:24

only maternal grandmother had

24:27

the right to cut my hair. So

24:30

when they started cut

24:32

my hair and made it fall to

24:34

the floor and stepping on

24:37

it, I felt I disrespect

24:40

it. I understand it was also very

24:42

strict at at

24:44

holy rosary and and that they used corporal

24:47

punishment, which is not something

24:49

that normally the court appearance

24:51

do. That must have been very difficult

24:53

for you as well. Yeah.

24:56

Part of our school was a

24:58

militarization of

25:00

how we were supposed to

25:04

behave. Bezos says

25:05

the beatings began

25:06

when he arrived at the school and continued

25:09

for years. He remembers

25:11

lashing, straps, and paddles for the

25:13

smallest thing. And he was

25:15

forbidden from speaking his

25:17

language was devastating to

25:18

have that taken away. It's the

25:21

language

25:21

language that

25:23

the culture defines our

25:28

atmospheric relationship to the

25:30

divine creation is

25:32

through the language

25:36

that we have

25:39

a deep vibrational,

25:42

what we call,

25:47

which refers

25:49

to a unnamable,

25:53

indefinable, infinite divinity

25:58

that is

26:01

uncreated. when

26:03

you take the range away from a culture,

26:06

and I'm speaking specific of a la

26:08

carte culture, if

26:10

you take away the

26:12

way we communicate, those

26:16

memories are embedded. And

26:18

I know now put

26:20

your state migration into your

26:22

DNA. That's why we had

26:24

generational historical trauma.

26:26

And that's why lot of my friends who went to

26:28

school to drink to cover up that

26:31

pain. A lot of them can commit

26:33

suicide. lot them ran

26:35

away. I went to to war.

26:38

And that's just

26:42

really crazy. I didn't know the difference

26:44

between a safe and an

26:46

unsafe place. If they're

26:48

talking

26:48

about truth and reconciliation, what

26:50

what would you like to see them Well,

26:54

there probably is more

26:56

than just one way for

26:59

located people to

27:04

embrace reconciliation. What

27:07

is that? Are

27:09

we asking the church

27:12

to own their shadow?

27:14

Are we asking

27:17

the federal government to own the doctrine of discovery?

27:20

Bezel's last question

27:23

about the doctrine of

27:26

Discovery is a big one. The

27:28

doctrine of Discovery is a pretty

27:30

obscure church document that goes back to

27:32

before the renaissance. but has a lot to

27:34

do with how native people were treated

27:36

by European explorers. It

27:38

gave settlers the justification

27:40

for claiming land simply

27:43

because the people living there were non Christian.

27:47

Indigenous peoples in the Americas were

27:49

slaughtered enslaved brutalized and

27:51

forced from their ancestral lands.

27:54

Starting in the sixteen hundreds, Christians,

27:56

including the Catholic church,

27:59

created schools to strip

28:01

native kids of their language, culture,

28:03

and identity, and turn them

28:06

to

28:06

Christianity. Centuries

28:09

later after the US was founded,

28:11

the federal government wanted to solve

28:13

what it called the Indian

28:16

problem. For a solution, it looked to

28:18

Christian schools as a model for

28:20

creating a bigger federal

28:22

system of Indian boarding schools.

28:24

The government schools are

28:27

constantly being built and

28:29

hospitals added.

28:31

We bring them in, clean them

28:33

up, and struck them on their way

28:35

to civilization. The federal

28:38

government ran some of the schools, but

28:40

many were run by The

28:42

government gave churches land that belonged

28:44

to tribes to build and operate

28:46

boarding schools, including holy

28:49

rosary, We found that the

28:51

Catholic church was given more than ten

28:53

thousand acres of tribal lands

28:55

throughout the US for its

28:57

missions and schools. More than seven

28:59

thousand acres of that land is

29:01

still owned by organizations connected

29:03

to the Catholic church. Church's

29:05

were also given access to tribal

29:08

funds to help pay for schools

29:10

money that had been given to tribes through

29:12

treaties with the US government. So

29:17

this history,

29:20

why does it matter today? I

29:22

asked Brian Newland, assistant secretary

29:24

for Indian affairs at the Department of

29:26

the Interior. He was on Pine

29:28

Ridge when I was there. stream of

29:30

the boarding schools. It happened so long ago. Why should people

29:33

care? Why is it important? Well, it wasn't just

29:35

long ago. We know

29:37

that that the boarding schools

29:39

operated up until

29:41

the nineteen sixties. We know that

29:43

many people alive attended

29:45

these boarding schools. and

29:48

this is not just

29:50

some gratuitous look at the past.

29:52

This is recounting

29:55

and an accounting of the United States

29:57

federal government's operation of

29:59

these

29:59

schools. Why we did it

30:02

as a country? We

30:04

have to understand the history of these

30:06

schools, how they affected people,

30:08

so we can address their legacy impacts

30:11

today. Stuff

30:14

that happened decades ago

30:16

is still affecting lots of people to

30:18

this day in very real ways.

30:21

native Americans have suicide rates that

30:23

are nearly double other Americans,

30:25

and death rates due to alcohol are

30:27

more than five times as high. I

30:29

wanted to understand how boarding school

30:32

history connects to all of this, so I

30:34

talked to doctor Donald Warren.

30:37

He's co director for the center for indigenous

30:39

health and provost fellow for

30:41

indigenous health policy at

30:43

Johns Hopkins University. He's

30:46

also a citizen of the Yolkedala

30:48

Dakota tribe at Pine Ridge. We see very

30:50

good evidence that there's an intergenerational

30:52

impact of toxic stress. like, maybe

30:54

give some examples of what those impacts

30:56

are? Yeah, so we

30:59

see toxic stress leading

31:01

to high levels of stress

31:03

hormones, which obviously would have

31:05

impact on mental health, so higher rates of

31:07

depression and anxiety and post traumatic

31:10

stress and then not surprisingly higher

31:12

rates of self medication, things like

31:14

alcohol intake, and other substance use.

31:16

But what we also see

31:18

is higher rates of chronic disease

31:20

higher rates of high blood pressure, diabetes,

31:23

cancer, heart disease, and other

31:25

chronic conditions. And so that that

31:27

trauma would have been, you know,

31:29

really result of of being

31:31

displaced from family and then also displaced

31:33

from language and culture. Is that correct?

31:36

Being directly opposed to

31:38

abuse and neglect obviously is very

31:40

bad. But in addition to that,

31:42

disconnection from family and support

31:44

systems has an impact on

31:46

well-being. And then much of the purpose of the boarding school

31:48

systems was to essentially get

31:50

rid of the culture and try

31:52

to just integrate indigenous children into

31:54

the broader society without

31:57

any regard for the long

31:59

term

31:59

impact on self identity, self

32:02

esteem, and overall well-being.

32:04

Could you talk a little bit

32:06

about, you know, how epigenetics

32:10

plays in that even though people who may not

32:12

have been, you know,

32:14

may not have attended boarding schools, but

32:16

you know, or their parents may have

32:18

been survivors how that might have been

32:20

passed along to them? Yeah,

32:22

we do see some

32:24

preliminary evidence that When

32:26

people are under toxic stress

32:29

conditions, it changes their

32:31

DNA and it can change how genes

32:33

are expressed or translate into

32:35

making proteins. And we

32:37

can see changes to

32:39

DNA that have an impact on

32:42

gene expression because of toxic

32:44

stress. And there's some preliminary

32:46

evidence that shows that these epigenetic

32:49

changes are occurring

32:51

because of things like boarding schools

32:53

and adverse childhood experiences, but

32:55

also that those changes can be passed from one

32:57

generation to another The

33:01

science

33:02

of intergenerational trauma has

33:04

developed a lot in recent years.

33:07

Studies have shown how the DNA of

33:09

holocaust survivors was changed by

33:11

their experiences and passed down to

33:13

their children on a biochemical level.

33:17

There's a twenty nineteen study from the University

33:19

of Colorado showing boarding

33:21

school survivors have forty

33:23

four percent more chronic

33:25

physical health problems. than those who did

33:27

not attend. The children of

33:30

boarding school survivors had thirty

33:32

six percent more chronic health

33:34

problems. For native people, that translates

33:36

to a lot of lives cut short.

33:38

When we look at

33:39

outcomes, I have the most recent data in

33:41

North Dakota from The

33:44

decade of two thousand nine to twenty nineteen, so

33:46

the decade prior to the pandemic so

33:49

that the average age of deaf

33:51

for American Indians in North Dakota

33:53

is about fifty nine, the

33:55

average agent depth for the white population

33:57

in North Dakota is about seventy

33:59

nine. So we're looking at at least twenty year

34:01

difference in average age of deaths in that

34:04

decade for American Indians as

34:06

compared to the white population. And

34:08

There's multiple reasons for that, but much of it can

34:12

be linked to unresolved

34:14

trauma, including

34:16

boarding schools. There's

34:19

a lot that

34:23

remains unresolved.

34:26

There's boarding school trauma

34:28

and its impact on native communities.

34:30

And the land and resources

34:32

taken by the church and federal government,

34:34

there's never been reparations for that And

34:36

then there's the bodies buried on school grounds. The

34:38

lost children, the little

34:40

ones who died at these schools never to be

34:42

seen by their families again.

34:45

That matters to people. How

34:47

can you even begin to talk about

34:49

truth and healing? When there are kids

34:51

buried in unmarked graves,

34:54

unschool across

34:55

the country. When

35:01

we come back,

35:02

the hunt for unmarked

35:04

graves at the Red Cloud School

35:06

continues. And we went

35:08

down into the the basement

35:11

and he saw a

35:13

whole bunch of bones of

35:15

kids and skulls. You're

35:18

listening to

35:19

reveal.

35:27

Hi. This

35:28

is Missa Perron, membership

35:30

manager here

35:31

at Reveal. Reveal is

35:34

a nonprofit

35:36

news organization. We depend on the support of our listeners.

35:38

Donate today. Please head

35:40

to reveal news dot

35:42

orgdonate. Thank

35:44

you.

35:46

From the Center

35:50

for Investigative

35:52

Reporting in

35:54

PRX, this is revealed.

35:57

For years, people

36:00

from the community of Pine Ridge

36:02

have suspected there are children's bodies buried

36:04

in unmarked graves on the campus of the Red Cloud School. And

36:07

like the former maintenance worker we

36:09

met earlier who believes he

36:12

saw three graves in a school basement. They

36:14

won answers. Are their kids

36:16

in unmarked graves? And if

36:20

so, Who were they? And how did they die?

36:22

Mary in September from

36:24

our partners at ICT is looking into

36:27

what Red Cloud is doing to

36:30

find those answers.

36:32

We know for certain there are

36:33

a lot of people buried at Red

36:35

Cloud School. There's an official cemetery

36:37

here with tombstones and

36:40

markers that Macau blackout shows me one day. We're gonna stand out. He's in

36:42

charge of the school's truth and healing project.

36:44

Now what's this up here across

36:46

the road? This is the newer cemetery.

36:49

Okay. We'll go to the right. Okay. No. I'm

36:51

just there.

36:52

Yeah. This is the

36:54

historic cemetery. Oh, nice. And

36:56

then this is the newer where people

36:58

are buried, you know, recently. Priest

37:01

are buried here, so were nuns,

37:03

and others from the community who

37:05

wanted a Catholic burial. There

37:07

are native kids buried here too.

37:10

Kids who died of disease and other

37:12

causes as well. But

37:14

some people are convinced that there are other

37:16

kids buried here outside

37:18

the cemetery in unmarked graves

37:20

on school grounds. Red Cloud

37:22

graduate, Marla Poirier, is one of

37:25

them. She remembers what a classmate told

37:27

her back in the nineties. This is where

37:29

the old church was,

37:32

and my

37:33

friend was taken downstairs by this priest

37:36

who kept us late after

37:38

school. And

37:38

he's my cosmate and went

37:41

down into the basement and

37:43

he saw a whole bunch of bones of

37:45

kids in skulls. There's so

37:48

much down there.

37:48

They hit it very well. but

37:52

it's under there. Just overwhelm me

37:54

to even have that knowledge. But

37:57

not everyone

37:57

agrees there are unmarked graves

38:00

on campus. McCauge remembers

38:02

a community meeting a few years ago

38:04

when one former student spoke up

38:06

and dismissed the talk of graves.

38:09

She's like, One, I think that's ridiculous.

38:11

And two, yeah, if

38:13

you scan all parts of this campus, you

38:15

might find random stuff

38:17

because back there, behind the historic brick

38:20

building, that's where we used to bury

38:22

garbage back in

38:24

the day. and then we had a

38:26

chicken coop that burned down one time and and so they just

38:28

buried over that area. And so there's probably a

38:30

lot of chicken bones there. And then we had pigs

38:34

over in this area when the pigs died in the they would bury the pigs

38:36

over there. So sure you're gonna find

38:38

bones, but they're gonna be pigs and

38:40

chickens, and there's gonna be garbage.

38:43

but that's all

38:44

you're gonna find. Finding

38:46

out the truth is crucial for

38:48

people here and it's important to Macau

38:50

if he's gonna help the community find

38:53

healing. And so that's that's one of those tensions I

38:55

think that exists out in the

38:57

community of people

38:58

who are here as students

39:00

as borders who are saying no,

39:03

that never happened. Others were saying,

39:05

you know,

39:05

while I've heard stories

39:08

and rumors, and

39:10

there were legends when we were kids, but we never knew if they were true or not.

39:12

And then others who

39:13

say, no, it must have happened here because this was

39:15

a porting school and that's what happened to

39:17

our porting schools. This is

39:20

what

39:20

happened at boarding schools.

39:23

We learned more about it

39:25

in the first investigative report from

39:27

the Federal May. So far,

39:30

investigators found that kids were buried

39:32

at more

39:34

than fifth Indian boarding schools. They added up

39:36

more than five hundred deaths of

39:38

American Indian, Alaskan native,

39:40

and native

39:42

Hawaiian children. These are early

39:44

estimates. The real number of

39:46

deaths according to the report could be

39:48

in the tens

39:50

of thousands. it's unknown how many are buried at red cloud

39:52

and how they died. It

39:54

seems like sort of the implication is maybe

39:55

kids were killed and then

39:57

they were

39:59

buried clandestically. So it seems like there's some

40:02

belief of that. Those rumors

40:04

exist, for sure.

40:06

There's no way of knowing where they

40:10

come from. or identifying who

40:12

they were. And it's possible

40:14

that we have

40:16

some kids I I

40:19

won't deny that it's possible, and that's part of why we need to do that

40:21

research. It's part of the

40:23

truth telling process.

40:25

As part

40:28

of that process, Red Cloud is

40:30

bringing in technology to help figure out

40:32

if there are unmarked graves at

40:34

the school. Ground penetrating radar or

40:36

GPR can scan underground

40:38

and show where soil has been disturbed.

40:42

McCau

40:42

has made arrangements for a GPR demonstration

40:44

over an area where the school plans

40:46

to put a new building. It's

40:49

a chance to show people from Pine Ridge what

40:51

ground penetrating radar is and

40:54

what it does and what it doesn't do. It

40:56

will also ensure that they're not building on

40:58

top of

40:59

graves. It's

41:03

early in the morning on a typically

41:06

brilliant sun drenched day on

41:08

the prairie. Today's demonstration day at Red Cloud

41:10

School. Macau is standing with a small

41:12

group and a circle on the lawn outside

41:14

the chapel. crowd.

41:16

Thank you to all of you for coming this

41:18

morning to be a part

41:20

of our demonstration this

41:24

this day. After months of planning and discussion, they're finally gonna

41:26

start scanning the grounds. We

41:28

felt that this is really important

41:30

to bring the community together,

41:32

to learn about

41:34

CPR, but we always start,

41:36

of course, in prayer. The

41:50

GPR demonstration

41:54

is

41:54

being done by a northern Cheyenne woman

41:58

named Marsha small. After the prayer, she leads the

41:59

crowd into the school gym

42:01

for a slide presentation she's

42:04

put together.

42:05

A few dozen people seat themselves in folding chairs

42:08

after grabbing some snacks that have been laid

42:10

out on the table. My research full

42:12

full site is historical trauma as it relates

42:14

to newborn school policies

42:16

and any children remain in the endpoints

42:18

for cemeteries. The crowd listens.

42:20

They seem to be quietly reserving

42:22

judgment. I also utilize

42:24

geophysical instruments to locate the children

42:26

in a non invasive and nondiserving

42:29

way including my

42:30

The GPR Tech is a guy named

42:33

Jared Berks who with Marsha. And after a while,

42:35

she hands them the mic. So that's what

42:37

I do for a living. I travel

42:40

around the

42:42

country and sometimes around the world looking

42:44

for things that have been lost.

42:46

Especially graves, we

42:48

spend a lot of time

42:51

looking forward rates.

42:54

Marsh and Jared's been a lot of time going

42:56

over the scanning process. They have slides

42:58

with history,

43:00

technical considerations, and get very detailed, and people are glazing over

43:02

as time passes. When

43:04

the presentation ends, the crowd follows

43:06

them to a grassy field outside

43:08

the gym. Jared gets

43:10

ready to run the equipment over the

43:12

ground. Alright. It's

43:14

ready. The machine resembles a small

43:16

dolly cart loaded with electronic stuff.

43:19

An LCD monitor on top shows

43:21

the terrain in a graphic display.

43:24

Okay. So that's the that's a profile of the

43:26

ground right below the center that

43:28

thing. And as we push

43:30

it, things, if there's anything down

43:32

there, so it's pretty large. We're

43:34

seeing basically layers of the soil

43:36

right now. The GPR scans down as deep as six

43:38

feet. They push the scanner around the

43:40

lawn as people look on. That's that's

43:42

really bad.

43:44

tempered

43:44

by a tree, the right knee roots radiating out? Yeah. So I was gonna

43:46

say.

43:46

Can you kind of see that upside down,

43:48

the shape of it? To

43:51

complicate things further, tree

43:54

roots utility lines, there's plenty of stuff below ground

43:56

that could look like a grieve on the scan.

43:58

So that is

43:59

probably a route from that tree. And we've the

44:02

roots coming out this and we've gone

44:04

across the map. So it shows up. We won't know today if there

44:07

are any hits. They will need to take the

44:09

scans back to their lab to assemble

44:11

a three-dimensional picture that will show

44:13

of any disturbance like a grave is

44:16

under the soil. It could take a few

44:18

months. Well, the demonstration

44:20

is over. There's a closing ceremony with

44:22

Ryan Newland, head of the Bureau of Affairs. People

44:25

understand that the boarding

44:28

schools were

44:30

part of

44:31

a twin policy of taking

44:33

land

44:34

from Indian people and

44:36

assimilating

44:36

Indian people. And the reason

44:39

for the assimilation was so

44:41

that Indian people

44:42

wouldn't need so much land

44:44

if we were

44:45

all assimilated. Brian is

44:47

a jibwe,

44:48

a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian

44:50

community. He was a leader

44:52

in creating the boarding school investigative

44:55

report. His point

44:57

is really important. forced assimilation was part of

44:59

the scheme to grab native lands for white

45:02

settlers. This is a

45:04

a powerful moment in history that

45:06

we're at and

45:08

I'm very grateful to all of you for your work

45:10

to bring it about. So me questions.

45:13

Thank you.

45:15

The

45:15

presentation is over. But before

45:18

the crowd breaks up, a rangey

45:20

guy with long white hair

45:22

steps forward. Thanks for bringing the assistant secretary down here in front of

45:24

us. His name is Alex White

45:26

Point. He's a longtime

45:28

Dakota activist. I wish you

45:30

would not use the word healing, but

45:32

would rather address genocide.

45:34

We're here looking for the bodies

45:37

of our ancestors. and we're not

45:39

gonna go healing until genocide is addressed by the United

45:42

States government. And we're

45:44

meeting on Roman Catholic

45:46

church land in the middle of treaty

45:48

territory. I am not gonna accept

45:50

no cheap apology.

45:52

The Catholic church needs to own up

45:55

We need to find the bodies of our

45:57

great grandpa's, and it needs to pay

45:59

back rent.

45:59

And we're not gonna hear till

46:02

we say see some type of

46:04

justice by the United States, and

46:06

we need to have justice towards this Roman

46:08

Catholic church that's invaded

46:10

into our territory. The

46:15

mood of

46:16

the crowd shifts with Alex's words.

46:19

people seem energized by him.

46:22

All of a sudden, some

46:24

young folks ride up on horseback

46:28

triumphantly disrupting the organized event. They ride in a circle around

46:30

the church yelling out in a traditional

46:34

war cry.

46:37

a drone flies overhead. They have a

46:39

sign that reads, we are

46:41

the grandchildren of the Lakota you weren't

46:43

able to remove. they leaned

46:45

the sign up against the wall of the

46:48

church. Three men sing the

46:50

American Indian movement song while the

46:52

writers circle the church.

47:02

When they're done, I walk up to some young women who've

47:04

gathered here to support them. Alexis

47:07

Whitehat is an activist from

47:09

the nearby Rosebud reservation.

47:12

finding

47:12

out that a lot of the things that we've we we

47:14

all encounter individually, like addiction,

47:18

abuse, those all stem from somewhere,

47:20

and we had to find where that stems from.

47:22

And we learned that behaviors that

47:25

we learned, the patterns It

47:27

comes from, you know, boarding

47:30

schools. These young

47:30

folks have made boarding schools

47:34

their focus. they helped get remains of students returned home

47:36

from the notorious Carlisle Indian

47:38

Industrial School

47:40

in Pennsylvania. and now they're looking

47:42

at Red Cloud. If

47:44

my child

47:44

had went somewhere else and never came

47:46

back, you know, I would spend the

47:48

rest of my life, you know, mourning them

47:51

and them not being able to come home.

47:53

You know? I feel like as the

47:56

the next generation of,

47:58

you know,

47:58

leaders, we can do that

47:59

for them.

48:01

Another group member chimes in.

48:03

Jaden Rose Whiting. And

48:05

also keeping these children's

48:08

lives, you know, remembered. their press news of war

48:10

when they were sent to those schools. They didn't know what's

48:12

going on. Then Alexis

48:14

brings up what for her and a lot of native

48:16

people is the elephant in the room when it

48:18

comes to boarding schools. the government

48:19

needs to address what they've done. We've talked

48:22

with some Canadian relatives and

48:24

they told us we should start

48:26

pushing for

48:26

or, like,

48:28

how would the how do they describe it?

48:30

got it

48:31

Delivery. That means giving back all

48:34

the land that the church owns back people

48:36

originally were there. We're

48:38

still here, you know, our culture is

48:39

still here. We're still alive.

48:43

Next

48:50

time on Reveal, Part

48:53

two of our investigation into boarding schools

48:55

with ICT. What Marriott uncovers

48:57

in church archives about native

48:59

land and funds that

49:02

were taken away from the tribe and given to the school.

49:04

And what we discovered about

49:06

kids who died on school grounds. We

49:09

are sorry for that history,

49:12

the the dark history for the first

49:14

half, I would say, of this

49:16

institution. Also, with

49:18

some outspoke and members of the community think of the

49:21

truth and healing process at Red

49:23

Cloud. We need more people involved to

49:25

bear witness to what's

49:28

happening because are we going to let the church

49:30

investigate itself?

49:38

Marionette Pember from ICT reported today's

49:40

show. Our lead producers, Michael

49:42

I Schiller. Taki Telenitas edited the

49:45

show with help from ICT tease

49:47

Diana Hunt. Thanks to ICT editor,

49:50

Jordan Bennettogue, editor at large

49:52

Mark Trehan, and managing editor

49:54

Dalton Walker Special thanks to

49:56

Catherine Steyr Martinez for additional

49:58

reporting and production help, and to Meg

49:59

Lindholm, Jason Tichy, Stan

50:02

Alcorn, and Suo. We'd

50:04

also like to acknowledge Tim

50:06

Gallego, founder of Indian Country

50:08

Today for his work in drawing

50:10

attention to boarding school issues

50:12

for decades. He died

50:14

in July just weeks after we

50:16

spoke to him. To

50:18

see photos from Red Cloud School

50:20

and to find links to ICT's digital

50:22

stories about boarding schools. Go to our website, revealnews

50:25

dot org. Nikki Frake is

50:27

our fact checker. Victoria Berenitsky is

50:29

our General Counsel.

50:32

Our production manager is Aimee the great Gustavo, original score and

50:34

sound designed by the dynamic duo. Jay

50:37

Breeze, mister Jim Briggs, and

50:39

Fernando Marmano Aruda.

50:42

Our digital producer is Sarah Merck, our COO is Maria Feldman,

50:45

our CEO is Robert Rosenthal.

50:47

Our Interim executive producers are

50:49

Brett Myers in Tawke Telenitas,

50:52

Our theme music is by Comerado, Lighton. Support

50:54

for reveals provided by the Reuben David Logan Foundation,

50:57

the John D. and Katharine

50:59

T. MacArthur Foundation the Jonathan

51:02

Logan Family Foundation, the Ford

51:04

Foundation, the Heizing Simons

51:06

Foundation, the Hellman Foundation, the

51:08

Democracy Fund, and the in

51:10

as much foundation. REVEAL is a coproduction of the Center for

51:12

Investigative Reporting and PRX.

51:14

I'm Alexin. And remember, there

51:17

is always more to

51:20

the

51:20

story.

51:50

from

51:53

PRX.