Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness
Genoa Indian Industrial School
Genoa, NE, June 6, 2009
A Ceremony at the Genoa Indian School Site
Volunteers from the Genoa
US Indian School Foundation stand
next to a memorial for the school. Genoa, Nebraska today is a town of approximately 1000 located about 110 miles due west of Omaha. The U.S. Indian Industrial School at Genoa was the fourth off-reservation Indian boarding school created by the government at the start of the Boarding School Era. Founded in 1884, it was “home” to thousands of Indian children until closing in 1934. The students that came to the Genoa Indian School were from ten states and over 20 tribes. In time the school grew from the original 74 students to an enrollment of nearly 600, and encompassed over 30 buildings on 640 acres.
The Genoa Indian School was one of the large schools of the early boarding school era. Not much is left of it today. The Indian School building that remains is the Manual Training building. The Genoa US Indian School Foundation recently purchased it from the City of Genoa. Through the restoration efforts of the Foundation, the building has been restored to include a museum on the first floor an
d other rooms refurbished for viewing by the general public. The museum exhibits some of the history that the Foundation has been able to present about the school’s 50 year existence.
A refurbished school room
in the Indian School building Our visit to Genoa Indian School was not a public event. We simply wanted to honor and to remember our many relatives who laughed and cried, lived, and even died there. We wanted to include this site in former Pawnee country with the prayers carried by the Sacred Hoop and the Wellbriety Forgiveness Eagle Staff. Prayers and good wishes that had come from 12 previous site visits and now are alive in these sacred objects. We wanted to tell any remaining little spirits that they were not forgotten.
We had arranged to meet a group of volunteers and staffers of the Genoa US Indian School Foundation who were glad to help us in our mission. They took on the role of the Hoop and Staff carriers. We smudged and prayed before going into the Indian School building. We walked through the floors and smudged all those memories. Outside the building, a sandstone memorial reads, “In memory of the Native Americans who attended the Genoa U.S. Indian School, 1884-1934. Especially those who died and may have been buried here.”
Genoa US Indian School Foundation volunteers carried the Staff and the
Sacred Hoop through the building. The closing date for the school is significant. It was in 1934 that the U.S. government signed into law the Indian Reorganization Act, or IRA. Enactment of the IRA officially marked a change in U.S. policy away from the assimilation practices directed at Native children through abuse of education. This probably happened for two reasons. The government realized that assimilation through education had failed. Also, the country was in the Great Depression. Still, it took until about 1970 before true Indian control of education could begin.
There are still some surviving letters from Genoa students that give a glimpse at what it was like in those days. For example, student Luke Going used his newly acquired writing skills in 1921 to request a transfer to Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas because Haskell offered more of an academic curriculum. He wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC and bypassed the regional Superintendent because he probably knew what the Superintendent’s response would be. Luke’s surviving letter says,
“I have the honor to request that I be transferred from Genoa Indian School Genoa Nebr. to Lawrence Kansas, I mean the Haskell Institute, to complete my education, would like to take a 4 year course. I have being (sic) at Genoa school six years and wish a change and better my self in line of education. I am eligible for the 7th grade. I enclose my certificate of promotion for your information.”
The entrance to the refurbished building. The local Superintendent had to explain his refusal to grant Luke’s request to the Commissioner. Here is his response to his boss.
“I have the honor to state that this boy is a very good pupil. He has been here six years and has made his grade each year. He will be in the 7th grade this next term.
“He will never make an office man. It would be a waste of time and money for him to undertake a commercial course. He will, in all probability, devote his time to farm pursuits after finishing his next term. At least, that in my opinion, is what he should do. The school is convenient and a number from his reservation are enrolled here. He can receive as good advantages here as at any government school, therefore, I recommend the disapproval of his application for transfer.”
The museum portion of the
building features tribal flags. We also heard a story about a young student who later became the Reverend Sidney H. Byrd. Sidney had a hard time at the school during his first three years. He could not go home during that time. He was unable to communicate with his grandparents when he finally returned home. He was unable to speak his native language. It had been beaten out of him. Today he is proud to be one of the few remaining tribal members who is capable of reading and writing in the Dakota language. One of our hosts in Genoa told us that Sid came back recently for a reunion. In the early days Sid used to go to the same tree and cry everyday. It was his crying tree. While he was there for the reunion he sought out the tree. There was only a stump where the tree used to stand.
We are grateful to the volunteers and staff of the Genoa US Indian School Foundation for restoring the Genoa Indian School building so that its human history will not be lost. We are also grateful to be able to offer ceremony at the former school so that today’s Native people may heal from the lingering effects of the boarding school times.
~ Forgiveness Journey Team
IMAGINE
Imagine a lonely seven year old Lakota boy hundreds of miles away from home he left two years ago, trying desperately to remember his grandmothers smile and his grandfather’s wisdom…
Imagine the confusion, the excitement, the horror of twenty different Nations blended together in one small school on the prairie…
Imagine a new language, a new way of life…some ways good, some ways not…The sounds of five hundred children working, learning, playing, drilling…
Imagine the broken hearts and the broken spirits that will take years to mend…Some will never heal.
Imagine not knowing when you see Grandfather again, you will not know his words…his stories, passed down for generations, will be lost to you…You will only understand his tears and he, yours…Close your eyes and listen…It all happened here.
Jerry W. Carlson,
Genoa US Indian School Foundation
Genoa U.S. Indian School
Genoa, Nebraska, 6/2007 |
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Donations Needed
