Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness
Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School
Mt. Pleasant, MI, June 17, 2009
The Visit to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan Opens New Ground
“Surely this is not only a historic moment for the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe, but for Native Americans across the United States. Today is a day we walk a journey for forgiveness.” With these words, Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Chief Fred Cantu Jr. began the visit of the Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness during the Sunrise Ceremony in Mt. Pleasant Michigan. It would be a day to remember.
The Gathering walks from downtown Mt. Pleasant to the boarding school site. The day began early at the Tribal Operations Building gymnasium on the Isabella Reservation, home to the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. It then moved to the Isabella County Building in downtown Mt. Pleasant, carried by a stream of some 400 walkers through the streets of the city. After the festivities in Mt. Pleasant were complete, the walkers continued on to the site of the former Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School a few more miles away. By day’s end, nearly 600 participants would experience the healing intention of the Forgiveness Journey.
Walking the Sacred Hoop into the site The visit in Mt. Pleasant Michigan marked a first for participation of three tribal governments, plus city, county and state representation. The state of Michigan is home to the Odawa, Ojibwe, Pottawatomie tribes. Each sent a representative to the event that day. Non-Native government representation included Mt. Pleasant Mayor James Holton, Isabella County Commissioner David Ling, Union Township's Supervisor John Barker, James Moreno of the Mount Pleasant Area Diversity Group, and Sean Novak of the Isabella County Human Rights Committee. This pioneers a model for Native and Non-Native communities working together around a healing theme.
Hunter Genia of the Tribe's Behavioral Health program MC’d the event at the county building. He expressed the deeper meaning of what was taking place.
Dorm building of the old boarding school “This may be the first time that we’ve had our Tribal Eagle Staff and Tribal dignitaries, along with our City Council and City Commissioners, ever in the same room together in harmony,” he said. “When is the last time that tribal leaders, state leaders, city government leaders, our tribal police, our city police and our state police, have ever worked together for a cause like this? It has never happened in this town. It is pretty sad that we don’t have ABC, CBS, NBC here today because this was not important enough to them. But that doesn’t matter because all of us are here today together –– the red the white, the black, and the yellow. We’re all part of the human race, and if we’re going to progress together as a society we have to work together.”
Lunch time at the event Isabella County Commissioner David Ling represented the non-Native view. “I’m proud to be an American, but that doesn’t mean that I do not recognize that this country has tolerated and pursued policies and actions which have been hurtful and painful and should never ever have occurred,” he began. “We should be embarrassed, and we as a nation must apologize and seek forgiveness. Clearly the Indian boarding schools are an embodiment of those kinds of misguided policies. Today you have offered the rest of us a chance to make a small step on our journey to move a little closer to the reconciliation and tolerance and acceptance that so many of us seek for this broader community. I thank the organizers of this event and the leadership of White Bison for this extraordinary opportunity for us to listen and to learn.”
The Mt. Pleasant Indian Boarding School existed from 1893 until 1933 on the northern edge of Mt. Pleasant. After the school’s closure the campus was turned into an insane asylum. One of the student ditties to survive those times captures what it was like:
Six o'clock in the morning,
Our breakfast comes around.
A bowl of mush and molasses,
Was enough to knock you down.
Our coffee's like tobacco juice,
Our bread is hard and stale,
and that's the way they treat you
At Mt. Pleasant Indian Jail.
There were many boarding school survivors and descendents present at the Forgiveness Journey event that day. When the event moved to the boarding school site, it was time to touch into some of the heartfelt grief work that is one of the deep roots of the Journey. For it will be through this kind of grief sharing that the locked up sorrow and sadness will come into the light of day and find release.
Why We Journey We were fortunate to have First Nations people present from Canada. An Elder from Ontario talked about her life, saying that she has had a hard life. She recalls first having tuberculosis and being hospitalized for a long time. From the hospital she was sent to a residential school. She says has been in violent situations for a long time. Her husband lost his leg and then a toe she tell us. She says she doesn’t feel like doing anything anymore. In her community she is not respected as an Elder. She says she has to travel long distances, like today, to be accepted. When she returns home she feels sad all over again. She feels the anger in her home as soon as she gets in the door. Sometimes she would like to leave her husband. She said in her community a lot of drinking goes on. She tries to tell her grandchildren not to drink. She said she knows that she is not the only one––all families on her reserve have alcohol problems.
During the open mic a man talks about being beaten by his stepfather from the age of 3 to 13. It was a terrible thing to do to a child he says. “I was 12 when I started drinking,” he shares. “I thought that is what everyone did.” He tells the gathering that he was 13 when he was sent to Albuquerque Indian School and learned how to lie, cheat and steal to survive. “I had to steal food if I wanted to eat. The ministers wanted to make me white,” he says. The Creator should not be beaten into you, he reflected. After Albuquerque he joined the Marines and went to Vietnam. He knew if the Creator ever allowed him to have children he would not put his hands on them in a hurtful way because he knows what it is like. He now has 18 years of sobriety. He found the Creator in his own way. He now dances and sings the songs.
Yet another open mic participant is a second generation survivor. She remembers going to the school that first day and the big building was very intimidating. She recalls not being sure what to do there. The nuns thought she was real cute and kept her. After about two weeks of being there she told them that she had been there long enough and that she wanted to go home. They told her that she was going to be there for a long, long time. Eight years went by. She learned not to cry there. She learned how to stuff her feelings. She learned how to be strong and pull herself up by the bootstraps and move on. Her closing thoughts for us were, I’m still here, you didn’t beat me down, I am proud, I am a good person, I choose not to dwell on this. I move on and set examples. Then she gives us what amounts to a teaching: Talking about all this is healing, she says.
The day ended with both a Healing Ceremony at the Sacred Hoop, and a Sacred Jingle Dress Healing Dance carried out by tribal women. We were honored to share the Saginaw Chippewa traditions.
The 21st visit of the Wellbriety Journey for Forgiveness took place at the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. Nearly 600 participants gathered to hear the many presentations on healing from the historic trauma of the Indian boarding school era. Tribal Chief Fred Cantu, Jr. opened the day with remarks during a sunrise ceremony. Mt. Pleasant is the site of the former Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial School, a boarding school which was in existence from 1893 to 1933.
Click here to see video of the event... >
From the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun...
More than 400 people walked five miles in the rain on Wednesday from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s offices to the grounds of the former Mt. Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School on Wednesday. Click here for the entire Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun article... >
~ Forgiveness Journey Team
Click here or on the Proclamation graphic below to view the Proclamation in pdf format. 
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