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9Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Brad Witt, Former President Trump, Henry Heimuller, Joe Biden, Pat Robertson, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden’s dogs, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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Many if these Children were abused by the Churches that Ran these schools
“Indian” Schools Often Abused Children
Beginning in the 1800s and lasting into the 20th century, Native children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to live in boarding schools. Finding the task of “civilizing” Native adults beyond its ability, the federal government delegated the task of “normalization” to churches, which could educate, or, inculcate, children from a young age. Initially, these schools were placed close enough to the reservation that a child could return home on weekends. Though, when it was learned they were still able to practice their culture at home with their families, the children were sent to boarding schools, often thousands of miles away, to guarantee they were entirely stripped of their traditions and family ties. In 1872, the Board of Indian Commissioners, a body of religious men established by Congress to undertake the “Christianization” of Native Americans, allotted 73 Indian agencies to various Christian denominations. Among them were Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian, and Lutheran churches. Each denomination was responsible for the supervision of Indian boarding schools within its given territory, and was complicit in carrying out policies of cultural genocide that played out in the classroom. Native schoolchildren were taught to be ashamed of their identity. Students were carefully conditioned to reject their Indian-ness. Their hair was cut, and they were forced to be dressed in the dominant white culture fashion, forced to abandon their native languages, forbidden to use their native names, and taught to repudiate their “pagan” traditions. The religious people handed out Physical, emotional, and sexual abuses. These were documented at Christian-run Indian boarding schools. Student punishments included beatings, physical restraints, and isolation in dark cellars. The Christians tortured and tortured these young children, and teenagers. The government intentionally allowed over-enrollment which led to unhealthy living conditions. Deficient supplies and unsanitary conditions resulted in lack of food and high rates of illness. The death rate for children at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was 3.5-4.5 times the national average at that time. Which was bad to say the least. Survivors report that the dead were buried anonymously in mass graves, sometimes on school grounds. Apparently, the “kill the Indian, save the man” mantra of Capt. Richard Pratt, Civil War volunteer and founder of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, proved ominously true. After returning to the reservation from years of abuse the victims felt isolated and detached from their Indian culture. Going back into to their native homes left them with a sense of self-loathing. Loss of language and the knowledge of tribal history and traditions made it a struggle to re-assimilate. With these deficits, along with a history of abuse they suffered at school, many of the students turned to alcohol, drugs, and suicide to relieve their pain. Some became violent toward their own families. These young people and the Native American people lost generations of history, family, and well being. The initial policy of British and American colonial powers toward Native Americans has been described as a “war policy” or a policy of extermination. Between 1492 and the 1890s, the Native American population of North America decreased from approximately 5 million to around 250,000. Wars of extermination first by the British, including the Pequot War of 1637, and then by Americans during the era of westward expansion further reduced a Native American population already devastated from European diseases and intertribal warfare. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the country turned its attention toward western expansion, and the U.S. military turned to Indian fighting. U.S. officials sanctioned hundreds of Native American massacres and called for the complete extermination of tribes who resisted the usurpation of their land or the imposition of federal authority. So instead of killing the Native people, it was decided that they would take a much kinder approach by trying to turn them into white people. Of course by Christians. Some accounts of abuse were; a woman who was 6 years old when she was sexually abused by a priest and a man who couldn’t pray with his tribe without remembering the boarding school staff who forced him to kneel on a broomstick every time he spoke in his native tongue. The boarding school priests and nuns had secrets, too. The story of one Jesuit priest, Bernard Fagan, a boarding school director who admitted to sexually exploiting about 20 indigenous girls, starting in the late 1970s. The filthy so-called Christian man. Religion is a cover up for and is a hot bed for rapist’s, and child molesters. The women speak of beatings so hard by the nuns one's ear drum burst and another was punched and knocked unconscious by the nuns. They were sprayed with DDT, which they were told was to delouse them, that was left on their skin several days. Or tells of being raped by a priest, getting pregnant, having a forced abortion performed by nuns who incinerated the baby. Another talks of molestation, rape and being put in a coffin by a priest. “There were tunnels built under the school that the abusers used to have access to the children in the dormitories at night while everyone slept”. They also took metal scouring pads and scrubbed the skin off the kids if they balked at white men rules and traditions. They were shown movies about the WWII concentration camps and the gas chambers. Then they were sent to the showers to rinse off the delousing chemicals. A boy was drowned during a school picnic and then his body was put in the children’s playroom by the caretakers to rot for five days in full view of all the children. The children were required to wash themselves with bleach to whiten their skin. They also suffered psychological, physical and sexual abuse. They were told to keep quiet and were threatened with much worse treatment if they ever spoke of what had happened. The US Government should be ashamed, the people that knew what was going on and allowed it to happen over and over should be in prison. The treatment of these people is shameful and disgusting. How could anyone commit such act against other people/children. It takes a special type of person to commit such acts. It takes a serial killer, a serial rapist, and serial molester, and psychopaths.
Tammy
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