Unseen Tears: The Native American Boarding School Experience in Western New York Part 1

one little two little three little Indians that's a song that's a song about counting dead Indians back on the trails when they used to kill Indians. we would see all these kids dressd in uniforms we'd be wondering how come they were dressed like that We weren't dressed like that but these little kids were I remember being younger growing up on the reservation being told don't trust white people don't listen to them never told why government schools are constantly being built and hospitals added we bring them in and clean them up and start them on the way to civilization I would ask social services and Human Services audiences how many people know about residential schools? How many people here do?

This is never talked about why did those schools get started and who started and what was the rationale behind it? The first general policy was. .

. the only good Indian is a dead one that we needed to be killed, exterminated, eradicated. once they realized that it's a little bit more difficult to have mass genocide of a population the policy changed from killing the Indian to killing the Indian and saving the man.

there's a general Pratt who was well known for for using those words to kill the Indian and save the man. . In thatwe are subhuman that our ways are savage and we needed to be civilized.

The governments of Canada and the United States followed those policies up until the 1980s in one form or another. [SINGING} There is a boarding school far far away where we get mush and milk for three times a day Oh how the Huskies run when they hear their dinner bell. Oh how the Huskies run.

Three time a day [SINGING ENDS] like I say I went to the Mush Hole when I was four years old. I was there for nine years. Once in a while we come home at summertime but not all the time.

When the counselors came they said my dad couldn't raise us properly. We were at the Mush Hole one week and our heads were full of bugs. There was a lot of sad times but I mean like I didn't get like angry and have any resentment till after I got out.

I didn't know from 5 and 1/2 to 16 I thought I was just like a normal upbringing. . .

to not have parents and stuff like that but after I got out I was like this is the way they were supposed to be treating us. I think my mother couldn't take care because of our father was into alcohol me and my sister. .

. we started there in 1945. I was 5 years old at the time.

We had all of our hair cut off. We were made baldies. We were really bald.

and that wasn't a very good feeling to have. They used to call us Mush Hole Baldies That's what the kids on the reserve called us.