the jury. What we normally do is we. We'll let them know
we're here, but we're not here to disturb them. And
then once we get done, we'll be We'll be going on our
way this cemetery, as I tell people. When the school
was closed in 1980 the Bureau of Indian Affairs who
operated the school system at that time basically
abandoned this cemetery. Now the cemetery is a sacred
ground. Mhm Native American boarding schools have
existed for over a century. Their policies of
assimilation and erasure of indigenous cultures have
been known and talked about among native communities
since they opened their doors. Those who attended
talked about abuse, harsh punishments and isolation
from their communities and families. It's been an open
secret, so why are we talking about them now At a
former boarding school for indigenous Children in
Canada may have revealed a mass grave in British
Columbia was part of a nationwide scheme that took in
First Nations Children in an effort to assimilate them
into Canadian society. Some of the Children who died
were as young as three. The discovery of hundreds of
unmarked graves of Children at a Canadian residential
school prompted Deb Haaland, the first Native American
secretary of the interior, to launch an investigation
into boarding schools here in the United States. For
more than a century, the Interior Department was
responsible for operating the Indian boarding schools
across the United States, and its territories were
therefore uniquely positioned t assist in the effort
to recover the dark history of these institutions t
have haunted our families for too long. Yeah, Oklahoma
was home to 83 boarding schools. One of those boarding
schools was Shilla Co Indian Agricultural School,
constructed in 1883 along 8000 acres of the former
Cherokee strip near the Kansas border. In its early
years, the school was known for its harsh discipline
and authoritarianism. Students complained of being
homesick. It was common practice for Children to be
forcibly taken from their homes and sent to Shilla. Co
boarding schools like Salako were part of a federal
policy of assimilation. In 1887, Congress passed the
Dawes General Allotment Act, which broke up
collectively owned native land into individual
allotments that left the quote surplus land to be sold
to white settlers. The goal of these policies strip
native people of their culture, language and identity.
But students at Shilla Co. Had a different experience.
More and more alumni strengthened their cultural tie
as they learned a trade and got an education. Jim Baker
a Choctaw citizen fluent language speaker and former
superintendent of the school, is a living example of
that. He's proud of his time at Shilla Co. He met his
wife, Charmaine, at the school. This is my snag. Yeah,
that's the Lakota term. Yeah, Salako had its own
language, you know. He and Charmaine and their friend
Claudine King all attended Shil Co. At a time when it
was a premier agricultural school in what they consider
to be the golden years, when students formed Pow
clubs, drumming groups and friendships and alliances
across tribal lines. Lots of help. Okay, I always tell
people that Salako was ahead of its time. And In
essence, that was true because of the 20 something
vocational education programs that the students had
access to your own campus. We heard stories before we
came about how good shell ako was to the students and
everything, and I found that to be true and I like the
classes we had half day academics and half day
vocational. If you chose why I came to Sherlock. Oh,
suddenly I'm in a place where I fit. I knew that all of
the students that I started associated west were
members of other tribes. But, you know, that didn't
matter. I never, uh, let that enter my mind that he or
she is different because they're members of another
tribe. What mattered was the fact that we clicked. And
suddenly the tribe doesn't matter. We, uh we supported
one another and still do the golden era of Salako, as
Jim, Charmaine and Claudine describe it came after the
Miriam report was issued by the Department of the
Interior in 1928. This report detailed the adverse
effects of harsh punishments, poor living condit
and the damage that isolation did to native Children at
these schools. The memories of how students were
treated in the early years and the harsh conditions are
ones that Jim and Charmaine and the Shell Ako Alumni
Association don't want people and the public to forget.
That's why they have dedicated years to accounting f
the graves At the cemetery on Chicago's grounds.
and Charmaine have put names and tribal affiliations t
all 67 students who died and are buried here. They
worked with a combination to get a monument placed here
and this is this is how old they were. How, what Who is
that I went over those records every day for for a
month, and it made me cry every day because of how
they're listed just well. That little girl just has a
first name it doesn't have the year, doesn't have her
last name and the amount of disrespect that they had
for our Children, it's just incomprehensible. How coul
you treat someone like that like no last name, No tribe,
no nothing. Okay, Charmaine said she found letters sent
home to families telling them about their child's death.
One of them even said that they suffered had suffered
lot. And so death came as a relief. You know, you get a
letter like that about your child. Jim and Charmaine
want the Bureau of Indian Affairs to help maintain the
cemetery. That's what they hope comes out of the
Interior Department's initiativ on boarding schools.
And as we've said here time and time again, they will
not be Atlantis. They will not be forgotten. The push
for answers and accountability is also about holding
some of the institutions who operated those schools
responsible. That includes the church. Yes, co get ISO
Mais gets his cause spoke. It is 00. Mais gets his coat.
If you knew that song in our language, it's a spirit of
resistance because what it's imploring on those that
are singing is that because the creator has given us
this one day, we don't know what tomorrow may hold or
anything else. But we know we've been given this chance
right now to live life to the fullest, that this is a
mentality that has permeated our indigenous peoples and
that we're going to do everything within our power to
embrace what the creator has given us and live life to
the fullest. Miko Chabon Colonel is a Methodist
minister, a spiritual leader within the Seminole and
Muscogee nation and part of a movement within the
Methodist Church to bring about reconciliation betw
Native Americans and religious institutions that
operated boarding schools. We are in a moment of
removing the silencing of the voices that exist in
history here in the United States that this country has
not understood fully, Um, what has happened in terms of
the displacement of indigenous peoples Here I met
Shabaan at the church. He was brought up in in Oklahoma
City. He performed his first sermon here. His
grandparents attended boarding schools and had trouble
remembering their language, and they had trauma
associated with it, even though we went through that
trauma of history. We have grandfather after
grandfather, grandmother after grandfather, grandmother
after grandmother who did everything in their power to
create an environment for their Children and their
grandchildren so that they migh have a good life. And
they resisted that temptation to hate. They resisted
that temptation to be violent, and they would go and do
those things. And so today, as I stand here as a member
of our ceremonial community, is where I first identify
us. I see that resistance because that those fires were
kept going. That resistance is embodied in Geneina
Llama women's book. They called it Prairie Light. China
is a Muscogee Creek descendant, an author and an
educator. She interviewed dozens of former Salako
students who talked about the good and bad at the
school. Both her dad and uncle went there during the
Great Depression, they missed their family. They were
not allowed to return home in those years, even over
the summer, unless their parents could pledge that they
would pay for the train ticket home and back again. My
grandmother could not afford that, even though her dad
and uncle struggled at Shilla co chair. Nina has pushed
back against some of the recent coverage of boarding
schools because she believes students who survived that
era, like her dad showed resilience and strength.
remembered him as someone who is loving even after his
experience at Shilla Co. She thinks sporting schools
should be remembered for what they are. These schools
are sites of conscience. There are sites of incredibly
complex stories as well. The conscience is complicated,
but you know, I think that imperative to save the sit
I'm fully in accord with that. That complicated his
is evident in the stories Jim Charmaine and Claud
tell about Shilla Co. While they work to take full
account of the hardships the school inflicted, they
have many fond memories of their own time here. But you
know, we had movies on Saturday nights and we had, uh,
skating parties and we had Dan. What did you guys have
Skating parties, Uh, in the gym girls gym, which used
to be here. And then, uh, we had, uh, dances down at
the gym on Saturday night. The school eventually cl
in 1980. And since 2000 and six, It has been on the
National Register of Historic Places. The tank Awa Pani
Oto, Missouri Panca and the car tribes are trustees of
the land, but it has fallen into disrepair. There's
many of us left down less than 1000. And, uh, we'll
keep chugging along until the last one is gone. And and
then we have an associate program where our off
or many of our offsprings, are now fully aware of what
the desires are. And then they will. They will keep it
going as long as they can. Kids paid the price, didn'
their blood They ought to consider. The lights are
spent here. You know, they should do something to honor
what they did. It grieves my soul to see this place
like it is. The Shilla Co Alumni Association want to
restore and preserve some of the buildings. And there's
been talk of turning it into a cultural center, Jim
says the gates leading into the school is a landmark
burned into his heart. For him and other alumni, the
school, known as the light on the prairie, is a place
they found resilience, strength and friendships mhm.