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User:Pingnova/sandbox/White Earth Boarding School

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White Earth Boarding school with female students on the lawn.

White Earth Boarding School was the first American Indian boarding school in Minnesota. Located near the White Earth Reservation for Ojibwe, it opened in 1871. In 2021, the Sisters of St. Benedict, apologized to the White Earth Nation Ojibwe for running the boarding school, which is considered one of the first times a religious order has directly apologized to boarding school survivors and their descendants.[1]

St. Benedict's nuns Lioba Braun and Philomena Ketten with an Ojibwe child

The boarding school had room for 110 students. St. Benedict's was originally contracted by the U.S. government through the Catholic Indian Bureau in 1884 to operate the school, which was erected and originally operated by the government in 1871. St. Benedict's nuns had already been teaching at the school since 1878. The school started with a capacity for 60 girls.[2]

A classroom at White Earth Boarding School, Minnesota

As a Native boarding school, the experience of students was typical. Students were made to change into European-style clothing, couldn't speak their native language, and had their long hair cut short. They were taught assimilationist curriculum such as Christian mythology and ideas, English language, and housework such as sewing. The intent was to "Americanize" the tribe.[2]

Students and families were resistant to the boarding school system. As a result, most of the students at White Earth Boarding School were mixed racially, white and Ojibwe.[2]

A page from thr May 1909 edition of The Chippeway Herald

The school put out a newspaper called The Chippeway Herald from 1902 until the mid 1900s. It contained Christian moral teaching, poetry and songs, and national and local news, with reports on Native topics.[3]

History

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The school has been referred to by various names including: White Earth Boarding School, White Earth Industrial School, St. Benedict's Industrial School for Indian Girls, St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Mission School, or simply "St. Benedict's". Information about Native residental schools such as the name and institutional affiliation was rarely recorded or standardized, making modern research difficult.[4]

There were two separate boarding schools which both used the various names of White Earth Boarding School, operated by the same religious groups at two different locations. The most comprehensive list for Catholic boarding schools lists St. Benedict’s Industrial School for Indian Girls on the White Earth Reservation and St. Benedict’s Industrial School in St. Joseph, Minnesota. The major identifying factor is the location and gender of students.[5]

St. Benedict's Industrial School for Indian Girls St. Benedict's Industrial School
Location White Earth Reservation St. Joseph, Minnesota
Dates of operation 1879–1969 1884–1896
Religious orders involved Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict (St. Joseph, MN) and Order of St. Benedict (St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN) Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict (St. Joseph, MN)
Impacted tribes Chippewa and Ojibwe Chippewa from White Earth Reservation

The schools would have been about 173 miles away from each other, with the St. Joseph location not on the reservation itself.

Truth and reconciliation process

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Prioress of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Saint Joseph Susan Rudolph penned the two-page letter in 2021 apologizing on behalf of the religious order to White Earth Nation. White Earth and Saint Benedict's plan to collaboratively and separately work towards "truth and reconciliation".[1] The monestary's Heritage Coordinator Sister Pat Kennedy says that acknowledging the harms the order inflicted is only the beginning of the process. Saint Benedict's collects oral history on the boarding school from former students, teachers, and staff, and opened its archives to White Earth residents searching for records about the boarding school. A previous monestary-led study on the school said little about the negative experiences of Native students, which conflicts with oral accounts and family histories of former students.[1]

In White Earth, Preservation Officer Jaime Arsenault leads efforts to record oral history, collaborate with St. Benedict's, incorporate tribal tradition and trauma counseling, and explore new areas of research. The tribe searches for unmarked graves at the former school site, although none have yet been found. The Sisters of St. Benedict's pay for the grave identification technology.[1]

Monks from St. Benedict's also ran a school on the site, although they have issued no apology and do not work with the tribe. In 2021 they were forming a workgroup to investigate their role.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "St. Benedict nuns apologize for Native boarding school". MPR News. October 26, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c https://cdm16022.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/stbm/id/264/rec/3
  3. ^ https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2020271953/
  4. ^ "Inside the effort to identify Catholic-run boarding schools for Indigenous children". Global Sisters Report.
  5. ^ "Catholic-Operated Native Boarding Schools in Minnesota". Catholic Truth and Healing. Retrieved 14 October 2023.

See also

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