Precis

"A cemetery at a school is not the norm – that you could die and then you’re gonna be buried out the door?" - Judi Gaiashkibos, Commission on Indian Affairs, Nebraska

On the frozen plains of Nebraska, a community is digging up its past.

The State Archaeologist is using ground penetrating radar to try and locate an old cemetery that is somewhere on the grounds of the former Genoa US Indian Industrial School.

The Genoa school was one of a network of institutions for Native American children set up in the 19th and 20th centuries across the USA. Their purpose was to assimilate indigenous children into the white man’s world.

By 1926, it’s estimated more than 80 per cent of Native American children were enrolled in these institutions.

"We've been severed from our language, from our culture, from our practices over a whole course of time, but the boarding school era that ... did a number on our people where we almost did not recuperate from it." -Redwing Thomas, Teacher, Santee Sioux Nation.

Last year, the discovery of more than a thousand graves of children at the sites of former boarding schools in Canada pushed the USA to examine its own history.

ABC journalist Stan Grant, whose family was impacted by Australia’s assimilationist policies of forcibly removing children from families, presents this powerful story.

He tells the story of a community in Nebraska trying to uncover the truth about one of the country’s largest and longest running boarding schools.

"We were taught in school about Native American boarding schools, assimilation," says Genoa resident Nikki Drozd, "but we weren’t aware of the cemetery ... I didn’t stop to think about the children that died here."

This month, the US Department of the Interior has published the first major government investigation of the country’s boarding school history. It’s estimated that up to tens of thousands of children could have died while attending these state-sanctioned institutions.

"We’re still looking for those children that died," says Judi Gaiashkibos. "I can’t rest until I feel I’ve exhausted every possible avenue to find the children."

Episode tease.

Music

00:10

STAN GRANT, Presenter: In the United States' Midwest, a harrowing search is underway, to locate the graves of Native American children taken from their tribes and sent to boarding schools.

00:21

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: These were not schools. It was a prison camp.

00:35

CAROLYN FISCUS: From as far back as I can remember I've heard this story. You know, my mum would say she is still lost somewhere.

00:39

STAN GRANT, Presenter: The recent discovery in Canada of more than a thousand graves at former boarding schools, exposed the state sanctioned abuse of indigenous children.

00:47

Grant to camera. Super:
Stan Grant
Presenter

The blueprint for these schools came from across the border in the United States. Now, Native American tribes in the US are demanding justice for the forced removal of their children, and a bigger untold story is emerging. A landmark federal government report now estimates tens of thousands of indigenous children could have died at US institutions.

01:00

Interior schoolroom

REDWING THOMAS: I don't like calling these things gravesites or cemeteries.

01:24

Redwing interview

I don't call them that. I call them crime scenes. That's what I call them.

01:31

Aerial. US Indian School. Title:
Stolen Spirits

STAN GRANT, Presenter: In this report, Foreign Correspondent gains exclusive access to one community as it begins a journey to uncover the truth.

01:35

Nebraska rural GVs. Super:
Niobrara, Nebraska, USA

Music

01:51

Signage. Santee Sioux Tribe

02:10

Children learn language with Redwing

02:13

STAN GRANT, Presenter: On a cold winter's morning, these Native American children are having a lesson in language.

02:22

REDWING THOMAS: The language is literally the heart and soul of our people. It holds our identity and it holds

02:38

Redwing interview

our practices, our beliefs, our philosophies, our world views all inside the language, so our existence is directly tied to it.

02:45

Redwing teaching

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Redwing Thomas is one of a few who can speak Dakota, his tribe's language.

02:55

REDWING THOMAS: Less than 5% of my people, we don't know our language. We are on the verge of reclaiming it, but it's

03:07

Redwing interview

an uphill walk, you know, and we have a long way to go. It took generations to wipe the language out. It's going to take generations to restore it.

03:15

Redwing teaching

STAN GRANT, Presenter: He blames the US government's boarding school policy for destroying his people's culture.

REDWING THOMAS: As native people, we've been severed from our language, from our culture, from our practices

03:24

Redwing interview

over a whole course of time, but the boarding school era in the course of history, did a number on our people where we almost did not recuperate from it.

03:41

Archival photos. Indigenous children at schools

STAN GRANT, Presenter: From 1819 to 1969, hundreds of thousands of indigenous children were taken from their tribes

03:52

Map showing school. Super:
American Indian Boarding Schools

and placed in state and church run boarding schools across the US and its then territories.

04:02

Archival photos. Indigenous children in schools

The schools, under the guise of education, were a dark experiment in assimilation. The model for the schools was devised by military officer Richard Henry Pratt

04:12

Archival photo. Pratt on horse

– an Indian hunter.

04:26

Archival photos. Indigenous children

Music

04:29

STAN GRANT, Presenter: By stripping away culture, Pratt believed he could 'kill the Indian and save the man.'

04:35

Redwing interview

REDWING THOMAS:  When you have a motto, 'kill the Indian, save the man', I mean, come on. That that's as genocidal as it gets.

04:45

Archival photos. Indigenous children

The schools were created for one purpose only and that was to destroy our belief system, to destroy our family system and to change our identity.

04:51

STAN GRANT, Presenter: By 1926, 83% of Native American children were enrolled in these institutions.

05:05

Classroom

REDWING THOMAS: Everyone in this room literally descends from a boarding school survivor. I mean that's just the truth.

05:12

Photo. Redwing and grandfather

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Redwing's grandfather Albert was sent to boarding school at the age of 8.

05:17

Archival photo. US Indian School, Genoa, staff and students. Overlay of Albert's application for enrolment

He attended one of the largest and longest running institutions, the Genoa US Indian Industrial School in Nebraska.

REDWING THOMAS: He never really talked about it.

05:24

Redwing interview

It wouldn't be until later, you know, later in his life, where stories would be shared.

05:39

Archival. Indian School classroom

One experience shared that a soiled sheet would be used to be wiped in the mouths of the other children who spoke their language, you know.

05:45

Redwing interview

And if they didn't want those dirty sheets and soiled sheets shoved into their mouth, well then, you stop speaking your language and start speaking English. That's pretty hateful. You know, that's, pretty evil.

05:54

Train passes school site

Music

06:07

Entrance to school

STAN GRANT, Presenter: This entrance and a few buildings and barns are all that remain of the Indian Industrial School in Genoa.

06:22

Archival photo. Genoa school campus. Dissolve to today GVs

Once a sprawling campus housing children from more than 40 tribes. Today it's a place where people come to learn the history of what happened here.

06:34

Museum in former school building

This building, once the school's workshop, is now a museum run by the Genoa Foundation, a group of local volunteers.

06:51

Judi greets Nancy at museum

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: "Hi Nancy, it's so good to see you."

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Judi Gaiashkibos's mother, Eleanor, went to school here.

07:02

Judi and Nancy inside museum

NANCY CARLSON: "I'll let you let you look at your mum's window that was donated in her honour."

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Like many survivors, her mother didn't talk about her time at boarding school. 

07:11

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: She would talk about it and there was sort of a haunting look or a sadness to the tone of her voice, she tried to tell the good things.

07:22

"It says my mother's name there but I don't know."

07:31

I don't have a lot of pictures of my mother, because for one thing they made them be

07:34

Judi interview

photographed for everything, and my mother detested having her picture taken.

07:39

Archival photos. Girls in school bakery

So I look at that photo they have, and I say, one of those girls is my mother. My mother cooked and baked breads and rolls and food that the children ate, however most of the time they went to bed hungry.

07:43

1990 school reunion

STAN GRANT, Presenter: To try learn more, Judi began attending the school's reunions.

07:59

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: I started going to the Genoa Indian School reunions after my mother died, so I got to learn about what it was like and meet people that could have been at school with my mother.

08:06

STAN GRANT, Presenter: The Genoa Foundation's secretary, Nancy Carlson, started the annual gatherings more than 30 years ago.

08:19

Nancy interview

NANCY CARLSON: Former students were coming back asking information about the school and saying they wanted reunions and this sort of thing, and so we thought, you know what? These people have this real need. Let's try to help them and do that.

08:27

Archival. 1990 reunion

STAN GRANT, Presenter: This reunion was the first. Filmed in 1990, these pictures have never been broadcast.

08:42

FORMER STUDENT: First year I came here I stayed two years.

08:52

STAN GRANT, Presenter: As the school has no living survivors, they offer a rare glimpse into what life was like for some former students.

08:54

REPORTER: So what was your day like? What time did you have to get up and all?

FORMER STUDENT: Had to get up at four o'clock in the morning. We never got any time off to make up for it.

09:03

REPORTER: What did you learn here? 

FORMER STUDENT 2: Well I guess, I don't know, I'm not really sure. I guess I learnt how to get along with other people, strangers being around strangers.

09:12

FORMER STUDENT 3: It was just like a military school. We had to march everywhere we went. To dinner we were marched, to church we marched.

09:23

Archival photos. Boys and girls at school.

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: These were not schools. It was a prison camp, a work camp. It wasn't a lovely place to learn your education. They were little soldiers.  Every morning, you know, the whistles blew; you had to get out of bed.  There was nothing of home. You were stripped of all your cultural belongings. Your hair, which is so sacred for the boys was all cut off. It was a self-sufficient school, so the children were used as labour. You learned the three Rs half the day,

09:34

Judi interview

but it was a very watered down curriculum. It wasn't stimulating. It wasn't with the goal that you could be anything.

10:23

Archival photo. Three young women

Dreams could come true at the Genoa Indian School for these children. No, the dream was you will be a servant.

10:31

Drone shot. Genoa Indian school

STAN GRANT, Presenter:  Many students left the school with their culture broken. Others didn't return home at all.

10:39

Archival. James walks  in field. Super: 1990

music

10:51

REPORTER: What is important about where we're standing now? As far as you know.

JAMES NASH: Only that it's where we think the cemetery is, is the only reason.

REPORTER:  Why would there be a cemetery with the school? 

JAMES NASH: Well, kids started dying at an early age. I mean, at the early time they were at the school, they had to had to do something with them. I don't think it was possible those days to send them home, the bodies I mean, so they buried them here. 

10:56

STAN GRANT, Presenter: James Nash attended the school in the late 1920s. At the reunion he revealed two of his classmates died at the school. He believes their deaths were covered up.

11:35

JAMES NASH: I searched the archives in Washington, DC for a week, and I never found any record whatsoever of these two deaths that I personally knew about.

11:49

REPORTER: Why do you think that is?

JAMES NASH: I think probably the, whoever was operating the Genoa Indian School had those records destroyed because they were derogatory to their image.

12:00

Nancy interview

NANCY CARLSON:  He took some of the people from the foundation board, some of the guys and they went out and they looked where he thought it was, but they couldn't find any markers or anything there.

12:18

Drone shot, school

The next day they had like a grader that came in and just removed the top soil to see if they could find the graves and they did not find anything,

12:19

Nancy interview

and so it was because of that they didn't find anything that they decided we were going to do this – set up a marker that's just to east of this building to honour those former students that died.

12:39

Burial sites at school

NEWSREADER 1: "The remains of 215 children, some as young as three, buried for decades on the grounds…"

NEWSREADER 2: " More unmarked graves uncovered at another Catholic residential school."

12:57

2021 news footage

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Last year in Canada the discovery of mass graves at the sites of former boarding schools shocked the world. But with more than double the number of schools in the US, the government says tens of thousands of indigenous children could have suffered the same fate.

13:10

Haaland press conference. Super:
Secretary Deb Haaland
US Department of the Interior. Super:
June 2021

DEB HAALAND: "At no time in history have the records or documentation of this policy been compiled or analysed to determine the full scope of its reaches and effects. We must uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools."

13:29

Drone shots. Lincoln, Nebraska

STAN GRANT, Presenter: An historic federal investigation into America's own boarding school era is now underway. In Nebraska's capital Lincoln, Judi Gaiashkibos

13:46

Judi walks in government building

heads up the states' commission on Indian affairs. She says it's time to tell the truth about what happened at her mother's school.' JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: When we first heard about what was going on in Canada, I said we've got to focus on the children that died here. 

13:59

Judi interview

A cemetery at a school is not the norm that – you could die at school and then you're going to be buried out the door?

14:20

Native American statue. Dr Jacobs walks to museum

DR MARGARET JACOBS: This whole history is almost invisible. People aren't aware of the fact that we are going to find these kind of graves and we're going to find missing children here in the United States too.

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Judi asked historian Dr Margaret Jacobs to find out how many children died at Genoa.

14:26

Margaret in library vaults

Music

14:50

DR MARGARET JACOBS: When I started trying to find out what happened to the children who died, the first place I looked was the government records.

14:55

Margaret interview

Nothing. So that's when I started doing some newspapers searches.

15:04

Margaret in library vaults. CU newspaper articles

STAN GRANT, Presenter: She soon began uncovering reports of student's deaths. 

DR MARGARET JACOBS: Spinal paralysis, heart failure. There's a lot of accidental deaths, we have come across a drowning, a child who was hit by a train.

15:08

Photo. Doctor and nurses around children in hospital beds

Diseases were sweeping through these schools, but in many cases they weren't returning the children to their homes when they died

15:28

Margaret interview

and they were burying them on site. And it's just chilling to me to think that for so many children the schools were death traps.

15:37

Drone shot school

Music

15:48

NIKKI DROZD: Those who grew up in Genoa knew and understood what happened here. It was a point that we were taught in school about Native American boarding schools assimilation,

15:54

Nikki interview

but we weren't aware of the cemetery. At least I know myself I didn't stop to think about the students that died here, what happened to them.

16:04

Nikki at memorial

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Nikki Drozd volunteers with the Genoa Foundation and is helping investigate student deaths.  She recently discovered more children had died.

NIKKI DROZD:  We have found

16:14

Nikki interview

86 students that have died. But without having the actual government records, it's hard to say how many there really are. It's almost hundred percent that there are more students that have died.

16:28

Music

16:46

Carolyn on porch

STAN GRANT, Presenter: One of the 86 children who died at Genoa was Carolyn Fiscus's aunt, Mildred Lowe.

16:55

Interior. Carolyn's home

CAROLYN FISCUS:  I have an old picture of my grandmother and my Aunt Mildred and Mildred looks like she's about three year.

17:0

Carolyn looks at photo of Mildred on phone

They're wearing white people's clothes and shoes. My auntie must have moved; you know how little kids wiggle.

17:10

Nebraska plains. Train to Genoa

STAN GRANT, Presenter: In 1927, Mildred Lowe was taken from the Winnebago tribe and sent across the plains of Nebraska to school in Genoa.

17:20

CAROLYN FISCUS: They put her on the train and it started moving and that train whistle would blow and then she got to Genoa and she got off, and that was how it was, it was horrible, lonely and scary.

17:32

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Mildred died three years later. She was 12 years old.

17:46

Carolyn interview

CAROLYN FISCUS: To lose a child and then to lose them in that way, you don't know what happened to them. It's a very sad story for our family. 

17:51

Carolyn shows family photos

This is my wall of fame of my family. This is my mum and dad. This is on their 50th wedding anniversary I think we had this taken. My dad's a little bald headed white guy and my mum is Ho Chunk. And then this, this is my son and daughter, their graduation pictures. And these is my pride and joy, my grandchildren.   Put my Aunt Mildred up there with my grandmother. There they are. For me, it's like this is what's missing, this piece.

17:59

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Carolyn has spent the last decade trying to find out what happened to Mildred after she died. 

18:33

CAROLYN FISCUS: She's probably at the spirit world, but she didn't get a send-off, but everybody's there. We believe our ancestors are there to greet her, but you know, we want her spirit to know that we know that, too.

18:45

Mildred's death certificate

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Carolyn has recently received Mildred's death certificate. It reveals Mildred died from influenza and meningitis.

CAROLYN FISCUS: When I got it, I was like,

18:58

Carolyn interview

oh, you know, just reading that. It's just kind of like you say, oh now this is real. She really did die there. And here's the evidence and it's hard. It's hard for me .

19:09

Carolyn smudge ceremony

"Pray for all the spirits who haven't come home yet. Pray for them to find their way on this smudge and on smoke…"

19:24

STAN GRANT, Presenter: The document states Mildred's body was sent home to the Winnebago reservation, but Carolyn is sceptical 

19:32

Carolyn interview

CAROLYN FISCUS:  They didn't have any record of her being buried in the Winnebago cemetery, and my grandmother's record was there, but we didn't have Mildred. 

19:40

STAN GRANT, Presenter: She believes Mildred was buried at Genoa in the school's lost cemetery.

19:54

Archival. Jim Nash

Reporter: You want more than to just come here and see this, right?

JIM NASH: That's right, I'd like them to definitely locate the cemetery, fence it, probably a monument of some sort.

20:02

Nebraska plains

Music

20:25

STAN GRANT, Presenter: More than 30 years after James Nash first mentioned the cemetery, a new effort is underway to find the children's graves.

20:30

ROB BOZELL: In this situation with this story of Native American boarding schools, it feels like there's a sense of urgency. It would be nice to be involved in that first step of finding them.

20:39

Rob driving

STAN GRANT, Presenter: State archaeologist Rob Bozell is overseeing the fieldwork.

ROB BOZELL: The only map

20:52

Rob looking at map on computer

that has been found that depicts a cemetery is this 1899 Naz County atlas. And I don't know if you can see that, but right there, the word cem for cemetery and a cross, that's a symbol cartographers use for cemeteries. This is a very coarse scale. Again, they're depicting something south of the railroad tracks and east of this property line, but it doesn't give us enough detail to say exactly where it is. We've also got some air photos. It shows the cemetery is somewhere in this area.

21:02

Aerial. Possible cemetery site

It's a big area, probably 200 acres.

21:41

Rob and colleagues peg site

Music

21:49

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Using ground penetrating radar, Rob and his team are looking for disturbances in the soil which could indicate a grave shaft.

22:03

Radar machine

ROB BOZELL: This pyramid looking thing represents a difference in soil compaction. It could be a grave, it could be a big animal hole – it's different to the surrounding natural soil. We have another one here, same shape, and we also had two same shape going up a little farther here. So we have potentially four, three or four anomalies.

22:13

STAN GRANT, Presenter: The discovery creates cautious optimism – it will take months to analyse the data.

22:46

ROB BOZELL: It's more than we've seen on our other two or three trips out here.  I don't think we saw

22:54

Rob interview

any anomalies, any place else. So we are at least seeing those, whether they're signatures or graves or not. don't know yet.

22:58

Phil interview

PHIL SWANTEK: My name is Phillip Swantek, born and raised here in Genoa.

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Phil Swantek owns the land

23:09

Aerial. Possible cemetery site

where the search for the children is taking place. He believes the canal, which was constructed shortly after the schools' closure in the 1930s, destroyed the cemetery.

23:16

Phil interview

PHIL SWANTEK: You have to realise when they dug that canal, they had a dredge or a drag line that you could fit a big truck into, on the scoop, you know, and in the 1930s, I don't think anybody was too much concerned if they run across bones or anything.

23:29

Canal

STAN GRANT, Presenter: But no records have been found that construction disrupted any graves. Phil says he has 'mixed feelings' about what will happen if the cemetery is found.

23:47

Phil interview

PHIL SWANTEK: I own the land and my opinion is if they did find something there, I would probably want it memorialised some way, but not disturbed.

24:00

Aerial. Omaha nation land

Music

24:12

Kids play basketball

STAN GRANT, Presenter:  Eight of the children who lost their lives in Genoa belong to Nebraska's Omaha tribe.

24:24

Leander walks

LEANDER MERRICK:  They're speaking from the grave, that's just how we see it. "We're here. Find us, bring us home."

24:32

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Chairman Leander Merrick says if the cemetery is found, the Omaha tribe will repatriate their children and lay them to rest on their ancestral lands.

24:40

Omaha tribal cemetery/ Leander interview

LEANDER MERRICK: They have to come home. This is their home. To bring them back here is going to bring closure for them, their spirits and their loved ones and our community as a whole. This is shining a light on the United States. It's not a good light. They wanted to eradicate us. They didn't want us to be a threat to them because of what they were doing. The bottom line is they wanted our land.

24:51

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Across the country, Native American tribes are mobilising. As they begin searching for their lost children there are calls for a reckoning for the trauma caused by boarding schools.

25:22

Samuel walks

Dr Samuel Torres is from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, based in Minneapolis.

25:4

Samuel interview

SAMUEL TORRES: This moment, as hard as it was, has been an important moment to remind folks from every background that this is an important part of the story of the forming of the United States of America, that this land was once Indian land. and it still is and always will be.

25:49

Coalition signage about boarding schools

STAN GRANT, Presenter: He says there needs to be a commission of inquiry as the first step towards reconciliation.

26:07

SAMUEL TORRES: Boarding school survivors are not getting any younger. And there's a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of information that needs to be shared.

26:18

Samuel walks

The truth cannot be done without a focus on accountability and justice. And only through that, can substantive healing actually take place.

26:27

Redwing and students, dance class

26:53

STAN GRANT, Presenter: For Redwing, keeping the culture alive is key to healing from a painful past.

26:58

Redwing interview

REDWING THOMAS: So in my classroom we reverse it for the ones who had to go through it, so we reverse it. Instead it's a happy atmosphere. Instead, it's joyous and it's exciting and it's enthusiastic and it's everything that our ancestors were forbidden to have. That's why there is so much energy in my room. It's for them.

27:25

Judi into museum

27:55

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: This is real. They really were here.  It was 20 years ago that I was last here and we're still looking for those children that died.

28:15

STAN GRANT, Presenter: In Genoa, the recent search failed to locate the cemetery.

28:32

Judi walks school grounds

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: They're there somewhere. We know they're under the ground somewhere. And they need to be honoured.

28:40

STAN GRANT, Presenter: Efforts to find the children who never came home continue.

28:48

JUDI GAIASHKIBOS: I can't rest until I feel I've exhausted every possible avenue to find the children.

28:54

Card: This year Nebraska passed a resolution to honour survivors and descendants of the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School.

Music

29:03

The 20^th February is now a day of remembrances. It's the date the school opened in 1884.

29:13

Credits [see below]

29:20

Out point

29:48