Decades of Silence Broken: Indigenous Survivors Recount Childhood Abuse and Forced Assimilation at U.S. Boarding Schools

For decades, Indigenous boarding school survivors carried their trauma in silence,  and their testimonies now show why continued support for healing matters.

An oral history project by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, wrapping up in Tulsa, has collected video testimony from over 360 survivors across 19 states, work to be preserved in the Library of Congress. The stories reveal both the weight of unresolved trauma and the relief that comes from finally being heard.

Iona Mad Plume, 74, Blackfeet, was sent to South Dakota's Pierre Indian School at 14. She recalled staff "beating her with a wooden dowel as she cowered on a bunk bed" and eating "corn meal or cereal littered with weevil bugs." Testifying, she said, brought "a lot of closure": "It was after almost a lifetime of carrying around questions and different things in my mind,  so I don't have to carry that around anymore."

Gene Bozicic, 81, of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, attended Michigan's Holy Childhood School of Jesus starting at 11. She said the process gave her confidence: "almost like more pride to be Native... they have given me my backbone back."

The abuse was systemic, not incidental. Federal reports tied to the project found nearly 1,000 Native children buried at 65 school sites, with abuses ranging from physical and sexual violence to deliberate attempts at cultural erasure.

Support structures matter deeply here. Program co-director Lacey Kinnart noted staff added mandatory "quiet rooms" with elders, licensed trauma therapists, and social workers, because "our elders don't want to be a burden... but they really do need that extra support."

The harm also spans generations. Desiray Emerton, 56, a Seminole descendant of survivors, said her mother "struggled to be affectionate toward her as a child" because of boarding school trauma. Emerton wants to contribute her family's story to future phases: "the whole story needs to be taught... I'm walking on the prayers of our ancestors, and I'm running out of time."

With survivors aging and a next-phase project potentially costing $13 million, the case for sustained funding and care is urgent,  as co-director Charlee Brissette put it, "we're just scratching the surface with these stories."

Link: Cherokee Phoenix