Land Acknowledgment
When you are on BU campus, you are on Wampanoag and Massachusett Land.
We acknowledge that the territory on which Pickering Library stands is that of The Wampanoag and The Massachusett People. Our library and BU's campus are places to honor and respect the history and continued efforts of Native and Indigenous community leaders. Our library and BU's campus are also places to take action for justice. Educational institutions like BU have a responsibility to provide information and resources on Native American history, culture, and the present demands of Native communities. This library display is one small step in acknowledging the colonial history and present violence that brings non-Wampanoag and non-Massachusett people to reside on this land. Ownership of land is itself a colonial concept, and an act of violence. Today, Boston is home to indigenous peoples, including the Mashpee Wampanoag and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). This display highlights a historical event, but this history is alive. For more information, please visit the North American Indian Center of Boston website. Visit native-land.ca to determine whose land you are on.
Statement adapted from Boston University Teaching and Writing by Amanda Campbell.
BU Libraries Search
To find information on Native American Boarding Schools in BU Library Search, try searching by Subject (rather than title or author) and input the Subject Headings listed below, exactly as they are written:
Off-reservation boarding schools
Indian residential schools
Indians of North America--Education
Boarding schools--juvenile fiction
Historical Overview
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs forced tens of thousands of Native children to attend assimilationist boarding schools far from their homes and families. The children were physically and emotionally abused. The teachers and administrators at the boarding schools forbade the children from speaking any language but English, forced the children's participation in Christian rituals, cut the children's hair, and disparaged Native cultures. The explicit goals of these boarding schools were to erase Native cultures and protect white supremacist colonial power in the United States.
It is important for future teachers and students of education to know this history. It is a central piece of the history of American education. In this display, we feature children's, YA, and scholarly books that engage with the topic of Native American Boarding Schools. We hope Wheelock students are inspired to bring these texts into their classrooms.
1970: The first annual National Day of Mourning demonstration took place on the fourth Thursday in November (to coincide with Thanksgiving). The first demonstration was initiated by supporters of Frank Wamsutta James who was disinvited from a commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower after James described Wampanoag peoples' perspectives on Thanksgiving at another event in New England.
1976: Osage-Cherokee physicist and community leader Jerry Elliot High Eagle drafted a proclamation for the first-ever Native American Awareness week.
1990: President George H. W. Bush declared November National American Indian Heritage Month.
1992: Berkeley, California became the first city to rename Columbus Day Indigenous People's Day.
1997: Police in Plymouth, Massachusetts attacked peaceful protestors at the annual National Day of Mourning demonstration.
2020: The National Day of Mourning demonstration was held virtually and more than 20,000 people attended online.
2021: President Biden released a presidential proclamation declaring the second Monday in October Indigenous People's Day (not Columbus Day). He was the first president to do so.
American Indian Heritage Month 2023: Native American Boarding School Books
I Am Not a Number by Location: Pickering Educational Resources Library Juvenile Collection PZ7.1 D87 Iam 2016ISBN: 9781927583944Publication Date: 2016-09-06When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author Jenny Kay Dupuis' grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada's history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.
Children of the Indian Boarding Schools by Location: Pickering Educational Resources Library Juvenile Collection E97.5 L57 2001ISBN: 1575054671Publication Date: 2005-01-01Picture the American Past uses short, simple text linked to large historical photographs to bring to life the unique ways in which children lived and worked in an earlier era. Supports the national curriculum standards Culture; Time, Continuity, and Change; Individual Development and Identity; and Individuals, Groups, and Institutions as outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies. The entire Picture the American Past series is available on Accelerated Reader.
When We Were Alone by Location: Pickering Educational Resources Library Juvenile Collection PZ7.1 R598 Wh 2016ISBN: 9781553796732Publication Date: 2016-12-01Winner of the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award! A young girl notices things about her grandmother that make her curious. Why does her grandmother have long, braided hair and beautifully coloured clothing? Why does she speak Cree and spend so much time with her family? As the girl asks questions, her grandmother shares her experiences in a residential school, when all of these things were taken away. Also available in a bilingual Swampy Cree/English edition. Download the free teacher guide on the Portage & Main Press website.
Apple by Location: Pickering Educational Resources Library YA Collection PZ7. G1532 App 2020ISBN: 9781646140138Publication Date: 2020-10-06Winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award Printz Honor Winner National Book Award Longlist TIME 10 Best YA and Children's Books of the Year NPR Best of the Year Shelf Awareness Best of the Year Publishers Weekly Big Indie Books of Fall Amazon Best Book of the Month AICL Best YA Books of the Year CSMCL Best Multicultural Children's Books of the Year "Stirring.. Raw and moving."--TIME "Beautiful imagery and with words that soar and scald."--The Buffalo News "Easily one of the best books to be published in 2020. The kind of book bound to save lives."--LitHub "A powerful narrative about identity and belonging."--Paste Magazine ★ "Timely and important."--Booklist, starred review ★ "Searing yet dryly funny."--The Bulletin, starred review ★ "Exceptional."--Shelf-Awareness, starred review ★ "Captivating."--School Library Journal, starred review The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on the outside, white on the inside." In Apple (Skin to the Core), Eric Gansworth tells his story, the story of his family--of Onondaga among Tuscaroras--of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds. Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.- American Indian/Alaska Native education byLocation: Pickering Educational Resources Library Education Stacks L11 .F37 no. 367ISBN: 9780873673679Publication Date: 1994
Indian School by Location: Pickering Educational Resources Library YA Collection E97.5 .C66 1999ISBN: 0395920841Publication Date: 1999-09-20In 1879 eighty-four Sioux boys and girls became the inaugural group of students to be enrolled at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Carlisle was the first institution opened by the federal government for the education of Native American children. The brainchild of former Indian fighter Captain Richard Pratt, Carlisle, like other schools that followed, was established to teach Indian children the "white man's way." For some, like Olympian Jim Thorpe, Indian School led to success and prosperity, but for many others it was an education in alienation and isolation. Michael L. Cooper examines the Indian Schools and tells the personal stories, often in their own words, of several young students, including Zitkala-Sa, who wrote, "Like a slender tree, I had been uprooted from my mother, nature, and God."
Additional Resources
Our Spirits Don't Speak English
Film about Native American Boarding Schools available with your BU login via Kanopy.
Bureau of Indian Affairs Records at the National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration of the United States keeps the Bureau of Indian Affairs records, which includes records of the founding and operation of Native American Boarding Schools. Some of this material is digitized and available online.
Library of Congress Teaching Guide
This free teachers' guide focused on Native American Boarding Schools includes a curated set of primary sources digitized by the Library of Congress, lesson plans, and assignment ideas for your classroom.
HI190: Making History: Conflict & Community in Boston's Past
James Johnson Fall 2020
Indian Claims Insight (ProQuest History Vault)
Indian Claims Insight provides research tools to understand and analyze Native American migration and resettlement throughout U.S. history, as well as U.S. Government Indian removal policies and subsequent actions to address Native American claims. Content includes decisions, transcripts, docket books, journals of the Indian Claims Commission, and related statutes and congressional publications.
