North Dakota
North Dakota family grapples with generational pain inflicted by Native American boarding schools
Editor’s be aware: That is the sixth story in an occasional collection on Native American boarding colleges and their affect on the area’s tribes.
FORT TOTTEN, N.D. — One among Rose Wilkie’s earliest reminiscences is the day she arrived at Fort Totten Indian Faculty in 1955.
On the tender age of seven, the youngest of 9 kids was humiliated.
“We had been simply little ladies, and we needed to take all of our garments off, stroll bare down this corridor into the showers. There, they deloused us. I don’t know what it was. It smelled like kerosene. We had been simply little ladies and modest and tried to cover ourselves,” stated Wilkie, now 70, a registered member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
“I didn’t take a look at anyone, being that I didn’t need anyone to take a look at me,” she stated. “We didn’t have bugs once we went there, however we positive did once we went residence.”
C.S. Hagen / The Discussion board
On the identical reservation, excessive poverty despatched Duane “Jimmy” Brunelle, now 78, to Fort Totten Indian Faculty, as nicely. A relative of Wilkie’s by way of marriage, boarding faculty was a combination of sporting achievements, three sq. meals a day, ghosts and demons.
In an quaint ice room at Fort Totten, a spot the place some declare younger ladies had been molested, Brunelle’s identify and others had been carved into the wooden. They continue to be there to today.
C.S. Hagen / The Discussion board
Neither Wilkie nor Brunelle are offended about their years spent away from their households, however the generations earlier than them not often mentioned their experiences.
The household’s youthful technology might not have had their heads shaved like some documented instances within the greater than 400 American Indian boarding colleges throughout the nation. They might not have needed to stroll bare to the showers.
The final two generations of the Wilkie household additionally weren’t crushed for talking their tribal languages, Michif, a mixture of Cree, Chippewa and French, however that’s as a result of that they had been “colonized.” They by no means discovered the phrases.
One factor the youthful technology is definite of, nonetheless, is that boarding colleges helped catapult them and different American Indians into medication, alcohol and a rising line of damaged households.
“It’s no marvel we now have struggles in our Indian communities and Indian Nation once we take into consideration all of those children going to boarding faculty,” stated Rae Wilkie Villebrun, a relative of the Wilkie household who’s the superintendent of Minnesota’s Nashwauk-Keewatin Public Faculty District.
Villebrun didn’t attend boarding faculty, however she wrote her dissertation for her doctorate diploma on the topic. The truth that not everybody who attended Native American boarding colleges was crushed, raped or went hungry doesn’t “negate the detrimental,” she stated.
“It was type of like a jail. Children had been cleansing, cooking, out on the farm, all of those jobs — they weren’t all the time studying lecturers,” Villebrun stated. By means of dozens of interviews she performed, she famous that “Indian persons are excellent at discovering the constructive within the detrimental.”
Topics boarding faculty directors pressured college students to study included stitching, farming, cleansing and different blue-collar jobs, which had been makes an attempt to “preserve Indians of their place,” Villebrun stated.
Her grandmother, now deceased, was tricked into going to boarding faculty, she stated. Her grandmother left a recording of her expertise and at 5 years previous believed she was getting on a bus to purchase sweet along with her brothers and sisters.
“I can think about being a 5-year-old and having any individual come to your own home and decide up your siblings. And whenever you’re 5, you don’t know. You simply really feel such as you’re getting omitted,” Villebrun stated.
She didn’t see her mother and father for a yr, Villebrun stated, at one level pausing to push again tears whereas discussing the reminiscence of the dialog.
“She was offended. She stated she was mad that her mother and pa didn’t come to get her, didn’t come to see her. I take into consideration what that may have been like for a 5-year-old,” she stated.
Sending generations of Native American folks to boarding colleges helped exacerbate issues seen on reservations at present, she stated, together with medication, alcohol, home abuse and, for some, not realizing learn how to increase a household.
David Samson / The Discussion board
Villebrun’s cousin, Tracey L. Wilkie, 54, was despatched to Flandreau Indian Boarding Faculty in South Dakota at 14 years previous as a result of she was turning into “boy loopy,” she stated.
“Kill the Indian, save the person,” stated Tracey Wilkie, echoing the nation’s sentiment towards the nation’s Native American folks in 1879. The phrase was first credited to
Richard Henry Pratt
, the navy officer who based Carlisle Indian Industrial Faculty in Pennsylvania.
“I didn’t really feel they had been forcibly making an attempt to kill the Indian and save the person, however by then we had already been colonized,” Tracey Wilkie stated.
When she was younger, her mother and father threatened boarding faculty as a sort of “boogeyman,” conjuring pictures of sick kids, bodily and sexual abuse, she stated.
“I’d hear elders talking about their experiences at boarding faculty and the various kinds of abuse that occurred there, so I used to be all the time afraid to go,” Tracey Wilkie stated.
Her mom’s boarding faculty expertise was filled with beatings and bed-wettings, she stated.
At first, the horror tales petrified her, however she quickly found one thing she’d by no means felt earlier than: freedom from supervision.
C.S. Hagen / The Discussion board
Marijuana was simply accessible. Alcohol was introduced in by a workers member; she doesn’t keep in mind the identify. Women might go into the boy’s dormitory, and a few grew to become pregnant. Lower than two years after she left Flandreau, Tracey Wilkie additionally discovered herself pregnant.
“It was fairly widespread for us to be strolling round smoking pot. I keep in mind with the Southern Consolation considering I’d get in hassle as a result of I couldn’t stroll, and I even bumped into two matrons who didn’t say something,” she stated.
“I cried for the primary two weeks, however later I spotted the liberty I had: I not needed to watch 5 siblings,” she stated.
Some classmates discovered the stress to be an excessive amount of and took drastic measures to finish their time on the faculty.
“It was fairly widespread listening to tales of the ladies within the rooms that died by suicide or who died after consuming an excessive amount of alcohol. Ghost tales,” Tracey Wilkie stated. “I keep in mind one of many rooms they confirmed me the place the lady had hung herself within the closet.
“Boarding colleges weren’t good for me, and so they weren’t good for my household. I used to be unsupervised and never making good selections for a 14-year-old,” she stated.
David Samson / The Discussion board
Such newfound freedoms led to her rebelling in later years. She moved into low-income housing, paying $13 a month for hire in Shell Valley, a spot named after her great-grandfather Chief Little Shell.
A distinct worry took bodily type when she heard a couple of haunted place simply outdoors the varsity’s boundary.
“I keep in mind listening to tales about our bodies being buried years in the past on this discipline. I keep in mind it was behind the canteen. I by no means even went near it,” Tracey Wilkie stated.
Trauma has been handed down from the generations earlier than her, and he or she sees the ache she handed on to her personal kids at present, considered one of whom was the final in her household to be despatched to a boarding faculty.
She’s unsure learn how to repair it.
David Samson / The Discussion board
Denise Lajimodiere, writer and researcher, and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, stated American Indian boarding colleges are the nation’s “finest saved secret.” She has spent greater than 12 years interviewing survivors and researching historic data, a course of she stated is “tedious, painstaking.”
Whereas strolling the grounds at Fort Totten, Lajimodiere mentioned accounts of what she has discovered, about how her grandfather was bent over a barrel and whipped with a hose or how monks molested younger ladies within the ice room.
“We now have fairly a number of tales to inform about this place,” she stated. “Some have good tales to inform, too, however after listening to years of tales, now we have to discover these unmarked graves.”
C.S. Hagen / The Discussion board
The Fort Totten Indian Faculty was constructed as a navy base in 1867 and have become an Indian handbook labor faculty in 1874.
In 1900, the varsity transferred to the Workplace of Indian Affairs and remained a boarding faculty till 1935. From 1935 to 1939, it was a tuberculosis sanatorium run by the federal authorities earlier than it returned to being a boarding faculty.
Missionaries, just like the Gray Nuns of the Sacred Coronary heart, ran among the first colleges and had been supported financially by the federal authorities. Later, federal brokers took management, however at locations like Fort Totten, faith was by no means separated from curriculum, stated Mildred Hill, historian for the state’s historic society.
David Samson / The Discussion board
Hill listens to tales of many Native American individuals who come to go to and believes she will hear the whispers of some who attended.
“Within the useless of winter, I can hear little boys drumming or boys singing in Lakota all night time lengthy,” she stated.
“That is the place my father and grandfather had been,” Lajimodiere stated when she entered the boy’s dormitory. “Regardless that folks say they might have had fun right here, what they overlook is that it was pressured assimilation.”
David Samson / The Discussion board
A paddle inscribed with the phrases “The Killer” struck worry into many younger hearts at Fort Totten Indian Faculty. If a pupil talked in school as much as 5 occasions per week, their punishment was three cracks by The Killer.
“I by no means cried. It made me offended. I feel as a result of I used to be mad and embarrassed,” Rose Wilkie stated. “The primary time, I used to be barely in class per week and I bought caught speaking in church.”
Her household forgot many Native American traditions. They believed in Catholicism. An training bent to maintain Native American folks caught in handbook labor saved the Wilkie household in poverty at residence. And when Rose Wilkie’s father died, life solely grew to become harder.
“There have been 9 children and my mother. We all the time had good meals. After which after my dad died, I missed the meat roast and pork chops. We ate loads of bologna,” Rose Wilkie stated.
When Brunelle was 6 years previous, his mother and father dropped him off at Fort Totten Indian Faculty.
“I used to be scared and lonely, however I forgot about my mother and father in a couple of week,” he stated. He was pupil, straight As, a basketball star. He remembers a lot of his academics’ names.
C.S. Hagen / The Discussion board
“The rationale I keep in mind these names is as a result of I pray every single day for the academics at Fort Totten. I nonetheless do to today,” Brunelle stated.
He slept on the highest of an Military bunk and stated he was ceaselessly visited by spirits, some he believes had been demons.
As soon as, he requested a priest concerning the visitations. The priest replied that demons solely assault sturdy folks, he stated.
“I might really feel one thing there,” Brunelle stated.
Years after he graduated, he went again to Fort Totten to gather a small rock as a memento, however the reminiscences of demons made him throw it again, he stated.
He recalled seeing black, shimmering shadows, typically with satan tails swishing forwards and backwards. At night time, clanking noises saved him awake, and on the time he attributed the sounds to steam warmth transferring by way of the pipes.
“Later, I came upon that there will need to have been so many souls there that died with out final sacraments. There are such a lot of misplaced souls there,” he stated.
Rumors of a “jail for dangerous Indians” circulated among the many college students, he stated. One night time, his mattress shook so badly he sought refuge within the close by restroom and stayed there the complete night time.
David Samson / The Discussion board
“More often than not, being despatched to boarding colleges was as a result of your mother and father couldn’t afford to maintain you. If somebody known as you a ‘no good stinking Indian,’ you began to study to hate,” Brunelle stated.
When requested about what the USA might do to assist restore the injury, he didn’t hesitate to reply.
“Apologies? They’ll stick them the place the solar don’t shine. It’s not fixing something and it’s so limp and lame. Apologies don’t remedy something,” he stated. “In my thoughts, they may pray and do penance someway. Alms.”
In regards to the ‘Buried Wounds’ collection
In Could 2021, an anthropologist found unmarked graves possible belonging to 200 kids on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential Faculty in Canada. This disturbing discovering drew consideration to the USA’ position in forcibly assimilating hundreds of Indigenous kids by way of its personal boarding faculty insurance policies.
From 1819 and thru the Sixties, the U.S. authorities oversaw insurance policies for greater than 400 American Indian boarding colleges throughout the nation, together with at the very least 13 in North Dakota. Lots of the kids who attended colleges in North Dakota and elsewhere had been taken from their properties towards their will, stripped of their tradition and abused bodily, sexually and psychologically.
Little analysis has been achieved on precisely what number of colleges existed within the U.S. and the extent to which the federal authorities knew concerning the circumstances of every faculty. The U.S. Division of the Inside underneath Secretary Deb Haaland is investigating the historical past and legacy of federally run boarding colleges.
The Discussion board has launched its personal investigation into boarding colleges in North Dakota and different components of the nation by interviewing survivors, reviewing public data and exploring the affect these colleges nonetheless have on North Dakota’s Indigenous inhabitants at present.
The primary installment within the collection concerning the Sisseton and Wahpeton kids who died on the Carlisle Indian Industrial Faculty
will be discovered right here.
The second installment concerning the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara kids who died on the Carlisle Indian Industrial Faculty
will be discovered right here.
The third installment about Christian denominations reckoning with their position in Native American boarding colleges
will be discovered right here.
The fourth installment about delays in repatriating the stays of two Sisseton and Wahpeton boys from the previous Carlisle Indian Industrial Faculty
will be discovered right here.
The fifth installment about American Indian tribes and the state partnering to seek for unmarked graves of Native boarding faculty college students
will be discovered right here
.
BISMARCK — A North Dakota bill could allow children to temporarily live with their mothers in prison.
The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has requested legislation that would let children reside at the Heart River Correctional Center in Mandan with their mothers.
Senate Bill 2115
would let the DOCR hire staff and develop policy to achieve that goal.
The bill also would prevent the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its staff from being held liable for any injuries to the children unless “the injury is affirmatively caused by the negligent act of a state employee.”
Mothers would be responsible for their children, including medical expenses, DOCR Director Colby Braun told The Forum. Medical care would have to be sought outside the facility, he said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to work on the bill — a hearing for SB 2115 is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15.
The legislation is focused on mothers who come to Heart River while pregnant, Braun said. If a woman births her child while in custody, SB 2115 would allow the mother and baby to stay together for some time after birth, he said, adding that doing so provides better outcomes for families.
“What we’re trying to do is really support the goal of … making sure that we’re keeping good contact with mom and their children prior to them leaving prison,” he said.
The bill doesn’t limit the age of a child who could live with their mother in prison. That could allow children to spend time with their mothers over a short time period, such as a weekend, shortly before a woman is released from prison, Braun said.
The legislation would give children the opportunity to reconnect with mothers as they prepare to leave prison and return to their families, he said.
The bill doesn’t say how long a child could live in the prison. It’s unclear how much the change could cost the state, according to a fiscal note attached to the bill.
The DOCR is still working on the policy that would detail the logistics of allowing children to live in Heart River. For now, the bill only addresses liability and creates the authority to allow mothers to have their children with them in the prison.
Parental separation impacts
Parental separation due to incarceration can have extreme effects on children, said Wanda Bertram, communication strategist for the
Prison Policy Initiative.
That includes lower educational performance in school, a higher likelihood that children end up in the foster care system and termination of parental rights, the nonprofit said.
“This is all documented to lead to a host of different negative factors in the child’s life,” Bertram told The Forum. “So, anything that can be done to mitigate that is a step in the right direction.”
The nonprofit that researches criminal justice reform has advocated for releasing incarcerated parents of young children, Bertram said. At least a dozen states have made laws addressing family separation.
Sometimes called a nursery prison program, a small number of states allow children to temporarily live with their mothers in prisons.
South Dakota
allows incarcerated mothers to bond with their children for 30 months after the child’s birth.
Some states and the federal government have proximity laws, which set a maximum distance between the facility where a parent is incarcerated and where their children live.
Minnesota
allows mothers who have been sentenced to prison to live at home with their children for up to a year after birth.
The DOCR hasn’t discussed releasing mothers from custody so they could care for children outside of prisons, Braun said.
States have been slow to adopt a program like North Dakota could because they don’t have the facilities to do so, Bertram said.
“Something like a prison nursery program involves a lot of investment in new infrastructure,” she said, noting increasing funds for the prison system can move slowly.
States also typically incarcerate a small number of women, she said. Of the 2,033 inmates who are incarcerated in North Dakota, 260, or 13%, are women, according to data from the DOCR.
“When you’re talking about programs that involve building new infrastructure or allocating resources to new programs, and something that’s going to impact a quite small number of people, it’s understandable why movement on that would be slow,” Bertram said.
Allowing incarcerated mothers to keep their babies with them in North Dakota has been a topic of discussion for “a long time,” Braun said. North Dakota previously didn’t have the space to do it, he said.
“As we’re looking at a new women’s facility, … one of the goals that we had is being able to have a unit where mom and baby could be together,” he said.
Heart River and the Dakota Women’s Correctional and Rehabilitation Center in New England are North Dakota’s only female prisons. Until recently, the New England facility was the state’s only prison for women.
North Dakota plans to
build a 260-bed women’s prison at Heart River
to replace the New England facility. The $161.2 million project was approved in 2023 and is expected to take three years to complete.
BISMARCK — Lawmakers unanimously advanced a bill aimed at replacing over 300 Chinese-made drones used by North Dakota agencies due to security concerns, though development of drone infrastructure in the bill drew scrutiny from lawmakers.
House Bill 1038
would create a $15 million program to replace all drones used by North Dakota agencies that do not comply with the
National Defense Authorization Act
and the
American Security Drone Act of 2023.
In short, any drones that are manufactured in adversarial countries would be replaced.
For North Dakota, that would be 307 of the 353 drones — or 86.97% — used by state agencies, according to a survey administered by the North Dakota University System.
All 307 drones that would be replaced are from China, according to the survey, specifically from a company called DJI, according to bill sponsor Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck.
During his testimony to the appropriations committee, Nathe said that DJI has roughly 90% of the hobby market, 70% of the industrial market and 80% of the first responder market in the U.S., something he said was “very disturbing” to him.
“Even if out of the 307 we have one of these that are bad, it’s worth doing,” Nathe said. “So, these drones are flying all over our state. They’re flying over our communities, our air bases, our missile sites, our oil fields and God knows if they’re collecting data and transmitting that. And that is not only a security risk for North Dakota but also for the country.”
Nathe said North Dakota agencies are using Chinese drones because they are cheap.
“Why do we have so many of these in our inventory? And we’re not the only state, every other state is – has as many of these as we do,” Nathe said. “And the answer is they’re cheap. Cheaper than U.S. stuff, and they’re easy to fly and they’re very consumer-friendly. And they are not just years ahead, they’re like generations ahead of the (U.S.) manufacturers.”
Despite this, he said he has not had any pushback from state agencies on the proposed bill.
The program would be run by the Grand Forks-based
Northern Plains Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Test Site
. Under the proposed bill, the test site would find and pay for drones that could serve the same function of the Chinese drones currently used by agencies, then organize training on the new drones for agencies’ personnel and inspect and dispose of the Chinese-made drones.
Agencies would be able to continue using the drones they have until a replacement drone from a U.S. manufacturer or a manufacturer in a country friendly to the U.S. has been found by the test site, Nathe said.
Some members of the committee questioned how much it would cost to replace the current drones. Frank Mattis, director of UAS integration at Thales and newly minted chair of the
North Dakota UAS Council
, said that it would likely cost more than $10,000 per drone to replace the current DJI drones used by state agencies.
Thales is a company partnered with the state and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site to develop the
Vantis
system. The system, simply put, is a radar system that tracks and identifies drones, which allows them to operate beyond the line of sight of pilots.
The second part of HB 1038 would allocate $11 million to develop an FAA radar data enclave and engage in a first-of-its-kind one-year pathfinder program where the FAA would share radar data with Vantis that would extend the system’s reach over most of the state.
Northern Plains UAS Test Site Deputy Executive Director Erin Roesler said the system covers 3,000 square miles and with the FAA data would cover 56,000 square miles — an expansion that would cost the state $255 million to develop without the FAA’s assistance.
The hope, according to those in support of the bill, is that Vantis with the FAA’s data would become the guideline for a national drone infrastructure system.
According to Mattis, this would be the first time the FAA shared unfiltered radar data with an organization outside of the federal government.
The data is not classified as “top secret” or “secret,” Mattis said, but it does rise to a level of importance where it needs to be protected. The $11 million would pay for the training, screening of personnel, and physical and cybersecurity upgrades to the test site that would allow them to house and utilize the data.
Several lawmakers on the committee questioned how and when the state would see a return on the $11 million investment in Vantis.
Roesler said that Vantis should be viewed as an infrastructure project and that its value comes from the opportunities it will create.
She said that state agencies and other drone operators must create their own often costly and redundant systems to operate drones the way Vantis allows for. Creating this shared-use infrastructure lowers the barrier for agencies and companies to use drones in new ways.
Rep. David Richter, R-Williston, told a story about a hospital in his part of the state using a drone to deliver medicine across Lake Sakakawea to a remote area as an example of the use of drone infrastructure.
“We build highways and then people use them,” Richter said. “We are building a highway and people will use it.”
The bill was given a unanimous “do pass” recommendation by the committee and will be carried to the floor for a vote by Nathe.
Screen Capture: https://agristo.com/timeline
Agristo, a leading European producer of frozen potato products, is making big moves in North America. The company, founded in 1986, has chosen Grand Forks, North Dakota, as the site for its first U.S. production facility.
Agristo has been testing potato farming across the U.S. for years and found North Dakota to be the perfect fit. The state offers high-quality potato crops and a strong agricultural community.
In a statement, Agristo said it believes those factors make it an ideal location for producing the company’s high-quality frozen potato products, including fries, hash browns, and more.
“Seeing strong potential in both potato supply and market growth in North America, Agristo is now ready to invest in its first production facility in the United States, focusing on high-quality products, innovation, and state-of-the-art technology.”
Agristo plans to invest up to $450 million to build a cutting-edge facility in Grand Forks. This project will create 300 to 350 direct jobs, giving a boost to the local economy.
Agristo is working closely with North Dakota officials to finalize the details of the project.
Negotiations for the plant are expected to wrap up by mid-2025.
For more information about Agristo and its products, visit www.agristo.com.
Agristo’s headquarters are located in Belgium.
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