Leonard Peltier Shares His Indian Boarding School Story [NativeNewsOnline.net]

Others kids did break down. It was the beginning of a nightmare that at 77 years old, the fear of remembering it all still keeps me awake some nights.

The matrons used our fear against us. They yelled, “Shut your mouths…stop your damned crying…it won’t help.”

Some of us were angry, but we were scared. We had to whisper our anger. They marched us down to the basement where the shower and laundry rooms and the barber shop was. First, they buzz-cut our hair off. Then they took us to the showers and stripped off all our clothes.

This was disrespectful and humiliating. In shame, we marched into the showers. They had set them on HOT. Very HOT.

Some of the kids screamed as the water scalded them. None of us knew how to adjust the temperature. The older kids showed us. Some kids never wanted to go to the showers again – they had to be forced.

When we left the showers they put DDT (an insecticide used in agriculture) all over us. The poison even got in our eyes and mouths. They said it was to kill lice and other insects that carried disease.

Then the matrons sat on benches with a large jar of Vaseline. They lined us up very close together, naked and spread it on the top and back of our ankles, arms, and elbows. They then took a towel, wrapped it around their finger and rubbed the Vaseline off. If any dead skin came off, we were hit with a fat ruler. That sucker hurt. Then we were sent back to wash again. We rubbed our skin raw so as not to get beaten.

A young Native student came and brought me over to the girl’s dorm that first night. Betty and Pauline were still clinging to each other, crying. I almost broke down again. I somehow managed to stay strong and console them. I told them that they would beat me if they didn’t stop and that worked.

Later, we were assigned to wash the smaller kids. If dead skin was found after we washed them, we got the beating.They made it clear they considered us filthy from the inside out.

They made it clear we were hated. With every look, with every cruel word, they continued a war our ancestors had fought since their ancestors landed here back in 1492.

The sound of the ruler hitting the boys and their screams is something that still affects me whenever I see someone striking a child on TV or in a picture.

When I was older, I was forced to scrub the little kids. A small boy named White Cloud had tender skin and cried, so I did not scrub him as hard as they told me to do it. They found dead skin and they beat me. I had to scrub him again, with a stiff brush like we used to scrub the floor, only smaller. I was angry and I scrubbed until he started to bleed.

How does a person live with those memories?

As time passed and I lay in my bed, I heard crying and whimpering every night. So much crying and so much fear. The bigger kids would try to quiet the little ones, telling them the matrons would come in and beat them if they didn’t stop.

Some older boys told us they were trying to scare us into being submissive, but for some of us, our pain turned to hate and it made us rebellious.

We spoke our language. We sang our songs. And we prayed in our languages, all in secret. We called ourselves the Resisters, after the famous French Resistance.

I think I’ve hidden my hate and my anger throughout my entire life. It was impossible to manage as a kid. But I learned how to deal with their demons. I had to, as I was determined not to ever become one of them. I never felt bigger by hurting others. I am my grandmother’s legacy, not Wahpeton’s.

There was a prison cell in the basement. In my last year at Wahpeton, they used it for storage. They had me take a broken chair down there one time, and I saw it. I thought of what kids must have gone through in that prison cell in the past. I heard some children committed suicide and had been buried somewhere on the grounds. We did not want to know where this sacred ground was, so we never tried to find it. I admit I was scared.

What could be worse – the yelling and beatings, or being buried there?

Some heard phantom crying in the night. Lost children, hurt so badly they took their own lives. Some of us would not allow ourselves to believe they were spirits crying.

At one point we heard Eisenhower ordered no more maltreatment of Native children. It took a couple of years for the law to be enforced and it did not come in time for us — if it ever came at all. The staff was used to having free reign to beat the hell out of children that could not fight back.

I used to sit around with Dennis Banks and other men and talk about our days at Wahpeton. We could not find a single pleasant memory. Our memories from those vulnerable, formative years are harsh and violent. But we learned one thing from those awful places your people sent us to: We are survivors.

And we survived with our hearts intact.

You don’t treat people badly like that. I rise only when I help you rise. Despite all those beatings, I still believe it. It’s a law, like physics, and it’s true. You get nowhere being mean and disrespecting the feelings of others, especially the most vulnerable. I have seen both kinds of people and more than my share of evil ones, and I know I’m right. I rise only when I help you rise.

Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and leader of the American Indian Movement.  Following a controversial trial, he was convicted of aiding and abetting murder and has been imprisoned since 1977. Many people and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others believe Peltier is a political prisoner who should be immediately released.