20: Secrets buried in unmarked graves: Residential Schools
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Hi friends, how are you today? Welcome to my dark history library. I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my safe space, my therapy couch, where I'm going to tell you all the dark secrets that have gone down throughout history. Ooh, that was good. Because like normally I call this a dark history library, but we should just call this a dark history therapy couch because bitch, we're going to need it.

We're gonna need it, okay? This is a safe space for all you curious cats out there like myself. And you're like, hey, you know, history is actually really boring. But like, it's not. It's actually not boring. It's not boring. It could be really interesting, really intriguing, really fun, not fun, really dark. But we can learn together. It's all about how it's presented. That's

That's what I'm getting at. Anyway, so that's what we're doing today. We're talking about the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories that maybe you didn't learn about in school. Or at least I know I didn't. If anything, and this is more for me, I've been learning so much.

It's about me. Just kidding. Okay, I have my dark history book here. Let me open it up so I can go to this blank page where we're going to talk about some real fucked up shit. Okay, just a little disclaimer. Today's story is really heavy. It's really heavy. There's no way to go around how dark it is. And I feel like all the stories are really dark, right? Okay, but this one's ongoing.

It's still probably going to be developing within the next year or so, even who knows how long. But just a little heads up. So as of right now, we're filming this in October. So if anything changes within the next month or so, as of right now in October, this is what we know. This is what we've learned about this story. And it's dark. Okay. Okay.

Have I made that clear? Today we're going to be talking about residential schools. Highly requested. Whenever I say that, I kind of feel like a DJ or something. Super requested song. It's not. But a lot of you have been asking. Really dark. I'm so sorry we're going to talk about it. But hey, let's talk about it. Shall we? Great. Let's go back.

Back to the beginning. I just want Hilary Duff. Anyway, so we're going to go back to the 1800s. Yay, 1800s. I mean, this is called dark history. 1800s. Great. Anyway, we talked about it in a couple episodes already, but there was this pretty popular idea during this time in America that the Native Americans were a quote unquote problem. That

That needed to be solved. Okay. I know, I know. The general feeling at this time was that new Americans, the settlers or like the colonizers, the people not originally from this land, well, they were trying to move west to start new lives and take over the land for themselves. But the problem they were having was that there were people already living there for hundreds of years at that.

And they were saying like, hey, well, the people who were living there, they're like, hey, this is our land. How about not? Of course, not that casual, but hello. So remember Andrew Jackson, the basalt guy? Well, he called the whole situation, quote, the Indian problem, end quote. And he signed the Indian Removal Act, which forced lots of Native American tribes out of their homes and their land. And some of you may remember when we talked about this in that podcast,

Freaking horrifying story, the Trail of Tears. Remember that? Yeah, awful. The government had forced people to walk hundreds of miles across lakes and mountains to their, quote, new home that the government assigned to them, sent them to, forced them to go to this designated area. Some people will say they gave them this land. They were like, you can have it. Scraps. So this land was completely a barren area that wasn't very livable. So...

Thanks, you know? Sadly, thousands would die along this journey. And when they got to the new land, they literally had to rebuild from nothing. Awful. The Trail of Tears was meant to weaken the people, get them out of the way. The colonizers didn't care how it was done. It was just like out of sight, out of mind. Goodbye.

But not everyone had this hatred towards Native Americans. So there was this group of people who wanted to get rid of Native Americans. And then there was this other group that wanted to help them thrive in New America, but only if they played by their rules. This group was known as the, quote, friends of the Indian, end quote. Now this was actually a movement fueled by rhetoric, religion, and sympathetic rich people.

So, in other words, they had ulterior motives, but to their face. Like, they acted like they were friends, but just backstabbing Barbara strikes again. With this Friends of the Indian movement, the idea was not to erase the indigenous people physically, but it was essentially to erase their culture. The Friends of the Indians wanted to turn every native person into a, quote, "'respectable American' and fancy clothes with short hair who only speaks English."

So none of the Native people would be given a choice. It was join us or get the hell out of here. These quote unquote friends came up with a way that they could start grooming Native Americans to start acting the way they wanted them to.

The friends came up with an idea of starting a special school, which was actually really popular back then. And most Americans supported that idea instead of killing them. They're like, yeah, you know, just send to the school instead of killing them. That's great. That's nice.

The government partnered with missions and local churches to create schools inside Native American territory to teach children to replace their tribal practices. And I guess if you're a traditional Christian person from the 1800s, you think you're doing them a favor. And society believed that being Christian was the only way you could be a functioning member of American society. Eye roll. You know what? Religion and money seems to be the root of all evil, huh?

Great. Glad we figured it out. We solved the world's mysteries. Another thing these early schools did was introduce native kids to what colonizers called the habits and arts of civilization.

which is basically just a way of saying that indigenous people's behavior and art were not civilized. So in order to be civilized, they had to abandon their own languages and cultures. In other words, they wanted America to be on the same page and not have like a mumbo jumbo of different cultures and ideas. No, no, get in line.

I think this would be called whitewashing. Literally, it's whitewashing. Anyway, as you can imagine, there were mixed feelings about these schools in the Native community. Many Indigenous people were super suspicious of all of this, and they thought that they should never trust the government because they had good reason. The government had already spent the last hundred years or so backstabbing them, so why should they believe them now? You wouldn't, you know?

But some of the indigenous people were a little hopeful, like maybe it could be a good thing to just learn how to blend in a little bit because all the fighting was just getting everyone killed and it wasn't really solving anything. Plus a lot of them thought that by blending in, it could make it easier to negotiate with the colonizers. So you know that phrase, if you can't beat them, join them? It was like that kind of mentality for some people.

But honestly, it didn't really matter what anybody thought because the colonizers knew how effective it would be if they just erased the culture completely. Government and church officials would send police to native communities to make families send their kids to these schools. Now, this was usually accomplished with threats. So indigenous families would end up sending their kids voluntarily to

Not my sarcasm, voluntarily, because they didn't really have any other choice. And they hoped that maybe at least they could like get a good meal and learn how to maneuver this new society to help their family somehow. They had no idea what to expect from these schools, but they didn't really have much to say in the matter. Well, by the late 1800s, the school started to shift from being church run to being run by the government.

Which when those two things merge, I mean, nothing good can happen. They had big plans to make a whole bunch of these schools all over the country, but they wanted to start with one school and see how it went. You know, the little trial. Let's try it out and see what happens. And that, my friends, was called the Carlisle Industrial Indian School, which was in Pennsylvania.

Now, this is a school that would set the bar for every other residential school in the world. It's here that we start to see much more than just the erasing of culture. But first, let's pause for an ad break. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, multitasking.

While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. So the Carlisle Industrial Indian School, well, why was it made?

Who made it? Well, this douche canoe named Richard Henry Pratt. Now, Richie was born in 1840 in Rushford, New York. He was the oldest of three siblings and his father would leave when he was a kid to take part in the California gold rush, but he ended up getting robbed and murdered while searching for gold.

LOL. That left Richard to support his mom and two younger brothers, which is a lot of pressure for a young man, you know, just all of a sudden becoming the man of the household. He had to support his family. So he decided to join the military and fight in the Civil War for the Union.

And just a little refresher, the Union were against slavery. The Confederates were pro-slavery. So it sounds like he's kind of a good guy, but he's really not. He's a villain here. Boo. So during the Civil War, there were some Native Americans who fought for the Confederacy because the land they lived on was in the South. And they thought that if they fought alongside the South and won the war, they would be able to get some of their land back.

Well, as wars go on, sometimes people are captured during the battle. And our guy Richard was given the job of overseeing the Native American prisoners of war. At this time, he was considered to be pretty progressive in his views. Like he viewed Native Americans as equals who deserve the same rights as white people. Great, glad we agree here, but er.

Wrong. He thought Native Americans deserved rights only if they fit certain conditions, your rules. These conditions, you ask? Well, they had to act white and abandon their native culture. Richard's motto? Wait till you hear this. Kill the Indian, save the man. I think that's a little fucked up. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think that's a good quote, Richard. I might want to rethink that one.

So you can probably imagine this isn't going to go so well if this guy's in charge. Yeah, it doesn't. This is dark history. Welcome. Well, when he had some Native Americans in captivity, he would teach them English and show them Western style art.

And everyone thought these classes were such a huge success. It ended up becoming kind of a spectacle. Like people would travel from really far away to see these quote, civilized natives. Like it was a circus show of some sort.

So people were coming out to see what Richard was doing and two of those people were a couple of bigwig government types who saw the results of all this schooling and they thought like, hey, this method of erasing native culture is way more effective than any other method. They said, now this is their words, this is their words, they said, these government people,

It costs a million dollars to kill a native person in war, but it would only cost $1,200 to send them to school for eight years. We love a deal, huh? So they didn't care if they lived or died. They just wanted to do whatever saved them money. So Richard was able to get funding and was able to start an official boarding school. So in 1879, Richard opened up the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Before this, the church-run schools would be on the reservations where the kids would be a lot closer to their home. But Richard believed that the only way to fully change a person was to get them as far away from their homes as possible.

So his new school had a system in place where the kids would be taken away as young as possible and then not allowed to head home until they were older. Usually this wasn't until they were in their 20s. So think about that gap for a second. Families send their children, their little babies to the school. And then when their kid comes back, they're a full grown adult. And that's if they even come back at all, first of all.

There were 147 students in the first year, Richard, Rayan, Carlisle, and some were as young as six years old, but most of them were teenagers. And they didn't all come from the same tribe either. And they had been taken from their homes from all over the country. One of the most well-known students in this first class was a boy who would later be known as Luther Standing Bear.

But at this time, his name was Plentykill. Plentykill was raised in a traditional Lakota family and was only 11 years old when his family was forced by the United States government to Indian Territory. Now, one day, a group of white people that he later described as sweet talkers showed up and gave his family an offer they just couldn't refuse.

"Do you want your son to succeed in America? "You know, we have just the place for him "at the Carlisle Indian School." He just made it sound like it was lollipops and rainbows. And nobody in his family was feeling too great about this, but Plentykill's father really wanted him to succeed and left the choice up to him. He told his son that no matter what he did, Lakota men always make the bravest choice.

And that was when Plentykill realized that if he could be brave enough to succeed at school, he can come back home and help his family. So he went to the Carlisle Indian School. After a long train ride, Plentykill ended up at the school to start his first day. The second he entered the school, the staff immediately began cutting his hair, taking all of his clothes and his belongings and forcing him into clothes that looked like a Civil War uniform. This happened to all the other boys too.

All the girls were put into those old school Victorian style dresses and all of their long hair was cut off. And long hair has a lot of meaning to the indigenous people. And depending on what tribe you're talking about, it's different meanings. But what I'm getting at is that the hair had such a bigger meaning to the people and cutting it off, it's like a stab through the heart. We could talk about this forever, just hair alone, but we must carry on.

I'm only saying that because like they cut off their hair may not sound like a big deal, but like hair is very important. That's what I'm getting at. You get it. Thank you. The thought process behind this was if you can just physically remove all the things that make them feel comfortable as Native Americans, it'll be easier to break them down mentally. It's just one of the many ways they separated the kids from their culture so they could morph them into the people they wanted them to be. Tear them down and rebuild them how you want them to be.

Oh, ad break. BRB. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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Your cash back really adds up. Welcome back. From here, the teachers at the school would take the kids one by one to a classroom where there was like a bunch of names written on a board in English. Each student was given a pointer stick and told to choose the name they liked the best on the board. And if I'm being real, these were all really basic Americanized names. There were names like Hugh, Timothy,

John, Jacob, Jingleheimer, Smith, you know, just Bob, just mayonnaise names. And no shade if that's your name. I love that for you. But you get it. Plentykill was taken into this room and he was told he needed to pick a more dignified name. But there was just one big problem. He couldn't speak or read English. So he stared at the board and just pointed at a name he thought looked cool.

That one. And the coolest one was Luther. And because they were basically forcing these poor kids into becoming white, he decided to honor the name of his father and he chose the last name Standing Bear. So from this point on, he was now Luther Standing Bear.

This is the way it went for all the students who ended up at Carlyle. After they were forced to choose a new name and wear these American looking clothes, they were put into classes where they studied English and other subjects meant to make them good little kids. And after these classes, they would split the boys and girls up into job training.

But not like whatever job you were interested in. Of course not. They wanted to make sure they didn't get too educated, right? So they only trained them for low-earning jobs. They had the boys learn about things like farming and making shoes. And the girls would learn about cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

Fun. So they wanted to teach them traditional European gender roles. If any of the kids ever broke a rule, the discipline system was almost similar to the military. Boys and girls alike would all march single file to class and would have regular inspections under their beds to make sure they weren't hiding anything from their past lives. Like no photos or anything. Nope. Nothing. If you got caught, you had to do hard physical labor as punishment.

Those in charge viewed the kids as free labor when school was not in session. So during the summer, they would call it job training, but they would actually just be personal servants for different families or be forced to work in fields for local farmers. And to cover their asses, the school forced students to write letters to their families saying how much of a wonderful time they were having. "'I love my life. "'I am living, laughing, loving so hard.'"

Which is disturbing. Is this not Munchausen syndrome? What is it called? Munchausen syndrome? Is this not that? This is that. This is like sick ass abuse. Your abuser is making you write letters like, I'm doing amazing. But because of things like these letters, the government and the general public thought like things were going super great. So they started to fund more of these schools to open up around the country.

But unfortunately, it would turn out that Carlisle was mild compared to like some of these new schools. Some of these other schools would abuse and neglect their students to the point that they were dying on campus and they wouldn't even bother to inform the families. Yeah, it's about to take a really dark turn here. I mean, this is already dark, but we're going, taking a left into funky ass oopsie town.

So from this point on, it's kind of a montage of misery. See, now that everyone had the green light to snatch up Native American children from their homes and get paid by the government to run a school to train them essentially, now there were hundreds of schools popping up.

So instead of going into specifics like Carlisle, let me just tell you some of the stuff that would happen within multiple schools. Oh, we just jump right into it. There was a lot of physical and sexual abuse all around step one. Okay, real talk. Okay, like this was a common theme and it kind of pops up in everyone's experience when survivors share their stories. It's just crazy.

Awful. There was one school in Michigan called Holy Childhood. Holy Childhood. Holy, Holy Childhood. Okay? Now you think it would be holy and safe and sacred, but instead a survivor came out and talked about being able to hear other students getting beaten and raped at night. Now that should make you very upset.

Even if the abuse got reported, it almost never got investigated or punished. One student from the school said there was racism within racism, aka colorism. The kids who had lighter skin got better treatment. They got better clothes and they didn't get as abused as much. Emphasis on as much. They still got abused, but...

Allegedly, the darker skin you had, the worse you would be treated. At some schools, if you did something as simple as getting a math problem wrong, they would beat you and use your face to erase the chalkboard. I guess erasers weren't in the budget.

Another former student said that violence between students was also encouraged to the point where they would have something called whipping lines, where they would just line up the good students and they would use a whip to beat the bad ones. Holy shit. Holy childhood. Oh, it makes sense. Holy childhood. Yeah. Okay. I get it now. Oh, yeah. What the fuck?

How could you do this? How could these people go to work, do this, and be able to just go home and like go to bed? Like, I'm gonna sleep peacefully.

Like, what is wrong? Are people like, why? I got a lot of questions and honestly, not that many answers, okay? I'm just gonna list to you a bunch of bad shit. And there's like, all I wanna know is why. That's really it. Another problem with these schools is that medical care and food were also hard to come by. Many students later said sometimes all they would get for food was one sandwich per day. And that was only if you didn't misbehave.

If you did something wrong, they weren't going to give you any food.

You're gonna be punished by not eating. And if you were injured or sick, you just kind of like had a hope or pray it went away because they weren't gonna help you out with that. There was also a lot of disease outbreaks at these schools because of the terrible conditions. For example, in 1899, there was a measles outbreak at one of these places and so many kids got sick that there were nine deaths in a 10-day period. And when the kids died, the healthy ones died.

They put them to work and forced them to build a coffin. Well, the combination of no food, medical neglect, and abuse that students experienced would unfortunately lead to deaths for a lot of these children. When a child died, the parents would, they would sometimes only hear about it after they'd been buried in the school cemetery. And oftentimes the graves were, they weren't even marked. So they couldn't say goodbye. Also, how many schools do you know have their own cemetery graves?

Okay, I don't think they included that in their little brochure about the school. A total bonus, we have our own cemetery. Would you send your kid? No, you would not. You wouldn't. And since these graves were unmarked, they barely kept records of the deaths. So today we just have estimates based on records they did keep and the personal accounts from former students. But let's pause for an ad break really quick before, yeah, let's do that. BRB.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what.

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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

Oh.

- So eventually the truth about what is going on in these schools starts to get back to the indigenous tribes all over the country, right? And the government started to get some backlash and not everyone was gonna just give up their kids now that they actually knew what was happening. Parents started reaching out to their kids at school, writing them letters and encouraging them to run away, get away, just get out of there.

There was a group of Hopi people who just flat out refused to send their children to the schools. So the government then passed a law that said they were required to attend these schools and they could not resist. The government would withhold funds for the reservations and send police to their land to remove them by force if they didn't comply.

The Hopi people fought back and 19 of them were arrested and sent to prison. Now when they came back from prison,

They found that their kids were sent to the schools behind their backs. America wasn't the only country who was opening these awful schools. There are indigenous people in Canada known as First Nations, and these schools in Canada are the ones that made the news earlier this year in 2021. It may be hard to imagine, but some of these Canadian schools were even worse than the ones in the US. Fun fact, did you know that race car spelled backwards is race car?

Do it. It is. How does that work? You know, I don't know, but it does. Look, I just feel like a little break from all the darkness would be nice before we get into some more of the darkness. So here's another fun fact. You lose up to 30% of your taste buds during a flight. The more you know. Do, do, do, do. Okay, let's get back to the story. Look, you just need like little breaks from time to time to like break up the dark shit.

Yeah, it's good for you. In 1879, a Canadian man named Nicholas Davin went out and visited some of the boarding schools in the United States. And he was like, wow, I love what you did with the place. Wow. So this guy Nicholas would take the American system and bring it to Canada pretty much all on his own, which nobody asked him to.

The way everything went down in Canada kind of mirrors how it went down in the United States. One difference was that they didn't call them boarding schools. They called them residential schools because they live there. It's their residence. Residential school, you know, cool. And the other key difference was that attendance at these residential schools were required by law. Oh my God, by law.

It wasn't forced like in the United States, which is still bad. It was a straight up law. Canada had this law, the Indian Act, that said if you don't send your child to a residential school, you're going to go to prison. Much like the American system, though, these schools were rampant with stories of physical violence, forced removal from homes, sexual abuse, and basically any other form of trauma that exists. I mean, just...

Like, this is, I'm like scratching the surface. It's like real. All of it's real. Mm-mm. Mm-hmm. I did it. Students were given numbers in place of their names. Numbers. They erased their identity down to their freaking name.

Nuns and priests would hit students with large straps, small whips, beaver snare wire, boards, books, rulers, yardsticks, fists, and open hands. So basically whatever the hell was near them, point blank period. These people of God, hello, we are judging.

Sometimes students were locked away in the basement for hours as punishment. For food, they were forced fed porridge, spoiled fish, and rancid horse meat that made students real sick to the point of vomiting on their plates. But that's not all because some survivors said that they would then be forced to eat it. Yeah.

When like researching this story or telling it to you right now, it's easy to like distance yourself from it because it's like, oh, you just kind of like you're hearing it, but it's real. Like that's, this is it. And through it all, kids from these schools all over Canada were going missing.

and nobody in the Canadian government ever really cared to find them. Just like in the American schools, there are a lot of stories of medical neglect too. There are multiple reports from former students of kids dying. One guy said his brother got sick and he hadn't seen him for a while. And then finally a nurse told him like, hey, you should go see him soon because like he's probably on the outs. And she brought him to his bed at the nurse's office and he said he didn't even recognize him.

just so sick. The brother sadly shortly died after. There are so many awful, awful things that happen to these children. And I don't want to ruin anyone's day. I feel like I already did ruin your day by going into some graphic detail, but there's like so much more. But I will list provided links in the description box below.

There are a ton of first-hand survivor accounts if you are looking for more stories. But the staff of these residential schools were absolute monsters. Monsters.

Stars. This was built on the same foundation as the American schools. Break down their culture, treat them like animals until they start acting like true Americans or Canadians or whatever the hell that means. In 1926, back in the United States, over 80% of indigenous children had been sent to these schools.

80%, are you listening? 80%. There was a bunch of laws passed over the years that changed the way that government ran these schools and slowly more and more of them would start shutting down in favor of opening something called day schools on native reservations instead. They're basically the same thing as the Carlisle model, military stuff and all, except you got to go home at the end of the day.

Yay. You're supposed to be stoked, I guess. At least you get to go home. First, let's pause for an ad break. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. Progressive Insurance.

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It wasn't until 1975 that the US Congress passed an act that granted tribes the ability to take over any government programs that were put on them. With the responsibility came a complete cut of federal funding to the schools. So most of them ended up shutting down. Something similar happened in Canada and most schools were shutting down by the 1970s there too. But that is, oh, but if you do the math, 'cause 1970, 2021, that's like only 50 years ago.

You guys, 50 years ago. What's, do you know something that's over 50 years old? Ketchup. Ketchup's over 50 years old. Sorry, mom. It was over 50 years old. Grant, like, that's not that long ago. Disneyland is over 50 years old. Disneyland is over 50 years old.

That's fucked up. With the schools in Canada finally closing, more and more people started to speak up about what happened there. As a result, a group called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, was formed in 2008, and they started to do some investigating.

The schools did not do a good job of keeping track of what happened to its students since so many died or just went missing. So the TRC would interview former students to try and piece together what exactly happened. Over the years, the TRC would identify over 4,000 children who had died of disease or accidents at the school but had no documentation of their death.

The TRC requested the 1.5 million that it would take to fund the search for these children, but the government said, "Oh, that price tag is too high." Nope. So the TRC self-funded an investigation into Kamloops School where they would uncover 215 bodies in an unmarked grave. And now this just happened this past June, 2021.

June, 2021, 215 bodies in unmarked graves. And not even like just bodies, it was like all children. So this led to even more searches, which brought the estimated number of missing children up to 5,000 kids. This isn't even a final number either because they are still actively searching today. So this number is expected to just keep increasing. I know, isn't that just, what is this world?

What's the meaning of life anyone? Why are we here? Why are we doing this? What is this about? Why did this happen? Who allowed this? What the hell? More than likely this is also the case with the American schools. There is one called the Haskell Indian School that has 102 student graves with at least 500 other students whose graves are unaccounted for.

They were either buried in unmarked graves or their bodies were handed off to their families. But let's be real. They really didn't like transporting bodies. The schools are like, it's not in the budget. Yeah. Both the United States government and Canadian government have since recognized and apologized for the horrors of these schools. But that's pretty far from enough. Yeah. Look, look.

Sometimes you think they only apologize because they got caught, you know? That's how it feels a lot of the times. And it's like, whatever, sure, whatever. What are you gonna do about it?

They need to do something about it is what they really need to do. Anyways, I mentioned the TRC in Canada is doing good work finding the truths buried in these unmarked graves. In the United States, there has been an official investigation that's been launched into the Native American boarding schools to identify the locations of students' graves and finally giving families closure. A final report is supposed to be due in April of 2022. It feels like forever away.

Many native communities still feel the effects of this traumatic history. I mean, hello? Hi? Hi, yes. Hello? Hello?

Several say that there are full-blown native languages that died out because so many kids were forced to speak English and forget their native tongue. Survivors of these schools would struggle with PTSD throughout their whole life, and do you freaking blame them? No. And some experts say this is one of the reasons we see high levels of abuse in areas where there are a lot of survivors. But some survivors say that the worst part was self-hatred.

They were taught to hate their heritage, hate their skin color, and hate their own family. That can lead to feeling like, I don't know, maybe you don't belong anywhere, and then have this toxic snowball effect on your whole life.

I wish there was, like, a, I wish there was better conclusions to these stories. They're never satisfying, you know? Like, in 1904, Richard Pratt, I wish I could tell you, like, as graphic as this is, I'm sorry, Jesus, please forgive me. Like, I wish he was, like, burned at the stake. I wish I could say that, you know? Like, burned at the stake, and then we just took over, and, like, but not, anyways, I

1904, Richard Pratt retired from working at the school.

And I'm surprised he wasn't murdered, to be quite honest. And the school ended up closing down in 1918. Richard spent the rest of his life doubling down on two things that seemed pretty conflicting. The first is that he truly believed Native Americans deserved equal rights to other Americans. But then he also believed that all of their cultures and beliefs needed to disappear. Remember his motto, kill the Indian, save the man.

ended up becoming the entire point of the schools that Carlisle inspired. And as we now know, many of the schools he inspired took that saying literally, more literally than he did. Honestly, the legacy of Richard and Carlisle is pretty simple. He may have claimed to be an advocate for Native Americans, but he is directly responsible for cultural genocide felt by indigenous people all over the world.

I'm telling you, this is my therapy couch because we need to vent. We need to talk it out. We need to work this out because this is heavy, okay? And I only have so much time here on this little podcast situation. And again, this is just like a little fraction of what so many experienced. And what's more sad or embarrassing to admit was my dumb ass over here was thinking like, this happened a long time ago. A long time ago, like, right? We've resolved it since then. And it's like, nah.

Not so much. I mean, earlier this year, earlier this year, the conversation around these schools has been brought back to light because they found all those unmarked graves of children. And for me personally, I had no idea this was a thing. I mean, what the fuck? What the, like, I didn't know. Look, I know I'm not alone out there. And if I didn't know, maybe you didn't know. And now we know. So what do we do with this information?

Now we're asking the right questions. I'm not sure. I don't have any answers, okay? And I'm not here to act like I know what the hell we're supposed to do, right?

What I can do is list links in the description box where we can learn, we could further learn more and find ways to support in uncovering the truth and finding these missing children, these unmarked graves, uncovering everything, hold the government responsible. Look, unfortunately, again, this barely scratches the surface, but hey, look, history sucks,

Okay, our ancestors probably participated in some really terrible shit. Does that mean you're terrible shit? No, but if we be honest about history, then we can do better. So let's stop whitewashing everything and just be honest. America, you suck ass sometimes, okay? But we don't have to suck ass in the future. We can do and be better unless you like sucking ass.

I'm not very good at motivational speeches and I didn't know how to end this, honestly. Did I motivate you? Okay, let me close this dark-ass book that has nothing but bad news. Am I right? Damn book. Anyhow.

Well, everyone, thank you for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions or to try and get the whole story because we deserve that as people, do we not? Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to the story. So hop on over on social media and use the hashtag dark history so I can follow along to what you're saying.

You can also join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and also catch Murder, Mystery, and Makeup which drops on Mondays. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll talk to you guys next week.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacobs, Junya McNeely from 3Arts, Fanny Baudry, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA and my dog Saint.

Producer, Lexi Kiven, Daryl Christon, and Spencer Strassmore. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan. Writers, Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joey Scavuzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. A big thank you to our historical consultant, Dr. Winona Wheeler, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies, University of Saskatchewan.

And also, I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Don't forget to check out the links down below. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com.