[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


 H.R. 5444, ``TRUTH AND HEALING COMMISSION ON INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL 
                            POLICIES ACT''

=======================================================================

                          LEGISLATIVE HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

        SUBCOMMITTEE FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE UNITED STATES

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                         Thursday, May 12, 2022
                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-22
                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
       
           [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                                   or
          Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                          
                              ___________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
47-850 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2022                     
                     
                     
                     
                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                      RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
                JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, IL, Vice Chair
   GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
                  BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Ranking Member

Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Louie Gohmert, TX
Jim Costa, CA                        Doug Lamborn, CO
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Robert J. Wittman, VA
    CNMI                             Tom McClintock, CA
Jared Huffman, CA                    Garret Graves, LA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Jody B. Hice, GA
Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Joe Neguse, CO                       Daniel Webster, FL
Mike Levin, CA                       Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Katie Porter, CA                     Russ Fulcher, ID
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM           Pete Stauber, MN
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM             Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Jerry L. Carl, AL
Diana DeGette, CO                    Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Julia Brownley, CA                   Blake D. Moore, UT
Debbie Dingell, MI                   Yvette Herrell, NM
A. Donald McEachin, VA               Lauren Boebert, CO
Darren Soto, FL                      Jay Obernolte, CA
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU        Cliff Bentz, OR
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Vacancy
Ed Case, HI                          Vacancy
Betty McCollum, MN
Steve Cohen, TN
Paul Tonko, NY
Rashida Tlaib, MI
Lori Trahan, MA

                     David Watkins, Staff Director
                       Luis Urbina, Chief Counsel
               Vivian Moeglein, Republican Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                                 ------                                

        SUBCOMMITTEE FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE UNITED STATES

                   TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, NM, Chair
                JAY OBERNOLTE, CA, Acting Ranking Member

Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Darren Soto, FL                      Jerry L. Carl, AL
Betty McCollum, MN                   Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU        Lauren Boebert, CO
Ed Case, HI                          Cliff Bentz, OR
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Vacancy
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM             Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio

                                 ------                                

                                CONTENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Thursday, May 12, 2022...........................     1

Statement of Members:

    Davids, Hon. Sharice, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Kansas............................................     3
        Prepared statement of....................................     4
    Fernandez, Hon. Teresa Leger, a Representative in Congress 
      from the State of New Mexico...............................     2
        Prepared statement of....................................     2
    Obernolte, Hon. Jay, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of California........................................     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     7

Statement of Witnesses:

    Barnes, Hon. Ben, Chief, Shawnee Tribe, Miami, Oklahoma......    22
        Prepared statement of....................................    23
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    24
    Klein, Dr. Ramona, Boarding School Survivor, Turtle Mountain 
      Band of Chippewa Indians, Medina, North Dakota.............    18
        Prepared statement of....................................    20
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    21
    LaBelle, James, Sr., 1st Vice President and Boarding School 
      Survivor, National Native American Boarding School Healing 
      Coalition, Anchorage, Alaska...............................     8
        Prepared statement of....................................     9
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    12
    Parker, Deborah, Chief Executive Officer, National Native 
      American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Minneapolis, 
      Minnesota..................................................    26
        Prepared statement of....................................    27
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    30
    Pease, Dr. Janine, Founding President and Faculty Member, 
      Little Big Horn College, Crow Agency, Montana..............    32
        Prepared statement of....................................    34
    War Bonnet, Matthew, Boarding School Survivor, Rosebud Sioux 
      Tribe, Snohomish, Washington...............................    13
        Prepared statement of....................................    15
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    16

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    List of documents submitted for the record retained in the 
      Committee's official files.................................    50
                                     


 
 LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON H.R. 5444, TO ESTABLISH THE TRUTH AND HEALING 
COMMISSION ON INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES, AND 
 FOR OTHER PURPOSES, ``TRUTH AND HEALING COMMISSION ON INDIAN BOARDING 
                         SCHOOL POLICIES ACT''

                              ----------                              


                         Thursday, May 12, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives

        Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:03 p.m., via 
WebEx, the Honorable Teresa Leger Fernandez [Chairwoman of the 
Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Leger Fernandez, Gallego, Soto, 
McCollum, Case, Garcia; Obernolte, Rosendale, and Bentz.
    Also present: Representative Sharice Davids of Kansas.

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. The Subcommittee for Indigenous 
Peoples of the United States will now come to order. The 
Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on a single 
bill, but a very important piece of legislation. It is H.R. 
5444, the ``Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding 
School Polices Act,'' introduced by Representative Sharice 
Davids of Kansas.
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
hearings are limited to the Chair and the Ranking Minority 
Member or their designees. This will allow us to hear from our 
witnesses sooner and help Members keep to their schedules. 
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members' 
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they 
are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today, or the close of the 
hearing, whichever comes first. Hearing no objection, so 
ordered.
    Without objection, the Chair may also declare a recess 
subject to the call of the Chair. Hearing no objection, so 
ordered. And I want to note that we will be having votes later 
on so I might need to call that break, and I thank everybody 
for their patience.
    As described in the notice, statements, documents or 
motions must be submitted to the electronic repository at 
[email protected]. Members physically present should 
provide a hard copy for staff to distribute by e-mail.
    Please note that Members are responsible for their own 
microphones. As with our fully in-person meetings, Members can 
be muted by staff only to avoid inadvertent background noise.
    Finally, Members or witnesses experiencing technical 
problems should inform Committee staff immediately. I also ask 
unanimous consent that Representative Sharice Davids of Kansas 
have permission to sit on the dais and participate in the 
hearing. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    I will begin by recognizing myself for my opening 
statement.

     STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, A 
    REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Good afternoon. Today, we are 
dedicating our full hearing and attention to H.R. 5444, the 
``Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School 
Policies Act.'' This bill is imperative to recognize the 
atrocities of the Federal Government's Indian boarding school 
policies. It is critical to provide a voice to survivors, their 
family members, and Tribal Nations.
    It is necessary for us all to better understand this dark 
history so that we can grow and heal from it. Along with this 
bill, I am very proud of the work that my hermana, Secretary 
Deb Haaland, and the Department of the Interior are taking to 
begin to address this issue.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Leger Fernandez follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Representative 
                in Congress from the State of New Mexico
    Today, we have listened with tears in our eyes and purpose in our 
heart to tragic stories of the treatment of young Native American 
children, who were torn from their parents, torn from their culture, 
torn from their homelands, and forced into conditions that would be 
decried as torture today.
    The generations of young children who suffered this tortuous 
treatment had done nothing more than be borne to Native American 
families and tribal members.
    Congress played a role in this in 1819 when it passed the Indian 
Civilization Fund Act to appropriate funds to church-run schools to 
`civilize' American Indian and Alaska Native children. By 1925, 60,889 
American Indian and Alaska Native children were forcibly taken to 
Indian boarding schools.
    Our own country allowed children to die in federally funded 
schools. At least 53 burial sites for Indigenous children in marked and 
unmarked graves exist across this country.
    Yesterday, the Department of the Interior released a report that 
confirmed that the United States directly used Federal Indian boarding 
schools as a system to dispossess tribes: 76 schools were in present-
day Oklahoma, 47 in Arizona, and 43 in my own state of New Mexico. The 
Report further calls for an investigation on the legacy impacts of 
Federal Indian boarding schools.
    It is undeniable that these events have led to intergenerational 
trauma. American Indian and Alaska Native children experience post-
traumatic stress disorder rates at the same rate as veterans returning 
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course they do, they suffered this harm 
as young children, torn from their families.
    H.R. 5444 will establish a much-needed Commission to formally 
investigate and document the stories of survivors and human rights 
violations that occurred against American Indian, Alaska Natives, and 
Native Hawaiians.
    This bill also includes a nationwide hotline service for survivors, 
family members and other community members. H.R. 5444 will focus on the 
historical and intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities.
    Again, I want to thank the witnesses, especially the survivors here 
today, for sharing their deeply powerful and personal experiences.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. With that, I will turn over the 
remainder of my time for the opening statement to 
Representative Sharice Davids, who is the sponsor of this 
legislation and an incredible leader on this issue as one of 
the first Native American women in Congress. Representative 
Davids.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHARICE DAVIDS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KANSAS

    Ms. Davids. Thank you, Chairwoman Leger Fernandez, and also 
to Ranking Member Westerman for holding this hearing today. I 
appreciate the opportunity to provide brief remarks in support 
of my bill, H.R. 5444, the ``Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies Act.''
    I am a proud member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. My 
mom is Crystal Herriage. My grandparents are Ruth Stacy and 
Lawrence Little George who were both survivors of boarding 
schools. I am also honored to be one of the first two Native 
American women ever elected to Congress. I would not be here 
today were it not for the resilience of my ancestors and those 
who came before me.
    The policies and assimilation practices of the United 
States had the sole purpose of culturally assimilating American 
Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian children in 
residential boarding schools across the country. Children were 
coerced and compelled to attend boarding schools away from 
their homes. Many children did not return to their families or 
their communities. Those that did return lost generations' 
worth of cultural knowledge, stories, and traditions, and 
communities lost their language keepers, cultural 
practitioners, and future leaders.
    As a Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus, 
I work with other Native members and our colleagues to ensure 
that the needs of Tribal Nations and communities are 
prioritized and that our voices are included in discussions 
when developing legislation.
    That is why I worked with Native American Caucus Co-Chair 
Tom Cole to introduce H.R. 5444 and worked across the aisle to 
gather bipartisan support.
    This legislation will establish a formal commission in the 
United States to investigate and document the attempted 
termination of cultures and languages of Indigenous Peoples and 
assimilation practices that occurred against Native people 
through U.S. Indian boarding school policies.
    This investigation will be documented through culturally 
respectful and meaningful public hearings, and the Commission 
will receive guidance from a Truth and Healing Advisory Board 
to develop recommendations for the Federal Government in a 
final report due no later than 5 years after enactment.
    This legislation builds on the important work being done at 
the Department of the Interior. We saw yesterday, in Volume 1 
of their Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 
Investigative Report, that the separation of Native children 
and families in the name of civilized assimilation caused 
significant impacts. This bill does not duplicate the efforts 
of the Department of the Interior, but rather expands and 
continues to acknowledge that legacy with the help of 
survivors, tribal leaders, policy experts, and communities that 
can help guide this process.
    And I am sure you will learn more from our witnesses today 
about how the impacts of boarding school policies have touched 
all Native peoples both past and present. And I would like to 
acknowledge how painful and uncomfortable these and future 
conversations are going to be. I honor and thank the witnesses 
and survivors who are here today who are brave enough to inform 
my colleagues about the impacts that boarding school policies 
have had on their lives and their communities.
    There were 14 Federal Indian boarding schools in Kansas. 
One sits in the Kansas 3rd District and is the Shawnee Indian 
Manual Labor School located in Fairway, Kansas. It is now 
preserved as the Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site. 
According to the Kansas State Historical Society, it operated 
from 1838 to 1862, and at one time had nearly 200 children 
there. And in Lawrence, Kansas, Haskell Indian Industrial 
Training School was one of the largest early boarding schools 
in the country.
    While I was fortunate to attend what is now Haskell Indian 
Nations University, there still resides a history that must not 
be forgotten. The campus includes known gravesites of over 100 
Native children who died at the school when it was implementing 
its assimilationist practices.
    This Commission will build off Secretary Haaland's Federal 
Indian Boarding School Initiative by collecting documents and 
testimony outside the Federal boarding school system. The 
Department of the Interior's efforts, along with the bipartisan 
support of this bill, shows that the branches of the Federal 
Government are ready to work toward fully acknowledging its 
contribution to this history.
    As Federal partners, we owe the Native children and lost 
relatives the time and resources to investigate and fully 
understand how we got here. Establishing a Truth and Healing 
Commission will bring survivors, experts, Federal partners, and 
tribal leaders to the table to continue this investigation and 
develop a culturally respectful healing process.
    If Native children were able to endure and survive the 
Indian Boarding School Era in our nation, we should be able to 
find it in ourselves to fully investigate what happened to our 
relatives and work toward a brighter path for the next seven 
generations.
    Thank you again to Chairwoman Leger Fernandez and Ranking 
Member Westerman for calling this hearing today. I am looking 
forward to working with the Subcommittee and with my 
colleagues. I yield back.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Davids follows:]
 Prepared Statement of the Hon. Sharice L. Davids, a Representative in 
                   Congress from the State of Kansas
    Thank you, Chairwoman Leger Fernandez and Ranking Member Obernolte, 
for holding this hearing today. I appreciate the opportunity to provide 
brief remarks in support of my bill, H.R. 5444, the Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2021.
    I'm a proud member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. My mother 
is Crystal Herriage, my grandparents are Ruth Stacy and Lawrence Little 
George, who are both survivors of Indian Boarding Schools. I'm also 
honored to be one of the first two Native American women ever elected 
to Congress. I would not be here today without the resilience of my 
ancestors and those that came before me.
    The policies and assimilation practices of the United States had 
the sole purpose of culturally assimilating American Indian, Alaska 
Native, and Native Hawaiian children at residential boarding schools 
across the country. Children were coerced and many times compelled to 
attend boarding schools away from their home. Many children did not 
return to their families or their communities. Those that did return 
lost generations' worth of cultural knowledge, stories, and traditions; 
and communities lost their language keepers, cultural practitioners, 
and future leaders.
    As Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus, I work 
with the other Native members and our colleagues to ensure that the 
needs of Tribal Nations and communities are prioritized, and our voices 
are included in discussions when developing legislation. That is why I 
worked with Native American Caucus Co-Chair Tom Cole to introduce H.R. 
5444 and worked across the aisle to gather bipartisan support.
    This legislation will establish a formal commission in the United 
States to investigate and document the attempted termination of 
cultures and languages of Indigenous peoples and assimilation practices 
that occurred against Native people through U.S. Indian boarding school 
policies.
    This investigation will be documented through culturally respectful 
and meaningful public hearings and the Commission will receive guidance 
from a Truth and Healing Advisory Board to develop recommendations for 
the Federal Government in a final report due no later than 5 years 
after enactment.
    This legislation builds on the important work being conducted at 
the Department of Interior. We saw yesterday in Vol. I of their Federal 
Boarding School Initiative Report that the separation of Native 
children and families in the name of civilized assimilation caused 
significant impacts.\1\ This bill does not duplicate the efforts of the 
Department of Interior but rather expands and continues to acknowledge 
that legacy with the help of survivors, tribal leaders, policy experts, 
and communities that can help guide this process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/inline-files/
bsi_investigative_report_may_2022_ 508.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As I am sure you will learn from our witnesses today, the impacts 
of Boarding School Policies have touched all Native peoples both past 
and present. I would like to acknowledge how painful or uncomfortable 
these and future conversations will be. I honor and thank the witnesses 
and survivors today who are brave enough to inform my colleagues about 
the impacts Boarding School Policies had on their lives and 
communities.
    There were 14 Federal Indian boarding schools in 
Kansas.\2\,\3\ One that resides in the Kansas Third District 
is the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. Located in Fairway, Kansas, 
it is now preserved as the Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site. 
According to the Kansas State Historical Society, the school operated 
from 1838 to 1862 and at its largest enrolled nearly 200 children.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/inline-files/
appendix_c_school_maps_508.pdf.
    \3\ https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/inline-files/
appendix_a_b_school_listing_profiles_ 508.pdf.
    \4\ https://www.kshs.org/p/indian-mission-schools-collection-1837-
1879/13767.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In Lawrence Kansas, Haskell Indian Industrial Training School was 
one of the largest early boarding schools in the country. While I was 
fortunate to attend what is now Haskell Indian Nations University, 
there still resides a history that must not be forgotten. The campus 
includes known gravesites of over 100 Native children who died at the 
school when it was implementing assimilationist practices.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article38114166.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This Commission would build off Secretary Haaland's Federal 
Boarding School Initiative by collecting documents and testimony 
outside the Federal boarding school system. The Department of 
Interior's efforts along with the bipartisan support of this bill shows 
that the branches of the Federal Government are ready to work towards 
fully acknowledging its contribution to this history.
    As Federal partners, we owe Native children and lost relatives the 
time and resources to investigate and fully understand how we got here. 
Establishing a Truth and Healing Commission will bring survivors, 
experts, Federal partners, and tribal leaders to the table to continue 
this investigation and develop a culturally respectful healing process.
    If Native children were able to endure and survive the Indian 
Boarding School era in our Nation, then we should be able to find it in 
ourselves to fully investigate what happened to our relatives and work 
toward a brighter path for the next seven generations.
    I'd like to thank Chairwoman Leger Fernandez and Ranking Member 
Obernolte once again for calling this legislative hearing today and I 
look forward to working with the Subcommittee in advancing this 
important legislation.
    Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Representative Davids. This 
will be, I believe, a very powerful hearing that we hear today 
from all witnesses.
    I would now like to recognize Acting Ranking Member 
Obernolte for his opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAY OBERNOLTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to you 
and to the author for bringing this bill forward and for 
convening this hearing on a very important topic.
    The events that catalyze the need for a hearing like this 
are nothing short of horrific. And I think if you look at the 
report that was just issued yesterday by the Department of the 
Interior, it seems very clear that the harm that was done to 
Native American tribes was unfortunately inflicted deliberately 
with the goal of not only forcing cultural assimilation but 
also of achieving territorial dispossession.
    So, I expect that we are going to hear some horrifying 
things in this hearing, and rightfully so. And I also really 
like the title of this bill because I think this is what we are 
all after, the Truth and Healing Commission. We need to achieve 
both of those things to not only right the wrongs of the past, 
but to try to achieve some kind of healing so that we can 
emerge together as one society, which I think is the goal of 
everyone in this room.
    I would like to add some respectful suggestions both to the 
author and to the Chair, because I would like to see this 
legislation be bipartisan, and I think it deserves to be.
    One of the things that I hope we are going to have a 
discussion about today is whether or not this Commission should 
have subpoena authority. As I am sure most in the room are 
aware, it is not the norm for a commission like this to have 
subpoena authority. In fact, there are standing committees here 
in the House of Representatives that don't even have subpoena 
authority. I understand the goal of having subpoena authority--
I mean when we are the Truth and Healing Commission. However, I 
would like everyone to think about the fact that assuming that 
this is going to be an adversarial relationship with the people 
that testify before the Commission, it might be doing a 
disservice to the goals of the Commission.
    Subpoena authority, while it might serve the goal of truth, 
might be adversarial to the goal of healing. And I think that 
we should have that discussion because I am not sure that that 
serves the purpose of the Commission.
    I also think we need to be very clear about the taxpayer 
resources that are being expended here, and appropriately so. I 
think we need to have a discussion about whether or not service 
on the Commission should be compensated. As the bill is written 
right now, it is compensated at level IV of the executive 
schedule, which is almost $200,000 a year. I would hope that it 
would be more of a community service role. I think we should 
have that discussion.
    And I also think we need to talk about the total cost of 
the bill. I am not opposed to investing substantial taxpayer 
resources in this Commission, but I think we need to be 
explicit about what those resources are.
    And right now, at the end of the bill, it merely says that 
the necessary resources, such sums as may be necessary, or made 
available until expended. So, I think we need to quantify 
exactly what those sums are and write it in the bill so that 
everyone is clear on that, so that it would withstand 
challenges in the future.
    So, those are just a couple of respectful suggestions, 
Madam Chair, but I am very much looking forward to the 
testimony today. It is a very difficult topic for all of us, 
but I am very supportive of the goal of achieving both truth 
and healing here and looking forward to our time together. I 
yield back.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Obernolte follows:]
   Prepared Statement of the Hon. Jay Obernolte, a Representative in 
                 Congress from the State of California
    Today, we are considering H.R. 5444, the Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.
    The bill would establish a 10-member Commission----To document, 
investigate, and provide recommendations on actions the Federal 
Government can take to address Indian boarding school policies.
    Provisions regarding Indian education date back to the some of the 
earliest treaties and statutes after the formation of the United 
States.
    In 1819, the Federal Government began funding the education of 
Indian children as a way to accelerate the assimilation of Indian 
people.
    Over the next 150 years, it is estimated that more than 300 Indian 
boarding schools were established across the country, both on and off 
Indian reservations.
    During this time, many Indian children were taken from their 
communities, forced into western education, forced to forget their 
culture, all while living less than subpar conditions.
    There has been little question that Indian boarding school policies 
during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century impacted 
American Indian families.
    Assimilation policies today are viewed as a failure in Federal 
policy.
    This hearing will be an opportunity to discuss whether the 
establishment of a commission is the correct solution.
    From a good government perspective, I do have some concerns about 
the authorization of ``such sums'' to carry out this Act and the 
precedent of granting subpoena power to a commission.
    Congress should exercise great care in the consideration of these 
authorizations.
    Further, this Committee last authorized the Alyce Spotted Bear and 
Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children in 2016 and Congress has 
yet to receive its report.
    Some of the challenges that commission has experienced should be 
weighed as we consider the creation of another.
    I would also be remiss if I didn't make a comment regarding Indian 
Education in the modern era.
    The Bureau of Indian Education at the Department of Interior 
provides education support to more than 30,000 students in 23 states 
through its 183 elementary and secondary schools located on or near 
Indian reservations.
    The BIE also oversees Indian boarding schools that are still in 
operation today.
    Countless reports in recent years from the Government 
Accountability Office detail that much work remains to be done to 
improve Bureau of Indian Education schools.
    In hearings over the past several Congresses, witnesses described 
the deplorable conditions Indian children today endure and blamed a 
bungling Federal bureaucracy for failing to provide a safe and healthy 
place for these students to learn.
    This body should be spending more time ensuring that the current 
Indian education system is functioning in the best interests of native 
children and discussing whether there are better solutions that haven't 
been considered.
    It will be critical we work with the Education and Labor Committee, 
which has primary legislative jurisdiction over Indian education 
policy.
    While I do appreciate the Majority working to receive some 
statements from the Administration for the hearing record on a few of 
the legislative proposals before the Committee this session,
    I am disappointed that DOI wasn't invited to testify today as the 
Administration established a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 
in 2021 and released Volume 1 of their report yesterday.
    The Administration's views would certainly be valuable here today, 
to ensure that this bill is not duplicative of current efforts already 
underway.
    I sincerely hope we can invite the Administration to future 
hearings before this Subcommittee.
    Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Representative Obernolte. 
Now, I will transition to our panel of witnesses for today. 
Before introducing them, I will remind our witnesses that they 
are encouraged to participate in a witness diversity survey 
created by the Congressional Office of Diversity and Inclusion. 
Witnesses may refer to their hearing invitation materials for 
further information.
    Under our Committee Rules, oral statements are limited to 5 
minutes, but you may submit a longer statement for the record 
if you choose. And I would simply note that we have received 
your statements, and we have read them. Thank you for the 
witness statements that you have already sent us.
    When you begin, the onscreen timer will begin counting 
down, and it will turn orange when you have 1 minute remaining. 
I recommend that Members and witnesses joining remotely lock 
the timer on their screen. When you go over the allotted time, 
I will tap my gavel and kindly ask you to please wrap up your 
statement.
    After your testimony is complete, please remember to mute 
yourself to avoid any inadvertent background noise. I will 
allow the entire panel to testify before we begin the question 
portion of the witnesses.
    Now, as we have noted, we are asking for testimony from 
survivors and those who have firsthand knowledge of a very 
difficult and dark period of our history. Before I introduce 
our first witness, I want to advise Members, viewers, and 
listeners that some of the testimony we are about to hear today 
may be graphic and disturbing. We are simply noting that so 
that everyone tuning in and listening will be aware of such a 
possibility.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. James Labelle, Sr. who is the 
1st Vice President of the National Native American Boarding 
School Healing Coalition, and a boarding school survivor. Mr. 
James LaBelle, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

    STATEMENT OF JAMES LABELLE, SR., 1ST VICE PRESIDENT AND 
  BOARDING SCHOOL SURVIVOR, NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN BOARDING 
          SCHOOL HEALING COALITION, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

    Mr. LaBelle, Sr. Thank you. My name is James William 
LaBelle, Sr. In my culture, I am also known as Aqpayuq which 
means Fast Runner. I was named after an uncle who had passed 
away, and it is a tradition in our culture to be named after 
someone who came before us.
    I am a product of a mixed marriage. My father was French 
and Irish, and my mother was Eskimo or otherwise known as 
Inupiaq as we say. She came from a little village called 
Kotzebue above the Arctic Circle on the Bering Sea coast. I was 
born in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1947, and I just turned 75 years 
old a few weeks ago.
    I come to you as a very assimilated and acculturated man. 
When I first went to boarding school, I believed I was truly 
bilingual. I could speak Inupiaq and I could speak English, but 
I quickly suppressed my wishes to speak Inupiaq because of the 
horrors I saw and witnessed when other children were severely 
beaten for speaking their language.
    I am also a Vietnam Era Veteran. I have a younger brother 
who was killed in Vietnam. I am married for 52 years. I have 
three children and seven grandchildren. I am part of the Port 
Graham Village Tribe and a shareholder in one of our ANCSA 
Corporations called Chugach Alaska.
    I have been waiting 67 years to tell this story. While I 
might have received an education, or a white man's education, 
in the process, I lost my own language, my own culture, and my 
traditions. And today, I cannot speak my language, nor could I 
conduct all of those wonderful traditional activities we call 
subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering.
    I guess I would like to give you an idea of how I got 
started. When my father died, my mother was immediately asked 
to give us up to adoption or to boarding school, and she chose 
to give us up to boarding school. In 1955, I went to Wrangell 
Institute for the first 6 years that I was there and witnessed 
so many atrocities it almost became normal or normalized.
    At the Fairbanks airport, we were given name tags, and we 
were set on our way to all of our flights. It was terrifying 
for many because transportation in the mid-1950s was not what 
we know today. I met other children that were tethered together 
with ropes, and I was tied together with ropes to the other 
children. It took almost 2 days to get to Wrangell, the 
institute I was at.
    While there, we were stripped naked at the boys' dorm and 
had our hair shorn to where we were bald. All of our clothes 
were confiscated. We were standing naked among other children 
who were foreign to each other, put into showers that was 
strange to us. We were given numbers for names and many 
children had difficult names and were oftentimes only referred 
to by their number.
    Every step of the way, there were punishments for speaking 
our language, either in the dormitories, or in the classroom, 
or in the mess hall.
    Boys and girls were both equally sexually, physically, 
psychologically, and spiritually abused. And I have many, many 
witnesses to those atrocities.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. LaBelle, Sr. follows:]
   Prepared Statement of James ``Jim'' LaBelle Sr., Boarding School 
                                Survivor
    My name is Jim Labelle Sr., in my Inupiaq language my name is 
Aqpayuq or ``Fast Runner.'' My family originated in Kotzebue, Alaska, 
and I was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. I am a member of the 
Native Village of Port Graham and a shareholder in the Chugach Alaska 
Corporation. I am a Vietnam veteran of the United States Navy and have 
been married for 50 years to my wife Susan. We have three children and 
seven grandchildren.
    I have been waiting to tell this story for my entire life. I come 
to you as an assimilated man, as an acculturated man. While I received 
an education and met all of the economic standards of your culture, I 
lost my family. I cannot speak my language. I cannot do the traditional 
fishing and gathering I learned as a child.
    I was born to a white father and an Inupiaq mother. My mother's 
people came from above the Artic Circle on the Bering Sea. My parents 
met in Nome, Alaska, and were married in Fairbanks where I was born. 
Before I went to school, I was bilingual and spoke both Inupiaq and 
English. My dad died at the very young age of 41 from cancer when I was 
6 years old. My mother sent us to boarding school, thinking that we 
would at least be together in the summertime. That plan did work out 
for a few years, but one year I was met by strangers at the airport who 
said they would be our foster parents for the summer. I became an 
unpaid worker on a Fairbanks farm called Cramer's Dairy where I was 
basically an indentured servant to that farm. I have recently come to 
learn that this was an ``outing'' program which was a common practice 
for the government to send out boarding school students as unpaid 
laborers during the summer months.
    I was a product of two BIA Boarding Schools from 1955-1965. The 
first six years I was at the Wrangell Institute in Wrangell, Alaska. I 
later went to Mt. Edgecumbe in Sitka, Alaska. We were sent to Wrangell 
by plane when they first took me to the airport, I was looked on with a 
roster, and they saw my name and immediately tied me together with 
other children with pieces of rope. They fixed a yellow name tag to our 
clothing and on that yellow name tag was our name, our destination, and 
our flight information. Speaking English was a commodity. I could see 
fright in the faces of children who did not speak English. Some 
children would curl themselves up in a ball and close their eyes and 
rock back and forth, others would close their eyes and try to blink you 
out like toddlers do, not wanting to believe they were there. Most of 
us had never ridden on airplanes before, only increasing the terror.
    In Anchorage, we were met with even more children coming from all 
over. It was like an annual migration, every fall there would be these 
hordes of Native children coming from all over Alaska into hubs like 
Fairbanks, Juno, and Anchorage. At Juno, we were placed on PBY planes 
which are amphibious. We took off from the water which, again, added to 
the terror. The entire trip was over a two-day ordeal.
    When we arrived at Wrangell, we were bused to the Institute and the 
tempo began to change. There was an angry urgency in the Matron's 
voices. The school, like other government institutions, had massive 
signs that said, ``United States Property, keep out.'' It was very 
imposing. We were taken into an open area and divided by gender. We 
were stripped totally naked, our hair was cut, and we were marched to 
the shower. Many of my classmates had never seen running water before 
and were frightened by the showers. One boy was hesitant to scrub his 
body, so a Matron scrubbed his skin until he bled. It sent a message to 
the rest of us. That first night in our barracks, and for many nights 
after, we called out for our mothers and cried ourselves to sleep.
    Each of us was given a two-digit number marked on our government 
issued clothing which corresponded with our names. If you forgot your 
number, you were spanked. Many children had difficult names to begin 
with, so matrons found it easier to simply refer to them by number. The 
children who could not speak English did not know how to follow the 
rules and every time they opened their mouths they spoke in their own 
language. They were constantly beat. Those who spoke their language 
were placed on a high stool and given dunce caps. We unwittingly became 
part of the process of helping our classmates assimilate.
    We were used to eating traditional foods such as moose, caribou, 
salmon, reindeer, berries, and grains. Now we were forced to eat 
industrial foods in one-pound cans. We had severe stomach issues, 
diarrhea, vomiting, sometimes all at once. We soiled our pants and 
beds, and the Matrons would force us to clean our own mess. For those 
that were deemed uncompliant for speaking their own language, they had 
to ``run the gauntlet.'' It became a spectator sport. Little five and 
six year old's had to disrobe in front of other children who were 
ordered to hit those running the gauntlet with belts, and as hard as 
they could, otherwise they were next. When I was forced to run down the 
line, it was never a single run, it was often two or three times.
    The most violent thing that will forever be sealed in my memory is, 
when I was ten years old, I was punished for horseplaying with a friend 
by a Matron. He forced us into the open shower unclothed and naked as 
he shielded the open door with his body. He reached in the back and 
pulled out a firehose. He turned a firehose on me and my friend. The 
firehose came from a water reservoir on the mountain top above the 
school which was always caked with ice and snow. I can still remember 
the incredible pain and shock of not being able to breathe from the 
force of the firehose. My friend had an ear infection and icy water was 
getting into his infected ear. He screamed louder than I did.
    I witnessed the same matron punch out another friend of mine so 
hard that he splayed my friend's cheek open all the way up to his ear 
and half of his face fell open. He was immediately unconscious and came 
back from the hospital with his mouth wired shut. He could only drink 
through the straw. This violence became a daily reminder of the 
Matron's enjoyment for inflicting pain on children. Today, we call them 
sadists.
    There was also sexual abuse. These schools were magnets for 
pedophiles. At lights out, Matrons would start molesting the youngest 
children in the lower bunks and bathrooms. There were two or three 
Matrons on duty, and we were an open field of candidates they could 
abuse at their whim. As these children reached their early teens, many 
of them began molesting the younger children as well. So began the 
cycle of sexual violence in the school. In the girl's dorm, I can still 
remember girls going home as young as 11 years old and they were 
pregnant. One girl told me that she was a favorite of an administrator, 
and he would call her down from class and molest her every single day 
in his office. She admitted to me that she cut herself to relieve the 
pain and had maybe more than one personality. She passed away a few 
years ago now, and I think she is in a better place.

    On our first summer returning home, my younger brother Kermit and I 
were eager to see our family again. Yet, because of how long we had 
been away, he asked, ``I wonder if our mother will remember us?'' 
During our ten years in boarding school, we indeed became estranged 
from our mother. We lost our ability to speak our language and do our 
traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering. At the end of 10 years, I 
did not know who I was as a Native person. I didn't know who I was 
because they never told us who we were. I learned American history, 
world history, math, science, and English, but never who I was as an 
Inupiaq person. I did not know what it was like to have a father figure 
or mother figure.

    When I had children, I did not have the toolset that could make a 
parent. That lasted from when my children were 8 to 18, the years I was 
at boarding school. I could only relate to them when they were younger 
and when they became adults. I passed down to my children their own 
inabilities to speak their language or know their traditions as well. 
Some of them have children, and now that I am a grandparent, I can see 
some of my own grandchildren also not having any idea how to speak 
their traditional language.

    Everything I have described happened to thousands and thousands of 
Alaskan children for generations. You have generations of children each 
experiencing the same kind of thing at boarding schools. It wasn't just 
BIA schools, there were also many Mission schools. Almost every 
denomination in Alaska had a boarding school, whether it be 
Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, even 
Baptists. At Wrangell every fall the school would have the local 
churches come out to the school and we were divvied up to a 
denomination. My mother was a Quaker, but there were no Quakers who 
came to Wrangell. My brother and I were arbitrarily assigned to the 
Southern Baptist church, were we had religious instruction every 
Wednesday night and every Sunday morning for six years. These were 
federal schools, but yet they had an open-door policy with the local 
churches. Many times, I was told my mother was a product of the devil 
because she could speak her language and practice her traditions. I 
became ashamed of her, and never had the chance to apologize to her for 
that.

    I have experienced large chunks of missing time in my memory, and 
many of my classmates became street people or alcoholics and committed 
horrible crimes they were incarcerated for. Some committed suicide. I 
have experienced many adverse health effects for my entire life because 
of poor nutrition and lack of proper healthcare at boarding schools. I 
have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, type II diabetes, 
thyroid illness, shingles, and cataracts. It took many years of 
learning and therapy to undo the things at boarding school which I 
thought were normal.
    This history has been forgotten and washed away. This Congress must 
confront our stories and the painful history of boarding schools.

    Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 
        Questions Submitted for the Record to James LaBelle, Sr.
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. For how long have you shared your story?

    Answer. I first began sharing my boarding school stories in 1969 
with my wife Susan (Tabios) LaBelle. Susan also attended Wrangell 
Institute and Mt. Edgecumbe. As our family grew, I began sharing some 
stories with my sons Kermit, James, Jr. and daughter Maleah beginning 
in their adolescents.
    In the mid to late 1990s I sat on the Alaska Federation of Natives 
(AFN) Sobriety Committee (later renamed Wellness Committee). It was 
toward the late 1990s that AFN was successful in obtaining some $30 
Million dollars from Congress in order that Indigenous people in 229 
Alaska villages' could address alcohol problems in their communities. A 
small portion of money was used was used to hold a statewide conference 
to kick off the entire program. The conference was attended by over 200 
people from across the state.
    Collectively, conference participants began rousing discussions as 
to what were some of the underlying reasons for such maladies caused by 
alcohol abuse. The overarching reason was attributed to Historical 
Trauma (HT). The consensus of HT was Boarding School. A local reporter 
attempted to interview me at the close of the conference, but the 
interview was cut short as I could not answer her questions. All the 
memories of accumulated abuses that I experienced at Wrangell Institute 
(1955 to 1961), came flooding back. I choked, I could barely breathe, 
and unexpected tears came. I had never told my story outside of my 
family before. Clearly, I needed help.
    I began seeking counseling and therapy at the urging of my wife. I 
was becoming abusive to my family and others around me. Taking her 
advice I began sharing my boarding school stories in `Talking' and 
`Healing Circles' and a faith-based program called ``Beauty for 
Ashes,'' There, we shared many traumatic childhood experiences. In that 
setting I shared my stories of boarding school--including being 
physically, mentally, spiritually and sexually abused. I was beginning 
to learn where my anger at the world was coming from.

    Question 2. Are there characteristics or patterns you see in your 
grandchildren because of your boarding school experience?

    Answer. Yes. I entered boarding school as an eight-year-old 
bilingual speaker of both English and Inupiaq. After 10 years in two 
BIA boarding schools, I could no longer speak Inupiaq. I consciously 
suppressed speaking that language because I did not want to get 
punished like the many other children I witnessed get beaten and 
shamed. When my own children were born I did not nor could not speak 
Inupiaq to them. Nor did I encourage them to speak my language either. 
Upon deep reflection, maybe erroneously, I thought my kids would suffer 
the indignities by speaking Inupiaq. Now of course my adult children 
have passed down the same pattern of being English speakers to their 
own children, my 5 grandchildren.

         Questions Submitted by Representative Leger Fernandez
    Question 1. How should we get churches to acknowledge their role in 
forming and implementing boarding schools for American Indian and 
Alaska Native children?

    Answer. Some churches have made apology to various Indigenous 
people across the country for the role they played in acculturating and 
assimilating Indigenous children. That was a first good step. The next 
step is for those churches to take active ownership going forward. By 
that I mean that apology should then come with an agreement to respond 
to questions asked from your committee also to freely sharing their 
boarding school records. Those records should include contracts made 
with applicable federal agencies and any subsequent subcontracts made 
with third parties: roster(s) of children--their names, tribal 
affiliations, times of attendance by year(s), classes attended each 
year, whether they were part of an `Outing Program,' whether they 
received any medical examinations and any records of items brought with 
them to the school. What was the disposition of those items? I would 
ask the churches to provide a list of any student(s) who died while in 
their custody. They should volunteer questions to burial; whether they 
were buried on campus grounds or in a nearby community cemeteries.
    Many religious denominations had national, if not regional 
headquarters across the country. All churches who had contracts with 
the Federal Government should provide church names, their contact 
addresses and roster of their staff by name and position should be 
provided.

    Question 2. What does it mean to you when religious institutions 
continue to withhold records from this era?

    Answer. They may be hiding a shameful past. Like our Federal 
Government churches are good at record keeping; especially if it means 
the possibility of receiving more money from those federal agencies. It 
is my belief that churches should not be exempt from providing those 
records; Afterall, it was the Taxpayers who ultimately footed the 
boarding school tab.
    I believe your subcommittee should be granted Subpoena Powers to 
seek truth and information from those churches, and any of their 
subcontractor(s) who refuse to freely respond for information 
requested.
    Again, I attended two BIA boarding schools; Wrangell Institute from 
1955 to 1961 and Mt. Edgecumbe High School from 1961 to 1965. Wrangell 
Institute administrators invited the local church groups to come on the 
campus every fall. It was then that all 300-400 boys and girls got 
divvied up between the churches, without permission from our parents. 
During those six years at Wrangell Institute the Southern Baptist 
Church affiliate began my brother's and I's religious instruction by 
shaming my mother's traditional culture; her language, traditional 
singing, dancing and drumming, especially her Spirituality. I was told 
my mother was evil and practiced Satanic rituals because she continued 
her cultural ways. In time I began avoiding being seen with my mother 
in public. I was ashamed.
    I am most grateful to have been asked to provide oral and written 
testimony to your subcommittee. I have waited for over a half century 
to share my early childhood stories with you and the subcommittee. I 
remain available to answer additional questions you might have.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. LaBelle, for sharing 
the story that you have been waiting to tell for so long, of 
your loss.
    The Chair will now recognize Mr. Matthew War Bonnet who is 
a boarding school survivor and a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux 
Tribe.
    Mr. Bonnet, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF MATTHEW WAR BONNET, BOARDING SCHOOL SURVIVOR, 
           ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBE, SNOHOMISH, WASHINGTON

    Mr. War Bonnet. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for this 
opportunity to provide this testimony in support of the Indian 
Boarding School Bill. My name is Matthew War Bonnet. I am of 
the Sicangu Lakota people who now call the Rosebud Sioux 
Reservation home. I am the son of Matthew War Bonnet and Julia 
Swalley, the grandson of Joseph War Bonnet and Jenny 
Yellowhair, and the great grandson of Folding Throat and Pretty 
Bird. I am 76 years old.
    The topic I am speaking about today, the boarding schools 
and my experience with them, is a difficult topic to talk 
about. It is hard to speak about it without making myself feel 
bad by bringing up these memories. But I agreed to speak only 
because my sisters gave me permission to speak. I am one of 10 
siblings, and we all attended the same boarding school. My 
mother and my father also attended boarding schools.
    I was only 6 years old when I was taken to the Saint 
Francis Boarding School in South Dakota in 1952. I attended 
this boy school 24/7 for 10 months out of the year for 8 years 
total, the majority of my childhood. I left Saint Francis 
Boarding School after the eighth grade in 1960.
    My boarding school experience is very painful and 
traumatic. I remember when I first got to school, the priests 
took us to this big room which had six or eight bathtubs in it. 
The priests took all of us little guys and put us in one tub, 
and he scrubbed us hard with a big brush. The brush made our 
skin and our backsides all raw. And we had to have our hair 
cut.
    The school then put all of the little guys in the same 
dormitory. We were together, the first through fourth grades. 
At nighttime, you could hear all of the children crying, lonely 
for their families. I remember seeing my sisters.
    During my stay at the school, corporal punishment was 
common. The priests would often get impatient and discipline us 
by hitting us with a leather strap or a willow stick. There was 
also a punishment tool that we called the Jesus rope, which was 
a rope with several strands coming off of it. We were hit with 
this and the razor straps. And one priest sometimes used a 
cattle prod on us.
    Another way the priests disciplined us was to lock us out 
of the school during the cold weather. When this would happen, 
the little guys would be shivering and crying. Some of us older 
boys would take our coats off and cover them.
    One time, a priest threw my older brother, Joe War Bonnet, 
down a flight of stairs, and he broke his arm. I think the 
priest was also abusing him in other ways.
    The priests also punished us by isolating us and limiting 
our access to food. One time, I got in trouble and my 
punishment was for 10 days I was separated from other kids and 
given only bread and water to eat. I don't even remember what I 
did to deserve this type of punishment.
    Each June, every parent would come and pick us up to go 
home for the summer. My parents were Lakota speakers at home. 
Because we were at school, we were not allowed to speak and 
learned to speak English and Latin. Sometimes they taught us 
Spanish as well. It was difficult to speak with my parents in 
my Lakota language. That got away from us, the Lakota language, 
but we are still trying to catch up with that ever since.
    Once I got out of boarding school, I went to high school at 
the Pine Ridge Community High School in Pine Ridge, South 
Dakota.
    I was always very, very proud of our service people, our 
Lakota people who served in the military, and others. One day I 
was talking to some fellow high school students and told them 
about my Dad's service in the Army, and how he got captured by 
the Japanese. I said that he was captured and tortured by the 
Japanese, and each day, they cut off a toe until all his toes 
were gone.
    One guy, who was my cousin, said to me, ``Your Dad never 
was in the Army.'' Of course, I said, ``You're calling my dad a 
liar?'' And we got in a fight.
    When I went home, my dad told me that when he was in the 
first or second grade and in the school he ran away. And 
because of that, he froze his toes off. And when he died it was 
because in his toes gangrene set in.
    All of us kids that attended the boarding school, we never 
speak about our experience in the school. Our family has never 
spoken to each other about it, and our parents have never 
talked to us about it. I guess we just didn't want to hurt each 
other.
    Now, I am hoping that by doing this discussion that many 
would recognize that what happened to them those many years 
later these boarding schools have caused a long-term trauma for 
our kids. Many tried to cope with this trauma through alcohol, 
and these same people who were abused then became abusers of 
themselves, their families, and their communities.
    Regarding my healing, I credit my dad for being there for 
me and helping me. Because of him, I turned out the way I did. 
When I was in the boarding school, my dad taught me a song that 
gave me spiritual strength to hang on every day. This song has 
a very simple translation. The song simply says, ``Friend, the 
dawn has arrived, I live again.'' Every day, I would sing this 
song to myself before I went out to play.
    The boarding schools were sanctioned by the U.S. 
Government. The government gave the churches our land so that 
they can Christianize, modernize us, and civilize us. But the 
church treated us wrong. I thank you for letting me testify 
today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. War Bonnet follows:]
                Prepared Statement of Matthew War Bonnet
    Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony in support 
of the Indian boarding school bill. My name is Matthew War Bonnet. I am 
of the Sicangu Lakota people who now call the Rosebud Sioux Reservation 
home. I am the son of Matthew War Bonnet and Julia Swalley, the 
grandson of Joseph War Bonnet and Jenny Yellowhair, and the great 
grandson of Folding Throat and Pretty Bird. I am 76 years old.
    This topic I am speaking about today, the boarding schools and my 
experience with them, is a difficult topic to talk about. It is hard to 
speak about it without making myself feel bad by bringing up these 
memories. But I agreed to speak only because my sisters gave me 
permission to speak. I am one of ten siblings, and we all attended the 
same boarding school. My mother and father also attended boarding 
schools. I was only 6 years old when I was taken to the Saint Francis 
Boarding School in South Dakota in 1952. I attended this boarding 
school 24/7 for ten months out of the year for eight years total, the 
majority of my childhood. I left St. Francis Boarding School after the 
eighth grade in 1960.
    My boarding school experience was very painful and traumatic. I 
remember when I first got to the school, the priests took us to this 
big room which had six or eight bathtubs in it. The priest put all of 
us little guys in one tub, and he scrubbed us hard with big brushes. 
The brushes made our skin on our backsides raw all over. We then had 
our long hair cut.
    The school then put all the little guys in the same dormitory. We 
were together, first through fourth grade. At nighttime you could hear 
all the little children crying, lonely for their families. I remember 
seeing my sisters at the school, from across the room. I wanted to talk 
to them, but boys were not allowed to have any contact with girls at 
the school, even our own relatives.
    During my stay at the school, corporal punishment was common. The 
priests would often get impatient and discipline us by hitting us with 
a leather strap or a willow stick. There was also a punishment tool 
called ``the Jesus rope,'' which was a rope with several strands coming 
off of it. We were hit with that and their razor straps as well. One 
priest even used a cattle prod to hit us.
    Another way the priests disciplined us was to lock us out of the 
school during the cold weather. This would happen and kids would be 
shivering and crying.
    One time, a priest threw my older brother, Joe War Bonnet, down a 
flight of stairs and broke his arm. I think that priest was abusing him 
in other ways.
    The priests also punished us by isolating us and limiting our 
access to food. One time I got in trouble and my punishment was for 10 
days I was separated from the other kids and given only bread and water 
to eat. I don't even remember what I did to deserve that type of harsh 
punishment.
    Each June, everyone's parents would come and pick us up to go home 
for the summer. My parents were Lakota speakers at home. Because we 
were at the school and were forced to speak English and only taught 
English and Latin, it was difficult to speak with my parents in our 
Lakota language. That got away from us. We have been trying to catch up 
ever since.
    Once I got out of the boarding school, I went to high school in 
Pine Ridge. I was always very proud of our service people, our Lakota 
people who served in the military. One day I was talking to some fellow 
high school students and told them about my Dad's service in the army, 
and how he got captured by the Japanese. I stated that the Japanese 
tortured my Dad and cut off his toes. One guy I said that to said, 
``Your Dad never was in the army.'' We got in a fight right there.
    I went home that night and spoke to my Dad. I directly asked him, 
Dad, what happened to your toes? My Dad told me. Dad said that his toes 
froze off when he ran away from the boarding school in his youth. Dad 
died later on from gangrene in his toes.
    All of us kids that attended the boarding school, we never spoke 
about our experiences. We said nothing.
    I still think about all the kids I went to school with. All the 
things they went through. All the hurt and the rage, and the feeling of 
nothingness that these schools caused them. Many didn't even recognize 
what had happened to them until many years later. These boarding 
schools caused long term trauma. Many tried to cope with this trauma 
through alcohol, and these same people who were abused then became 
abusers themselves, of their families and their communities.
    Regarding my healing journey, I credit my Dad for being there for 
me and helping me. Because of him, I turned out the way I did. When I 
was in the boarding school, my Dad taught me a song to give me 
strength, spiritual strength. This song in a very simple way says, 
``Friend, the dawn has arrived, I live again.'' Every day I would sing 
that song to myself and then go play with my friends.
    The boarding schools were sanctioned by the U.S. Government. The 
Government gave the churches our lands to christianize us, modernize 
us, and civilize us. But the churches treated us wrong. The kids that 
went to these schools, they were good spirits and then the church did 
things to them and made them the way they were.
    The Government and the churches need to be held accountable for 
what happened at these schools.
    I'm here today to acknowledge what happened to me and countless 
other Indian children and resolve the problems that the boarding 
schools caused. The Government needs to help those children and 
grandchildren of the boarding school survivors, so that these children 
and grandchildren will know that their grandparents were not just mean 
all the time. I want them to know that their grandparents loved them, 
but we were struggling from the abuse we went through at the boarding 
schools.
    I also want the churches to meet with Native people in their areas, 
sit across the table from them, and make a plan for the children and 
grandchildren. Our children need help. The churches need to take 
responsibility for the pain they caused so many Indian children and 
families.
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

                                 ______
                                 

        Questions Submitted for the Record to Matthew War Bonnet

             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. How long did you attend the St. Francis Boarding 
School?

    Answer. I attended the St. Francis Boarding School from 1952 to 
1959 or 1960. This was 8 years. I first went to the school when I was 
six years old and left the school ready for high school. Each year I 
was at the school I was there for 10 months out of the year.

    (a) How often were you required to attend church services?

    Answer. I had to attend church services every day, 7 days a week. 
On Monday through Saturday we had ``low mass,'' which was services at 
the chapel every morning for 45 minutes to an hour. On Sunday, we had 
``high mass,'' which was a longer service on Sunday morning. Many of us 
kids were altar boys during these services. In addition to these 
services, we also had religious classes during school.
    Question 2. Your testimony mentions how generations of youth 
withstood abuse at Indian boarding schools, including the generations 
in your own family.

    (a) In your experience, what has helped you and your family the 
most in the healing process?

    Answer. My parents were instrumental in the healing process for me, 
my mother and father. The both went to boarding schools and you could 
see in my father's eyes, what had happened to him, he had rage in his 
eyes. During my time at the school, I had this rage too. My father saw 
this and he helped. He gave me songs to sing, and these songs gave me 
spiritual strength. This strength helped me during my time at the 
school.

    Talking about my experiences has also helped with the healing 
process. My siblings and I did not speak about our experience for so 
long, for me it has been 70 years. This long time of not speaking about 
our experiences allowed the hurt to just stay with us. By now speaking 
on it, we can hopefully help clear out our hurt.

         Questions Submitted by Representative Leger Fernandez
    Question 1. Based on your research, how did boarding schools begin? 
What was the purpose behind their creation?

    Answer. On the beginning of boarding schools, this happened in the 
19th century. Back in this century, Tribes were under the War 
Department and certain government officials were assigned to handle the 
``Indian problem.'' These officials noticed that religious groups were 
encountering Tribes and living besides Tribes. The officials decided to 
implement a policy that allowed these religious groups to work with 
Native people in their corresponding areas. The Government then 
allocated a certain number of Tribes to certain religious groups within 
the area. This is how everything was set up. For example, in the Dakota 
Territory, the Catholic Church was the main religious group and they 
worked with the Government in receiving Indian lands and setting up 
schools.

    As far as the purpose behind their creation, it was about 
assimilating Indians. The Government viewed us as savages, and we 
needed to Christians and civilized. This is why we were forbidden to 
speak our native languages or engage in any cultural activity. The 
Government also gave our lands away to the churches and gave money to 
the churches.

    Question 2. Your testimony notes how the St. Francis Boarding 
School forced you to speak English and Latin as a student.

    (a) If you are able to, can you speak further on this experience 
and how important Native language preservation is to tribal 
communities?

    Answer. Both of my parents were fluent Lakota speakers. At the 
school however, we were forbidden to speak Lakota and were taught 
English, Latin, and Spanish instead. The time at the school made me 
forgot my Lakota language and this greatly hurt me as a Lakota person. 
I felt inadequate. I remember in high school there was a ceremony in 
the gym and Old Man Red Cloud was speaking in Lakota. I could not 
understand all the things he was saying because I had lost some of the 
language. He sang his grandfather's song and this made me want to study 
who the Lakota people were, and not who the Church and others said we 
were.

    Language preservation is very important to tribal communities 
because language is a core component of our culture. It is who we are. 
Lakota people have always had our languages, our traditions, and 
ceremonies and these things have remained intact for several millennia. 
I sat on my Tribe's Tribal Council for many years and we always 
supported the Lakota language.

                                 *****

    Picture below was taken at the St. Francis Boarding school of 
Mathew War Bonnet and sent out for donations. Mr. War Bonnet did not 
receive any of these funds accepted on his behalf.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. War Bonnet, for that 
moving testimony and sharing with us the songs that have helped 
you in your process.
    The Chair will now recognize Dr. Ramona Klein, who is also 
a boarding school survivor and a citizen of the Turtle Mountain 
Band of Chippewa Indians.
    Dr. Klein, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF DR. RAMONA KLEIN, BOARDING SCHOOL SURVIVOR, TURTLE 
    MOUNTAIN BAND OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS, MEDINA, NORTH DAKOTA

    Dr. Klein. Thank you for this opportunity to testify in 
support of the Indian Boarding School Bill. I am Dr. Ramona 
Klein, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of 
Chippewa based in Belcourt, North Dakota. I am a living 
survivor of the United States Indian boarding school policies 
and practices. I am a real human being who was placed in a 
boarding school away from my parents when I was 7 years old. I 
am now almost 75 years old, and that experience has impacted my 
entire life.
    What impact has it had? I ask you to remember your own 
child or perhaps a grandchild going to school for the first 
time. The special moments when a child goes to school, but with 
the confidence that his mother or a relative will come back to 
pick up the child at school. Remember that feeling. Now imagine 
that experience if you would not see that little child for the 
rest of the year or perhaps even years for no other reason 
except that child is an Indian child.
    I remember seeing my mom crying as she stood and watched 
six of her eight children being placed on a big green bus and 
taken to Fort Totten Indian Boarding School in Fort Totten, 
North Dakota. That image is forever imprinted in my mind and in 
my heart.
    I remember arriving at Fort Totten and my long hair being 
cut very short, much like a boy's haircut, and being fine-
combed with kerosene under the assumption that I had head lice. 
I remember being given the nickname Butch by other children 
because of that haircut. I remember being scrubbed regularly, 
with dirty brown soap, and my skin becoming dry and chapped. I 
remember that they used a stiff brush and that soap was made 
with lye.
    I remember arriving at the dormitory, which was so big and 
cold, feeling so scared and alone among only strangers. I 
remember scratchy woolen Army blankets. I remember being afraid 
to sleep at night fearful of the matron's son, who walked the 
halls that night, using a flashlight to spot me in bed. He 
touched me like no child should ever be touched. As a little 
girl, those hands were huge.
    I remember being hit by the matron with a big green paddle 
that everyone called the board of education while I knelt on 
either a broomstick or a mop stick with my arms outstretched 
from my body. I remember thinking you will not get the best of 
me, and I was determined not to cry. I would not cry. And I 
didn't cry for many years after I left Fort Totten. Today, I 
would say you will not take my dignity.
    I remember being hungry, very hungry, hungry enough that my 
tummy hurt. I remember looking out the cold, frosted window and 
saying to myself, ``Maybe tomorrow I will see Mama and Daddy.'' 
Only to wait for months for a short visit before I was made to 
board the big, green school bus again.
    This is only a snippet of my memories, as there is not 
enough time to share, like witnessing a murder outside of the 
dormitory or being told by my teachers that I was dumb and I 
could not learn. Being in that boarding school was the 
loneliest time of my life. It has made it difficult for me to 
trust other people, including people on this Committee, with my 
emotions, my thoughts, my dreams, my physical being. And how 
could that not be the result?
    In spite of that boarding school experience, I became an 
educator myself. I have taught kindergarteners through graduate 
students, in public school, private school, and tribal 
colleges. I tried to create for my students an educational 
experience that affirms who they are and builds them up, rather 
than one that presumes to save them by attempting to strip away 
their dignity.
    I thank you for this opportunity to tell just a little bit 
of my story.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Klein follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Dr. Ramona Klein
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify in support of the Indian 
boarding school bill. I am Dr. Ramona Klein, an enrolled member of the 
Turtle Band of Chippewa based in Belcourt, North Dakota. I am a living 
survivor of the United States Indian boarding school policies and 
practices. I am a real human being who was placed in a boarding school 
away from my parents when I was seven years old. I am now almost 
seventy-five, and that experience has impacted my entire life.
    What impact has it had? I ask you to remember your own child or 
grandchild going to school for the first time. The special moments when 
a child goes to school, but with the confidence that his mother or 
other relatives will come back to pick up the child at school. Remember 
that feeling. Now imagine that experience if you would not see that 
little child for the rest of the year, or perhaps even for years. For 
no other reason except that child is an Indian child.
    I remember seeing my mother cry as she stood and watched six of her 
eight children board the big, green bus that took us to Fort Totten 
Indian Boarding School. That image is forever imprinted in my mind and 
heart.
    I remember arriving at Fort Totten and my long hair being cut very 
short--much like a boy's haircut--and being fine combed with kerosine 
under the assumption that I had head lice. I remember being given the 
nickname ``Butch'' by the other children because of that haircut. I 
remember being scrubbed regularly with dirty, brown soap and my skin 
becoming dry and chapped. I remember that they used a stiff brush and 
that the soap was made with lye.
    I remember arriving at the dormitory, which was so big and cold, 
feeling so scared and alone, among only strangers. I remember scratchy 
woolen Army blankets. I remember being afraid to sleep, fearful of the 
matron's son who walked the halls at night using a flashlight to spot 
me in bed. He touched my body like no child's body should be touched.
    I remember being hit by the matron with a big green paddle that 
everyone called ``The Board of Education,'' while I knelt on either a 
broomstick or a mop stick with my arms outstretched from my body. I 
remember thinking, ``You will not get the best of me.'' I was 
determined not to cry. I would not cry. And I didn't cry for many years 
after I left Fort Totten. Today, I would say, ``You will not take my 
dignity.''
    I remember being hungry. Very hungry. Hungry enough for my tummy to 
hurt.
    I remember looking out the cold, frosted window and saying to 
myself, ``Maybe tomorrow I will see Mama and Daddy.'' Only to wait 
months for a short visit before I was made to board the big, green bus 
again.
    This is only a snippet of my memories, as there is not time to 
share more, like witnessing a murder outside of the dormitory or being 
told by my teachers that I was dumb and could not learn. Being in that 
boarding school was the loneliest time of my life. It has made it 
difficult for me to trust other people, including the people on this 
committee, with my emotions, thoughts, dreams, and physical being. And 
how could that not be the result?
    In spite of my boarding school experience, I became an educator 
myself. I have taught kindergarteners through graduate students, in 
public school, public and private universities, and Tribal college, 
including for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I have served as both the 
Graduate School Director and Chairperson of the Division of Education 
at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. In all these 
roles, I have tried to create for my students an educational experience 
that affirms who they are and builds them up, rather than one that 
presumes to ``save'' them by attempting to strip away their dignity.
    I work hard to apply the seven teachings of the Anishinaabe--
honesty, humility, truth, wisdom, love, respect, and bravery. This is 
why, despite my boarding school experience, I believe that I have been 
able to show empathy to hurting students, to support and encourage 
others, and serve as a mentor whenever I am able.
    What I want from the United States are resources that can be used 
to help heal the deep wounds of the generations of Indigenous people 
who have been impacted by the United States' boarding school policies 
and the treatment of Indigenous children. I want resources to teach all 
Americans how boarding schools impacted and destroyed lives. I want 
resources to teach all Americans how we see evidence of that 
destruction today in people who suffer from and commit domestic 
violence, who suffer and commit sexual abuse, who suffer from addiction 
because they're trying to stop the pain and nightmares, who experience 
extreme poverty, and even in underperforming schools.
    I was asked one time why I didn't talk about the touching. I didn't 
talk about it then because no one that could do anything about it would 
have believed me. Still today there are people who do not believe these 
things happened. This must change. We must listen to the stories of the 
survivors and learn from them.
    Thank you for the invitation to tell my story.

                                 ______
                                 

   Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Ramona Charette Klein, 
   Boarding School Survivor, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. Your testimony notes that, despite your experiences 
with education at the boarding school, you became an educator later in 
life.

    (a) Can you elaborate on how your life story has impacted your work 
as an educator?

    Answer. Rep Grijalva, thank you for your question.

    As an educator, I consistently tried to be empathic to all of my 
students but especially those students who needed to be cared about and 
those students who had difficulty learning academically or socially. 
Early on in my career, I knew that I wasn't prepared to teach students 
with disabilities, yet I had students with disabilities in my 
classrooms therefore, I decided that I needed to gain skills so that I 
could teach all students. I went on to graduate school and earned a 
master of education in special education. Later, I went on to earn a 
doctorate in education leadership so I can gain skills to help make 
decisions to provide the best possible education for all students.
    It was always my philosophy that all students can learn and 
educators had to find a way to teach so the students were able to 
learn. It is also my philosophy that it is extremely important to take 
time to establish a positive relationship with students from day one of 
the school session. I have found when a student has a positive 
relationship with educators, they are more likely to feel emotionally 
safe and learning is more likely to take place.
    I have had the privilege of teaching and advising students in 
kindergarten through graduate school. I am pleased to share that I 
still have contact with some students from all of those levels. I 
continue to encourage and mentor people who seek me out. Just this week 
I have written recommendations for three people applying for graduate 
studies. I have been serving in education for over fifty years and I 
will continue to serve as long as I am able.
    I believe that my life story has given me insight, sensitivity, 
compassion and humor and to be a lifelong learner with heart to work at 
being present when working with people.

         Questions Submitted by Representative Leger Fernandez
    Question 1. Your testimony mentions that your experiences at the 
boarding school made you hesitant to trust others with your story. I 
want to thank you for sharing your story with us today and your 
willingness to be here.

    (a) How can Congress help to address the trauma that boarding 
schools inflicted on individuals such as yourself?

    (b) What resources would you like to see?

    Answer. Rep Leger Fernandez, thank you for your questions.

    Congress can help to address the trauma that boarding schools 
inflicted on individuals by providing families and researchers access 
to records of the children who attended boarding schools. I believe 
this is very important so that families have the opportunity to get 
closure in the cases of children who never returned home.
    I also believe that it is important to have a 24-hour national help 
line for survivors and family members to call for help as memories and 
flashbacks may arise from hearing others' stories of attending boarding 
school.
    It will be very helpful to create educational materials to educate 
all people about the boarding schools and its impact on not only those 
of us who attended the schools but the generational trauma that 
resulted from that experience. It never ceases to amaze me how many 
people do not know that children were forcibly taken from their 
families and separated for years or life. It will be important to have 
funding to develop curriculum to be included in all levels of 
education.

    Question 2. While you were at the boarding school, were you able to 
connect with other students to speak about your shared experiences?

    (a) What about later in life?

    Answer. I did not connect with other students about the shared 
experience; when I reflect back on that time in my life, the treatment 
at the boarding school became normalized. However, three of the four of 
my brothers who attended Ft. Totten Boarding School, ran away from the 
school in the dead of winter. I believe my brothers ran away from what 
was not normal treatment. All of my brothers are now deceased and we 
didn't talk about the school experience before they died. I am just 
beginning to talk about the experience at boarding school. Most of the 
children I went to school with at Ft. Totten Boarding School are 
deceased. I think the last of the girls, who shared the same dorm room, 
passed away this past year.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Dr. Klein, for sharing your 
memories and the manner in which I hope you can regain our 
trust. The Chair will now recognize the Honorable Ben Barnes 
who is the Chief of the Shawnee Tribe.

 STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BEN BARNES, CHIEF, SHAWNEE TRIBE, 
                        MIAMI, OKLAHOMA

    Mr. Barnes. Howesi kiiseki. Good day, Madam Chair, and 
thank you for the opportunity to address this Committee 
regarding House Resolution 5444, the ``Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.''
    My name is Ben Barnes, and it is my honor and privilege to 
serve as the Chief of the Shawnee Tribe headquartered in Miami, 
Oklahoma. It is an honor to be here today. I honor, respect, 
and admire the bravery and perseverance of my fellow panelists 
who survived boarding schools.
    At its core, Washington, DC is a city of remembrance. From 
the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC 
embraces our past and honors those that helped shape its 
future. Tragedies and acts of genocide are also memorialized 
lest they be repeated.
    Monuments often point to events, but society draws meaning 
and deep understanding from the stories of individual people. 
That is why the Holocaust Museum is filled with testimonies 
from survivors and remembrances of the victims. That is also 
why more than 58,000 names have been carefully engraved on the 
wall of the Vietnam Memorial. These people and their stories 
matter.
    For over a century, it was the policy of the U.S. 
Government to tear Native American children away from their 
families, communities, and culture to civilize them by erasing 
any vestige of Native identity. Yet, relatively little is known 
about the tens of thousands of children who suffered at these 
institutions. What were their names? What did they experience? 
How many of them died? Where were they buried? These children's 
stories have been cast aside, forgotten, or lost as if this 
tragedy never happened. These children matter. Their stories 
matter.
    As Chief of the Shawnee Tribe, the issue of Indian boarding 
schools is extremely personal for me. Over 150 years ago, 
Shawnee children were sent to the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor 
School in what is now Fairway, Kansas.
    In many ways, that school, which still stands today, is a 
memorial to the struggles and perseverance of the Shawnee 
people. But like other sites, its history remains incomplete. 
We know that the residents there were malnourished and 
mistreated. We can still see carvings left in the windowless 
attic where children were forced to sleep in hot summers and 
cold winters.
    We know that our school was closed in 1862 due to abuse and 
mismanagement. But we don't know the full extent of what went 
on there because, in large part, we don't know the stories of 
the children that went there, including the names of those that 
died or the locations of their burial sites.
    Finding answers and honoring these children's stories is 
important to the Shawnee Tribe. We have engaged historians and 
researchers to assemble all available information regarding the 
Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School. We have found that some 
records are seemingly lost forever. We have also discovered 
that crucial parts of the story are inaccessible within 
government archives or exist within the private collections of 
the religious institutions that operated some of these schools.
    As time continues to pass, we will lose the testimonies of 
survivors and more documents will become misplaced. That is the 
importance of H.R. 5444. Creating a mandated Commission 
empowered to locate every available record and ensure this 
history is preserved and made available for examination.
    Finding answers to long-asked questions will not be without 
consequences. Understanding the stories of our children will 
cause mourning among our people. The discovery of unmarked 
graves will provoke difficult conversations about how best to 
honor those children. But amidst the pain, a burden will be 
lifted. Acceptance, healing, and growth will follow.
    So, this Commission's purpose is not to point fingers, lay 
blame, or evoke guilt in people who are generations removed 
from these atrocities. It will simply help American Indian 
communities find information that would otherwise be 
unattainable and bring an opportunity for some semblance of 
closure. We cannot go back and change the past, but we can and 
must hold ourselves accountable for doing the right thing 
today. The stories of human suffering at these institutions can 
no longer be hidden from view or ignored. It is time that they 
take their place in public conscience.
    For this reason, I, as the elected leader of the sovereign 
Shawnee Tribe, as well as a grandchild of a boarding school 
survivor, respectfully urge passage of House Resolution 5444. 
Nekocaaye, hiini leeki. That is all. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Barnes follows:]

      Prepared Statement of Ben Barnes, Chief of the Shawnee Tribe
    howesi kiiseki (good day), Madam Chair, and thank you for the 
opportunity to address this committee regarding H.R. 5444, ``The Truth 
and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the U.S. 
Act.'' My name is Ben Barnes, and I am proud to serve as the Chief of 
the Shawnee Tribe headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma. It is an honor to 
be here today. I honor, respect, and admire the bravery and 
perseverance of my fellow panelists who survived boarding schools.
    At its core, Washington, D.C. is a city of remembrance. From the 
Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. embraces 
our past and honors those that helped shape its future. Tragedies and 
acts of genocide are also memorialized lest they be repeated.
    Monuments often point to events, but society draws meaning and deep 
understanding from the stories of individual people. That is why the 
Holocaust Museum is filled with testimonies from survivors and 
remembrances of victims. That is also why more than 58,000 names have 
been carefully engraved upon the Vietnam Memorial. These people and 
their stories matter.
    For over a century, it was the policy of the U.S. Government to 
tear Native American children away from their families, communities, 
and culture to ``civilize'' them by erasing any vestige of Native 
identity. And yet, relatively little is known about the tens of 
thousands of kids who suffered at these institutions. What were their 
names? What did they experience? How many of them died? Where were they 
buried? These children's stories have been cast aside, forgotten, or 
lost--as if this tragedy never happened. These children matter. Their 
stories matter.
    As Chief of the Shawnee Tribe, the issue of Indian boarding schools 
is extremely personal for me. Over 150 years ago, Shawnee children were 
sent to the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor Boarding School in what is now 
Fairway, Kansas.
    In many ways, that school, which still stands today, is a memorial 
to the struggles and perseverance of the Shawnee people. But like other 
sites, its history remains incomplete. We know that the residents there 
were malnourished and mistreated. We can still see the carvings left in 
the windowless attic where children were forced to sleep in hot summers 
and cold winters. We know the school was closed in 1862 due to abuse 
and mismanagement. But we don't know the full extent of what went on 
because, in large part, we don't know the stories of the kids that went 
there, including the names of those that died or the locations of their 
burial sites.
    Finding answers and honoring these children's stories is important 
to the Shawnee Tribe. We have engaged historians and researchers to 
assemble all available information regarding the Shawnee Indian Manual 
Labor Boarding School. We have found that some records are seemingly 
lost forever. We have also discovered that crucial parts of the story 
are inaccessible within government archives or exist within the private 
collections of the religious institutions that operated some of these 
schools.
    As time continues to pass, we will lose the testimonies of 
survivors and more documents will become misplaced. That is the 
importance of H.R. 5444. Creating a mandated commission empowered to 
locate every available record and ensure this history is preserved and 
made available for examination.
    Finding answers to long-asked questions will not be without 
consequences. Understanding the stories of our children will cause 
mourning among our people. The discovery of unmarked graves will 
provoke difficult conversations about how best to honor those children. 
But amidst the pain, a burden will be lifted. Acceptance, healing, and 
growth will follow.
    So, this commission's purpose is not to point fingers, lay blame, 
or evoke guilt in people who are generations removed from these 
atrocities. It will simply help American Indian communities find 
information that would otherwise be unattainable and bring an 
opportunity for some semblance of closure.
    We cannot go back and change the past. But we can and must hold 
ourselves accountable for doing the right thing today.
    The stories of human suffering at these institutions can no longer 
be hidden from view or ignored. It is time that they take their place 
in the public conscience. For this reason, I, as the elected leader of 
the sovereign Shawnee Tribe as well as a grandchild of a boarding 
school survivor, respectfully urge passage of H.R. 5444.
    nekocaaye, hiini leeki (that is all).

                                 ______
                                 

   Questions Submitted for the Record to Benjamin J. Barnes, Chief, 
                             Shawnee Tribe
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. As a tribal leader, can you explain how the Federal 
trust responsibility obligates the Federal Government to address its 
role in the Boarding School Era?

    Answer. Speaking specifically to the issues of the Shawnee Tribe, 
we authored a letter to Congress in 1850 asking for answers about our 
children. We still await correspondence back. Many non-Native parties 
have since received correspondence from Congress, such as the Indian 
Agent, various missionaries, and school superintendents, while tribal 
nations all wait for answers.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Kevin J. Abing, ``A Fall from Grace: Thomas Johnson and the 
Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School, 1839-1862'' Ph.D. dissertation, 
Marquette University, 1995, pg 303.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Shawnee Tribe has seen within the historic record, 
correspondence between federal agents (eg. Indian Agents, school 
superintendents, territorial governors) regarding the operation of our 
missions, and it is these documents that demonstrably evidence the U.S. 
States Federal Government as the original author of residential 
boarding school policy in this country.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Civilization Act of 1819, pg 303; Brenda J. Child, ``A Bitter 
Lesson: Native Americans and the Government Boarding School Experience, 
1890-1940.'' Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1993.

    Question 2. Can you speak to the obstacles you've faced when 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
attempting to locate and reveal records pertaining to boarding schools?

    (a) Do you think that legislation like H.R. 5444 is needed to gain 
access to these records and testimonies?

    Answer. The Shawnee Tribe is already awaiting the answers it was 
promised, not just from our inquiries in 1850-52. Almost two years ago, 
a nonprofit in Kansas City, KS conducted a study of the cemetery of the 
family of the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School (SIMLS) 
superintendent. We wondered if there were unmarked graves in that 
cemetery that could potentially belong to our children. The laboratory 
results are complete, and the local 501c3 that contracted the survey 
has yet to share those results with the Shawnee Tribe.
    I am certain there will be other organizations, perhaps some that 
are culpable for terrible things against other tribal nations, and it 
will require a mechanism to ensure that a complete sharing of 
information occurs. If the Shawnee are already experiencing this over a 
150-plus year old boarding school, I can only imagine there will be 
even more dissonance, confrontations, and adversarial postures from 
institutions that are still in operations where children were 
traumatized.

         Questions Submitted by Representative Leger Fernandez
    Question 1. In your testimony, you note that the Shawnee Tribe 
sought out historians and researchers to account for the history of the 
Shawnee Indian Manual Labor Boarding School.

    (a) Can you explain this process a little more? Are there any 
Federal resources available to help with fact-finding projects like 
these?

    Answer. The Shawnee Tribe has always been a tribe that knows its 
history. We are fortunate to have many passionate and professional 
individuals in our community. However, even with this advantage, there 
are specific disciplines for which we have had to contract third-party, 
non-Native professionals because of a lack of Federal financial support 
to tribal nations does not prioritize all of the necessary services to 
conduct such research.
    At no small expense to our government, we have hired two 
professional historians, Dr. Stephen Warren at the University of Iowa 
and Dr. Kevin Abing of Marquette University. We have also approached 
the Ball State Applied Archaeology Laboratory, the Illinois 
Archaeological Survey, and Indiana University's Glenn A. Black 
Laboratory of Archaeology, regarding potential ground sensing 
procedures (LIDAR, radio magnetometry, ground-penetrating radar, and 
electrical sensitivity) to help us understand how to search for unknown 
buried persons that may be interred at the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor 
School.
    I also feel the need to point out, the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor 
School is just one of our boarding schools. In Kansas City, we also had 
the Shawnee Baptist mission and the Shawnee Quaker mission. We also 
have citizens that attended Chillocco, Haskell, Carlisle, and a host of 
others around the country.
    Suffice it to say, our government is ill-financed to float the 
burden to conduct all of these research projects and ground studies, 
let alone the expenses to travel about half of the United States 
searching for our graves and the records that might contain the story 
of our children. While we feel obligated as a people to do this work, 
it will most certainly detract from the time and efforts of supporting 
our communities, elders and children.
    Supposing that the Shawnee Tribe was did indeed have all the 
sufficient organizational capacity and funding to do all of this 
research, we still face one of the more significant and less talked 
about issues is how to address what happens when we find them. For 
example, if the Shawnee were to begin the ground sensing at the SIMLS 
and discover a grave, what would follow next would be additional 
tragedy heaped upon early ones. Since the land at SIMLS is owned by the 
State of Kansas, they would likely exhume the body to ensure it not to 
be a recent crime victim. Following that process by the local coroner 
and state officers, the body would then be subject to federal NAGPRA 
law and consultations would have to be had with all of the tribes from 
that geographic area that could possibly have a NAGPRA-claim. This 
would bog down the process of returning our child home.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ For a very brief primer on NAGPRA interactions with boarding 
school endeavors, please see: Sarah E. Cowie, Diane L. Teeman, and 
Christopher C. LeBlanc, in Collaborative Archaeology at Stewart Indian 
School (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 2019), pp. 9, 209.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It has become abundantly clear to the Shawnee Tribe that if we are 
to conduct searches of the premises of the SIMLS for our children, we 
really need to do so on our terms: we need to own the land. We strongly 
feel that the seized lands upon which residential boarding schools were 
built must be returned to the tribal nation to whom the land initially 
belonged.

    Question 2. Can you explain why timely passage of H.R. 5444 is 
critically important for the preservation of survivor testimony?

    Answer. It is self-evident from the testimony of the four 
witnesses, who so bravely recounted the brutality they lived under 
during their attendance at boarding schools, that many of the victims 
are elderly. Not only can we not wait for more favorable winds or 
perfect circumstances to seek truth and healing, but we are in a time 
of global pandemic. How many voices of victims have already been lost 
to this disease or just to time?

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you so very much. We are getting 
close to having votes called, but I wanted to try to get to one 
more witness before the votes are called. So, the Chair will 
now recognize Ms. Deborah Parker who is the Chief Executive 
Officer of the National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition.
    Ms. Parker.

STATEMENT OF DEBORAH PARKER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL 
NATIVE AMERICAN BOARDING SCHOOL HEALING COALITION, MINNEAPOLIS, 
                           MINNESOTA

    Ms. Parker. Tsicyaltsa. [Speaking Native language.] Good 
afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the Committee. My name is 
Tsicyaltsa, Deborah Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes, 
and I have the honor of serving as the Chief Executive Officer 
of the National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition, also known as NABS.
    NABS was formed in 2011, following public outcry about the 
lasting impacts of the Boarding School Era. Shortly after 
Canada launched their Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 
leaders from the United States and Canada came together to 
discuss the need for such a process in the United States.
    NABS supports a community of thousands of boarding school 
survivors and descendants. On behalf of these relatives, as 
well as 54 endorsements and 26 resolutions from tribes and 
national organizations, I am here to strongly support H.R. 
5444.
    Our collaborative work with the U.S. Department of the 
Interior has identified 408 federally funded and supported U.S. 
Indian boarding schools as well as 89 additional institutions 
that received no Federal funding at all. For centuries, these 
497 boarding schools operated as a broad system with a singular 
goal aimed at our children.
    The stated purpose of the United States Indian Boarding 
School Policy was to destroy Indian culture by using education 
as a weapon. This purpose was clarified by General Pratt. In 
fierce commitment to an agenda of assimilation, Pratt's motto 
to ``Kill the Indian in him, and save the man,'' became a 
standard for the operation of these institutions.
    Upon arrival, our children had their hair chopped, their 
clothes stripped, and their names were replaced with English 
ones or often just a number. Children frequently received 
corporal punishment for speaking their language, practicing 
traditional songs and ceremonies, and resisting contradictory 
instructions from their languages and cultures.
    Methods of punishment included: solitary confinement, 
flogging, whipping, slapping, cuffing, and forcing children to 
administer punishments to each other, such as the gauntlet or 
the strapline. Children were subjected to forced labor, 
neglect, malnourishment, and physical and sexual abuse. 
Children were beaten to death.
    This happened routinely enough to compel operators to have 
cemeteries on the school grounds often in unmarked graves. This 
violence affected hundreds of thousands of children, their 
families, and their communities so deeply that these effects of 
trauma can be seen intergenerationally. Indian boarding school 
methods are rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest 
Destiny.
    It has taken generations for us to get to this point of 
public truth and accountability: For the voices of those that 
have never had the chance to return home; For those that were 
forever changed by this extreme cruelty; For those that were 
chained to basement radiators, prison cells, and dark closets; 
For those that were sexually abused, told to wash up, and to 
return to the marching lines; For those that were told that 
they would be forgotten--We are here to remind you to remember 
these children, to tell the truth, to subpoena others who are 
carrying that knowledge and ensure that we get the truth that 
our families deserve. They need to know where their children 
are. We need our relatives to come home. Thank you for this 
time. T'igwicid tsicyaltsa.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Parker follows:]
  Prepared Statement of Deborah Parker, CEO, National Native American 
                Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS)
    Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name 
is tsicyaltsa, Deborah Parker, citizen of the Tulalip Tribes and I 
serve as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Native American 
Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS). NABS formed in 2011, 
following public outcry about the lasting impacts of the boarding 
school era. Shortly after Canada launched the Canadian Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission, leaders from the United States and Canada 
came together to discuss the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and 
the need for such a process in the United States. NABS is a 501(c)(3) 
non-profit and we support a community of thousands of boarding school 
survivors and descendants. On behalf of these relatives, as well as 54 
endorsements and 26 resolutions from Tribes and national organizations, 
I am here to strongly support H.R. 5444.
    The vision of NABS is to lead in the pursuit of understanding and 
addressing the ongoing trauma created by the U.S. Indian Boarding 
School policy. In practice, NABS is a coalition of people who support 
the healing of boarding school survivors and descendants by using our 
network to advocate, engage in research, and offer healing resources. 
NABS uses its voice to educate about the truth, the full scope of the 
federal Indian boarding school policies and the lasting legacy felt in 
Indian Country and throughout the nation. The experiences of our 
relatives are still with us and the U.S. government has never 
meaningfully addressed these impacts. This is why we stand before you 
today.
    Our recent collaborative work with the U.S. Department of the 
Interior has identified 408 federally funded and supported U.S. Indian 
boarding schools, as well as 89 additional boarding schools that 
received no federal funding at all. Over nearly two centuries, these 
497 boarding schools operated as a broad system with a singular goal 
aimed at our children.
    Between the 1800s and the 1970s, the federal government removed 
thousands of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian 
children from our homes and families, and placed them in assimilative 
institutions designed to strip us of our languages, identities, and 
cultures--these lifeways that have connected us to the land since time 
immemorial. The stated purpose of the U.S. Indian Boarding School 
policy was to destroy Indian culture by using education as a weapon. 
This purpose was expounded upon by the likes of General Richard Henry 
Pratt, who stated:

        ``A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead 
        one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an 
        enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I 
        agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian 
        there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, 
        and save the man.''

    In fierce commitment to an agenda of assimilation, Pratt's motto to 
``Kill the Indian in him, and save the man'', became a standard for the 
operation of these institutions. Nearly 500 U.S. Indian boarding 
schools carried out this ideology. They sought to destroy Indian 
language, culture, and ultimately to dismantle Indian nations, enabling 
the federal government to acquire more Indian land. To achieve this 
end, Indian children were forcibly abducted and sent to schools often 
hundreds of miles away, under the pretense that replacing the child's 
home and cultural influences through boarding school would be the most 
effective means to ``civilize'' Native people and to dispossess them of 
their lands.
    Upon arrival, our children had their hair chopped, their clothes 
stripped, and their names were replaced with English ones or often, 
just a number. Children frequently received corporal punishment for 
speaking their language, practicing traditional songs and ceremonies, 
and resisting contradictory instructions that their languages and 
cultures were wrong. Methods of punishment included: solitary 
confinement, flogging, whipping, slapping, cuffing, and devising 
methods to engage children to administer punishments to each other, 
such as the gauntlet or the strap line. Other methods of dehumanization 
routinely observed were: forced labor, neglect, malnourishment, and 
physical and sexual abuse. Children were beaten to death. This happened 
routinely enough to compel school operators to have cemeteries on the 
school grounds, often in unmarked graves.

    Indian Boarding School methods are rooted in the Doctrine of 
Discovery and Manifest Destiny--all of which meant genocide for Native 
American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian peoples. The Doctrine of 
Discovery, specifically, provided sanction and justification for the 
invasion and colonization of land inhabited by non-Christians. One of 
the lasting legacies of this doctrine is the legal and cultural belief 
that Indigenous people do not have the right to our own cultures, 
lands, practices, and even how we raise our own children. The Boarding 
School Era, seen as an effective alternative to extermination, was 
ushered in by the U.S. ``Education for Assimilation'' Policy. Beginning 
with the Indian Civilization Act Fund of 1819, the U.S. authorized and 
financed religious missions to weaponize education as a ``civilizing 
process''. This policy was further enacted through the creation of the 
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1824, created under the War 
Department, primarily to administer these monies to churches. This 
would also be seen in President Grant's Peace Policy, lasting from 1868 
to 1881, which endeavored to replace corrupt ``Federal Agents'' with 
Christian missionaries.

    The effects of Colonialism and the Federal boarding school policies 
are clear. They are measured in stolen land, stolen lives, and 
widespread denial of sovereignty; through the systemic delegitimization 
of Indigenous ways of living, knowing, and being; through the 
destruction of language, culture, and knowledge. In sum, the effects 
are seen as Indigenous erasure, rooted in the boarding school policy 
era.

    The trauma of family and community separation, as well as the 
violently assimilative strategies of boarding schools and adoption, 
affected hundreds of thousands of children, their families, and their 
communities so deeply that these effects of trauma can be seen 
intergenerationally. In light of this, NABS, First Nations Repatriation 
Institute, and the University of Minnesota are conducting a research 
study to learn more about experiences and impacts of child removal 
related to the United States' federal Indian boarding school policy. 
The survey has seen 900 respondents to date, including 211 boarding 
school survivors and 791 descendants of boarding school survivors. Of 
the respondents, nearly half reported being diagnosed with a mental 
health condition; 77 percent reported struggling with depression; 
approximately one third of respondents reported symptoms of PTSD; 75 
percent of respondents reported having attempted suicide. Additionally, 
87 percent of respondents believed their experience affected their 
parenting, 81 percent believe they still need to heal from their 
experiences, and 73 percent have sought therapy or counseling.

    The intergenerational trauma of Indian Boarding Schools continues 
to be particularly harsh among Native youth. The 2014 White House 
Report on Native youth found major disparities in health and education, 
with more than one in three American Indian and Alaska Native children 
living in poverty and a graduation rate of 67 percent--the lowest of 
any racial/ethnic demographic group across all schools. Those students 
who survived their boarding school experience, suffered traumatic 
alienation when they returned home, finding themselves unable to 
connect with their families and communities. The report also 
established a state of emergency regarding Native youth suicide--the 
second leading cause of death for Native youth in the 15- to 24-year-
old age group--and PTSD, with rates three times the general public--the 
same rate as Iraqi war veterans.

    Given nearly 500 boarding schools throughout a timespan of nearly 
two centuries, it is essential to recognize that boarding school 
experiences cannot be seen as monolithic. There are nuanced histories 
that need to be understood and examined further. U.S. boarding schools 
provoked deep traumas and unresolved grief, while also accompanying a 
complex history of resistance and resilience. Many individuals found 
solace in friendships and relationships that would sustain them 
throughout their lifetimes. Some resolved to learn settler ways in 
order to better prepare their Tribes to negotiate with an expanding 
American society. What cannot go ignored is that the spectrum of 
boarding school history and experiences are unequivocally and 
inescapably tied to the legacy of forced removal; dispossession of 
land; physical, psychological and sexual abuse; mass deaths and 
unmarked graves; and the extermination of Native ways of living, 
knowing, and genocide.

    NABS is not alone in recognizing the cultural genocide carried out 
through Indian Boarding Schools. In 2007, the United Nations General 
Assembly adopted the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous 
Peoples (UNDRIP), which holds that ``Indigenous peoples have the right 
to establish and control their educational systems and institutions 
providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to 
their cultural methods of teaching and learning.'' The U.S. Government 
responded that UNDRIP advanced ``a new and distinct international 
concept of self-determination specific to Indigenous peoples,'' which 
is not the same as the existing concept in international law. The 
statement also interprets free, prior, and informed consent, ``which 
the United States understands to call for a process of meaningful 
consultation with tribal leaders.''

    Today, NABS is focused on hope, healing, and resiliency. Our goal 
is to provide this through the five-year Truth Commission, which aims 
to examine the location of children, document ongoing impacts from 
boarding schools, locate church and government records, hold culturally 
appropriate public hearings to collect testimony from survivors and 
descendants, gather institutional knowledge from subject matter 
experts, share findings publicly, and provide a final report with a 
list of recommendations for justice and healing.

    It has taken generations for us to get to this point of public 
truth and accountability; For the voices of those that never had the 
chance to return home; for those that were forever changed by this 
extreme cruelty; for those that were chained to basement radiators, 
prison cells, and dark closets; For those that were sexually abused, 
told to wash up, and to return to their marching lines; For those that 
were told that they and their families would be forgotten;

    We have not forgotten.

    We ask you to hear their voices.

    The time for action is now. We must pass, H.R. 5444, the Truth and 
Healing Commission Bill on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.

    Thank you for the opportunity to speak. t'igwicid tsicyaltsa.

                                 ______
                                 
 Questions Submitted for the Record to Deborah Parker, Chief Executive 
  Officer, National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
             Questions Submitted by Representative Grijalva
    Question 1. As someone who worked previously on truth and healing 
efforts in Canada, do you have any recommendations for how the Federal 
Government should address its role in the creation and implementation 
of Indian boarding schools?

    Answer. Yes. The Congress must pass H.R. 5444 and establish the 
Truth and Healing Commission that addresses boarding schools in the 
United States. Based in part on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission, H.R. 5444 reflects lessons learned, both positive and 
negative, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada. The 
primary difference is that the Commission in Canada did not have the 
power to subpoena documents and compel testimony. The U.S. must have 
this authority to properly carry out its mission.
    In 2007, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 
Canadian began implementation. One of the elements of the agreement was 
the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 
to facilitate reconciliation among former students, their families, 
their communities, and others across the Canadian government including 
Health Canada and other key governmental support networks.
    The Government of Canada provided financial support the TRC's work. 
The TRC spent over 6 years traveling to all parts of Canada and heard 
from more than 6,500 witnesses, including generational survivors. The 
TRC also hosted seven national events across Canada to engage the 
Canadian public, educate people about the history and legacy of the 
residential school system, and respectfully share the experiences of 
former students and their families. The TRC then created a record of 
the impacts and harm caused by the residential school system. As part 
of this process, the Government of Canada provided over 5 million 
records to the TRC. Records are still requested and needed by many 
First Nations and their families.
    At the end of their 6 year agreement, the TRC presented the 
executive summary of the findings contained in its multi-volume final 
report, including 94 ``calls to action'' to further help heal a country 
divided. The TRC also released its 6-volume final report.
    To date, the government of Canada and First Nations members 
continue to work on their relationship. We believe there are many 
lessons the United States can learn from the TRC process initiated by 
the Canadians government and First Nations.

             Questions Submitted by Representative Gallego

    Question 1. Can you describe how involved the Native American 
Boarding School Healing Coalition and survivors of boarding schools 
were in the compilation of the Department of Interior report that was 
released 5/11/22? Do you expect a similar level of engagement with NABS 
if the commission in H.R. 5444 is enacted?

    Answer. NABS was actively involved in exchanging information about 
boarding schools with the Department of the Interior. NABS was founded 
over 10 years ago with the mission of researching information that was 
and is relevant to the Department of the Interior's Report and ongoing 
work. On December 7, 2021, NABS and the Department of Interior entered 
into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) so both parties that the 
Department could share information and keep it confidential, and 
Interior officials could freely ask questions of NABS throughout 
preparation of the report.
    NABS had no role in drafting the Report. Boarding schools survivors 
did not communicate with Interior through NABS. Because of NABS' 
expertise in this area, NABS expects to be centrally involved in the 
Truth and Healing Commission if H.R. 5444 is enacted into law.

    Question 2. It is my understanding that Federal boarding school 
policies, along with other oppressive Federal policies, contributed to 
the growth of urban AI/AN populations in U.S. cities. Can you discuss 
more about the impact of these Federal policies on the growth of the 
urban AI/AN population and the need to partner with urban Native 
communities to help heal from the effects of the intergenerational 
trauma caused by boarding school policies?

    Answer. Federal boarding school policies began as a way for the 
Federal Government to obtain control over Tribal land. To achieve this 
end, federal law and policy makers established policies focused on 
destroying Native American and Alaskan Native (``NA/AN'') culture. 
Policy makers hoped that when Native children were assimilated into the 
dominant culture, they would no longer feel a connection to their 
reservations, which in turn would push them toward urban areas. Many 
children became disconnected from their home tribal communities. This 
successful ideology was centered on making the need for reservations 
obsolete. The effects can be seen today through the nearly 70 percent 
of NA/AN individuals who live in urban areas. It is paramount to work 
with urban Native communities on how to heal from intergenerational 
trauma as they can best articulate their needs.

         Questions Submitted by Representative Leger Fernandez

    Question 1. After decades of inaction, we are proud of the U.S. 
Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's efforts to jumpstart 
the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.

    (a) What other efforts would the Coalition like to see alongside 
this initiative?

    Answer. Many Native people from across the United States suffer 
from a variety of physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental health problems, 
and other hardships associated with loss of language and culture. Many 
of those problems are a direct result of federal policies that existed 
for 150 years that were intended to wipe out Native identity and 
culture. Many people carrying out these genocidal policies treated 
Native children as less than human and inflicted severely abused them. 
Congress has much work to do to assist tribal communities with 
preserving Native languages and cultures. It was much work to do in 
providing resources to address mental health problems in tribal 
communities. It has much work to do to give tribal governments more 
resources to protect women and children in tribal communities that are 
suffering from the residual impacts of these hardships.

    (b) How would the passage of H.R. 5444 aid these efforts?

    Answer. The Trust and Healing Commission established by H.R. 5444 
would give boarding school survivors an opportunity to share their 
stories. From our work, we know that so many of them suffered serious 
trauma while students at boarding schools, and they need healing from 
these experiences. We also need experts to provide focused work on ways 
to overcome the problems created by federal boarding school policies 
that can help our communities heal and move forward.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you as well so very much for 
your testimony. The bells you are hearing behind us is that the 
votes have been called. I apologize to our last witness that we 
weren't able to get to you before the votes were called. We 
will take a recess. I look forward to us all getting back here 
as soon as votes conclude.
    Staff will keep you apprised of where we are in that 
process. I don't want to start pronouncing about them because 
we can't really tell how long they'll take.
    But I do want to share that what we have heard so far is 
incredibly moving. It is important to hear the stories. It is 
important to hear all of your testimony as difficult as it may 
be testifying here and in the months and years ahead that these 
stories need to be heard. So, thank you for the sharing of them 
today.
    We will come back as soon as we can. We are now in recess.
    [Recess.]
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. The Chair will now recognize as our 
last witness, Dr. Janine Pease, who is the Founding President 
and Faculty Member at Little Big Horn College.
    Dr. Pease, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DR. JANINE PEASE, FOUNDING PRESIDENT AND FACULTY 
     MEMBER, LITTLE BIG HORN COLLEGE, CROW AGENCY, MONTANA

    Dr. Pease. Thank you, Madam Chair Leger Fernandez. I am 
honored to present testimony today to this Committee in favor 
of House Resolution 5444, the ``Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies Act.''
    Balusshe Ukchiiwaagideeiitshitcheesh. Apsaalooke Biia. 
Shoodaagii. Itchik Daloom. My name is one who loves to pray. I 
am a Crow Indian woman. I bring you greetings from Crow 
country. This is a beautiful day that our Creator has given us.
    I am past President of and current adjunct faculty in 
humanities at Little Bighorn College. As an associate faculty 
to the Crow Oral History Project, I have pursued over the last 
5 years the stories of women and children from my Nation. I 
also coordinate language revitalization projects for the Crow 
Language Consortium.
    But I want to tell you that like many other American Indian 
people, I am a descendant of boarding school students. My, 
Hidatsa, great grandmother, Sarah Walker Pease, attended and 
graduated from Hampton Institute. She went there with 14 
students. And while she was there, 7 of those 14 perished and 
are buried there.
    Sarah's fourth son, little Benny, was forced to go to Crow 
Agency School at the tender age of only 4 years. And he was 
beaten so badly that he died at the school, and we decorate his 
grave every Memorial Day.
    My grandparents, Tillie White Man Runs Him and Ben Pease 
attended the Crow Agency Boarding School. And my grandpa, at an 
older age, went to Sherman Indian School in California where he 
chose to run away because he objected so much to his treatment 
there.
    There is a story in our tribe of a grandmother who wanted 
to protect her grandson from being taken by the Crow Police to 
Crow Boarding School. I know this old lady. I knew her as a 
child. She was very elderly. She wanted to protect her 
grandson, so she went to the mountains. She and her grandson 
eluded the Crow Police for almost 3 weeks, camping, moving, 
camping. And finally, Crow Policeman White Arm captured the 
little boy.
    She followed the policeman and her grandson to Crow Agency, 
a distance of 24 miles, set up her camp, and put up her tent 
right next to the fence that was around the boarding school. 
From August to December, she watched her little grandson march 
from the dorm, to the cafeteria, to the classroom building. 
Right up to the very frigid cold temperatures in Montana, 
subzero weather. Finally, she became convinced that her little 
grandson might survive the boarding school. Typically, we 
called the Crow Agency Boarding School the mean place.
    Well, my reservation was served by many schools. We had two 
BIA boarding schools. We had a Catholic boarding school, Saint 
Francis Xavier Boarding School. We had a Unitarian boarding 
school. And we had eight day schools later starting in about 
1904.
    The Crow students, though, that went to Carlisle have 
definitely picked up my fascination, and I have studied them, 
learned about their data. In a general sense, it is difficult 
to get to the stories of women and children because typical 
histories don't always get to the faces and voices of men and 
women often follow politics and economics. But my historical 
research has shown that there are many moving parts.
    Fortunately, in the case of Carlisle, there is a digital 
resource center. And that center provides basic data on all of 
the students who were enrolled. I was able to find out who the 
students were. I found out that three of our students passed 
away and are buried there. I found that 17 were discharged for 
serious illness, many of whom, almost all of whom, died within 
just a year or two of their return to the Crow Reservation.
    I have the advantage of having been able to interview 
children of Carlisle students, and conducting interviews to 
understand what the conditions at Carlisle were. Careful 
investigation is what I think the Commission will be about to 
hear the voices, to see the faces, to understand the conditions 
that our children were subjected to.

    I would like to mention that in my career, I served on the 
Indian Nations at Risk Task Force. That was in 1989 to 1991. 
Our task force chose to hold listening sessions to hear the 
voices of people who had very important things to say about 
Indian education.

    In a period of 2 years, we held hearings in eight 
locations. Each one of the members of our task force held 
hearings in schools, community centers, and we listened very 
intently. And then we issued summary reports of all the voices 
that came forward. We also commissioned papers on special 
issues. I think a commission such as being proposed could do 
this to bring the voices of people to this story.

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Dr. Pease, thank you. We are over 
time, but I will give you a few more to round out your 
testimony.

    Dr. Pease. Thank you. The legacy of the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs boarding schools is bittersweet. Certainly, the 
bitterness comes from the extreme distance Indian students had 
to endure from their homeland, from their loved ones, from 
their culture, and their language.

    The bitter experience includes a loss of classmates and 
fellow tribal members who were students. Those who succumbed to 
diseases so debilitating that they took their life. It was 
bitter for the students whose stay at Carlisle was cut short 
due to severe illnesses. And they found themselves on trains as 
passengers to go home. And once they got home, they lost their 
lives.

    Of course, there is a sweet aspect of those who achieved. 
And we have talked already about the immense resilience many of 
our people have shown to take away from those experiences. 
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony in support 
of this legislation.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Pease follows:]
   Prepared Statement of Janine Pease, D. Ed., Crow Indian Educator, 
 Adjunct Faculty in Crow Studies and Humanities, Founding President of 
               Little Big Horn College of the Crow Nation
    Shoodaagii. Itchik Daloom. Balusshe Ukchiiwaagideeiitshitcheesh. 
Apsaalooke Biia. Good Afternoon. Honored Chair of the House Committee 
on Natural Resources' Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United 
States (SCIP) and distinguished committee members,

    I am honored with this invitation to present before this august 
body; my testimony is in support of this proposed legislation to 
establish the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School 
Policies for the reasons that:

     Many children and youth voices of Indian people have been 
            silent, despite their significant and impactful experiences 
            in the boarding schools of the Bureau of Indian, from the 
            most negative across the spectrum to the positive; and to 
            be inclusive of Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools 
            and those schools conducted by various churches for the 
            education of Indian children; and,

     Some students sent to boarding schools did not survive, 
            due to loneliness, disease, even disorientation; their 
            legacy needs full disclosure and recognition of their lives 
            lost and the intergenerational loss to their families and 
            communities; and

     For there to be reconciliation and healing, stories of all 
            those who experienced the boarding schools, both public and 
            sectarian, must be told, listened to and understood; and,

     The American Indian boarding school stories in the telling 
            give power to the survivors, the survivor's children and 
            their precious succeeding generations.

Introduction

    I am Janine Pease, an Absaalooke educator from Montana, my Crow 
Indian name is ``One Who Loves to Pray.'' As an American Indian 
educator, my professional career has been in tribal colleges and 
universities administration and instruction, and most recently as a 
professor of Crow Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences. My doctoral 
research on the tribal colleges act history involved oral histories of 
Indian Educators, which I found to be compelling and vivid. The lives 
of early reservation Apsaalooke women and children have led into 
research of the stories of Crow Women Chiefs and Leaders, a study of 
health conditions for infants and children by decade, and the story of 
the Crow students who attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School. 
Through the Little Big Horn College Crow Oral History Project I met 
movers and shakers in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s through oral history 
interviews, written memoirs and official documents review.
    In the 1940s, a Crow Women's Federated Club in Crow Agency and 
Wyola had members who were Carlisle alumni. A photo in the Crow 
Calendar of the club members sparked my curiosity in the Crow Indian 
Carlisle students. Thus began my intensive research of the Crow Indian 
Carlisle Indian Industrial School students. Through the use of the 
Carlisle Indian School Resource Center online I began a detailed 
records review, conducted oral history interviews of their children, 
and reviewed memoirs by alumni.
The Crow Indian Students Experience at Carlisle Indian Industrial 
        School

    Crow Indian Health and Education in 1890 to 1920. A glimpse of the 
period 1890 to 1920, the boarding school era for the Apsaalooke people, 
finds dire health conditions for children and youth. According to the 
Bureau of Indian Affairs census', during the decades 1890 to 1920 the 
Crow tribal population went from 2,500 to 1,800 due to the diseases of 
smallpox, tuberculosis, whooping cough, respiratory and gastric 
conditions. The population ages 0-18 dropped in number by half.

    The treaty conditions made education mandatory on the Crow Indian 
Reservation. The Crow children were coerced, even forced, to attend the 
Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding Schools and the contracted sectarian 
schools:

     Crow Agency BIA Boarding School was opened in 1886 and 
            closed in 1920. The students were in grades 1 to 6. The 
            school served up to 160 students at a time. The school was 
            co-educational and followed the half day academics and half 
            day trades curriculum.

     Pryor BIA Boarding School was built and opened in 1903 and 
            provided grades 1 to 6. This was a coeducational school. 
            The school closed in 1919. The school had a smallpox 
            outbreak shortly after its opening when 9 girls came down 
            with the life-threatening disease. The school had 50 to 75 
            students during its operation.

     The BIA contracted with the Catholic Church for the St. 
            Frances Xavier Catholic Boarding School. This boarding 
            school was operated by the Jesuits from 1887 to 1918. The 
            school had teachers from the Ursuline Sisters, for grades 1 
            to 6. Their student population varied from 70 to 110 
            students. Chief Pretty Eagle negotiated with the school to 
            have Sunday evening family time, and organized for the boys 
            to be out of the school during the summer. The girls were 
            sequestered throughout the calendar year, in the school. 
            Students participated in daily mass, and conversion to 
            Christianity was mandatory. Karen Watembach, local 
            historian conducted extensive interviews with students and 
            parents during the 1970s and 1980s. These records are at 
            the LBHC Archives.

     The Unitarian Universalist Church contracted with BIA for 
            The Montana Indian Industrial School in the northern 
            portions of the Crow Reservation near Custer, Montana. The 
            school followed the half academics and half school trades 
            curriculum related to the self-supporting school operation. 
            Citizenship and patriotism were stressed. The Crow people 
            called this school Bond's Mission. The enrolled between 
            1887 and 1897 averaged 50 students. (This school is fully 
            documented in The Montana Indian Industrial School: A 
            Worthy Work in a Needy Time, by Margery L. Pease.)

     American Baptist Day Schools began when the Lodge Grass 
            Crow Indian district leaders partnered with the Sheridan 
            (Wyoming) American Baptist Church to meet, negotiate, 
            agree, build and open a Day School in 1904 in Lodge Grass. 
            The school was opened from 1904 to 1920. The Baptists 
            opened additional day schools at Wyola, Reno Creek and 
            Pryor over the next ten years; each served up to 10 
            students.

     Catholic Day Schools were opened by the St. Frances Xavier 
            Catholic Mission and School at Lodge Grass Creek and Fort 
            Smith. The teachers were Catholic Mission graduates, Crow 
            Indian language speaking teachers. These schools had up to 
            20 students each.

    Crow Indian Students Enrolled at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 
Research of Janine Pease, D. Ed., March 2021. Among the 10,000 students 
who enrolled at Carlisle School, ninety-three were Crow Indian. 
Although Carlisle opened in 1887, the Crow Indian Agent sent a group of 
students in 1883. The Crow students took the train, and they would get 
to Iowa, then Chicago and on to Pennsylvania. At Carlisle, they were 
made to walk to the school, a distance of two miles.

    Graduates. The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center 
online indicates there are twelve Crow Indian students who completed 
the Carlisle graduation requirements. These are eight male students and 
four female students, starting in the Class of 1890 with George Means 
and the Class of 1907 with Christine Childs. In the Class of 1897 there 
were two Crow students: Frank Shively and Alexander Upshaw. Vocational 
certificates are not available, and several Crow Indian Students 
records note vocational certificates.

    Crow Student Demographic Data. In an analysis of the 96 students 
files for Crow Indians, several data sets reveal who the students were, 
their enrollment at age, groups sent, and their choice of trades:

     Gender: 58 males, 38 females

     The student enrollment age begins at age 12 (15 students), 
            age 13 (8 students), age 14 (13 students), age 15 (16 
            students, age 16 (a11 students), age 17 (9 students, age 18 
            (11 students). Just four students entered Carlisle at an 
            age younger than 12; and nine students were older than age 
            18.

     Students' previous schooling ranged between 24 to 72 
            months, in reservation boarding schools.

     The trades students were taking included: housework (all 
            girls), carpentry, blacksmithing, harness making, tin 
            working, nursing, engineer (boiler operation), farming, 
            wagon-making, and sewing.

     Seventeen students were discharged due to illness (type of 
            illness not available). Ten of these students were girls, 
            and seven were boys. All of these were reported dead by the 
            Agent in 10 years time.

     There was a group of students from Greycliff, Montana 
            (near Bozeman), the location of the first Crow Indian 
            Agency, and from Custer, Montana, where the Unitarian 
            Montana Indian Industrial School was located.

     Sibling groups were represented with the last name of 
            Cooper, Stewart and Geisdorf.

    Crow Students Who Died and are Buried at Carlisle. From the 
Carlisle Indian School Cemetery records, there are three Crow Indian 
students who died while attending the school: Charles Fisher of Crow 
Agency who died in September 1886, Katie Helen Adams of St. Xavier was 
enrolled for three years and died in August 1903, and Ernest Iron 
``Little War Shield'' of Crow Agency, who was enrolled for 1.5 years 
and died in March 1910.

    Crow Carlisle Students Married to Other Carlisle Students. Crow 
student William White married Josephine Williams, and Carlisle expelled 
them for this marriage. William White was enrolled for 5 years in the 
Engineer vocational program, and upon return, he worked at the Crow 
Agency as an operator of the Agency boiler for 5 years. Wife Josephine 
was Simshian and came to Carlisle from the Salem Indian School (Chemawa 
Indian School). She was enrolled for four years and took the trade of 
sewing and laundry. Rosa LaForge graduated in 1904 with the trade of 
seamstress. She was enrolled for six years and had become a Carlisle 
employee as an Assistant Matron. She married Charles Dillon, a Crow 
Creek Sioux, who was enrolled for 4.5 years, in the trade of 
blacksmith. The Dillon family lived in the Wyola district of the Crow 
reservation. Julia Hawks married Thomas Medicine Horse, and both were 
expelled from Carlisle for the marriage. Julia had a record of 
completing five outings in the summers, while Thomas Medicine Horse was 
enrolled for four years in the carpentry trade. Together the Medicine 
Horse couple lived in Crow Agency.

    Nurses Training and Graduates. Susie Farwell of Custer, MT, went on 
an outing placement to Elliot Hospital in New Jersey, in 1896. Ida 
Towns of Crow Agency was sent to German Hospital in Brooklyn New York 
where she completed Nurses Training . Following her nursing training, 
in 1913, Ida became employed at Fort Lapwai Sanitorium in Lapwai, 
Idaho, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. Ms. Towns was featured in 
the Carlisle publications for her graduation from German Hospital. 
Margaret Picket was a nurse trainee placed in the Carlisle Hospital 
(treating primarily tuberculosis victims).

    Enlistment in the U.S. Armed Services in World War I. The emphasis 
on citizenship as Carlisle curriculum content promoted the enlistment 
of many Carlisle students. Five Crow Indian students enlisted in the 
armed services: Russell Whitebear, George Pease, George White Fox, 
Horace Long Bear and Hugh Leider. All survived the WWI and returned to 
the Crow Reservation.

    Four Mystery Students. In the review of Crow Indian student files, 
the district of origin on the Crow Reservation for four students was 
Fort Snelling. Fort Snelling is the prison where the Crow men involved 
in an incident named ``The Wraps Up His Tail Rebellion'' were 
incarcerated; Fort Snelling, Minnesota. These men served a brief time 
there and then were sent to Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Moses 
Knows His Cows and Julian Carries His Food were at Carlisle only 
briefly in 1888. However, Egbert Big Hail and Theron Looks With His 
Ears or Lears stayed for two years. Theron Lears became a political 
activist once he returned to the Crow Reservation. (Material on the 
rebellion can be found in Parading Through History: The Making of the 
Crow Nation in America 1805-1935, by Frederick Hoxie.)

    Outstanding Carlisle Graduates and Alumni. Based on digital 
resources, descendant interviews and autobiographies, nine profiles of 
Carlisle alumni were developed, five are provided here, to indicate 
their position and influence in the Crow Indian community upon their 
return from Carlisle School.

    Alexander Upshaw. Alexander Upshaw's father was Plenty Bear. He 
studied at Carlisle for ten years and went on five outings, all in 
Pennsylvania. He graduated with the Class of 1897. He was an excellent 
writer, and was published several times in the Carlisle Indian Helper. 
He attended Bloomsberg Normal School in 1897-1898, and completed a 
teaching certificate. His first assignment was an Genoa Industrial 
School where he was the Industrial Teacher for 2 years. He met and 
married his wife Emma Young and they had three daughters. Upon his 
return home to the Crow Reservation, he became a political activist. He 
became the Assistant/Interpreter to Edward S. Curtis, the renowned 
photographer of American Indians. Upshaw collaborated with Curtis on 
the Crow and Hidatsa research, setting up scenes and strategizing 
designs. Curtis and Upshaw met with President Roosevelt, where Upshaw 
discussed the conditions of the Crow people.

    George Washington Hogan. At the tender age of 10, George Washington 
Hogan request of his parents Bear Before and Emma Chein Frazier to 
attend Carlisle. He was enrolled at Carlisle from 1898 to 1904. His 
daughter Mardell Hogan Plainfeather wrote about her father. ``He was a 
part of a group of young men who attempted to spread their wings of 
``intellectual protection'' over matters of political importance to the 
Crow.''d About the relationship with the elder statement and Crow 
Indian chiefs, Ms. Plainfeather said, ``They joined the Chiefs ``with a 
weapon that the old chiefs did not have--a Whiteman' education. The 
chiefs eventually learned to rely on them to convey their words to the 
whites especially to the Great White Father. Plainfeather recounts that 
``as interpreters, they worked for missionaries, anthropologists, local 
traders and Crows themselves, in matters that required reading, writing 
and orator skills.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Hogan-Plainfeather. Unpublished manuscript. ``Biography of 
George Washington Hogan.'' 1987. Little Big Horn College Archives, Crow 
Agency MT.

    Lois Pretty Scalp. A student at Carlisle Indian School from 
November 1883, a student in the first group sent by the Crow Indian 
Agent to Carlisle. Lois stayed at Carlisle for seven years, even though 
she arrived at the age of seventeen. From the Black Lodge District, her 
Indian name was Two Medicine Rocks. The reason for her discharge was 
that her time expired. Carlisle enrolled students for five years, with 
extensions. Lois married Louis Bompard. In a graduate survey Lois 
responded about their family: ``We own our home and it is white with 2 
rooms and a porch. We have 50 chickens, 5 turkeys, 3 geese, 10 pigs, 7 
doves and 13 horses. I worked at the school as a laundress for 1 month. 
My husband, a full blood, is a Boss Farmer. We take a leading role, the 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agent relies on my husband.

    Minnie Reed Williams. Minnie was a child of a Gros Ventre/Crow 
woman and a trader. She and her siblings suffered a tragedy when their 
father was killed in an altercation at the Agency, and the Agent sent 
them to St. Frances Xavier Boarding School at St. Xavier in the Big 
Horn District of the Crow Reservation. At an early age, according to 
her autobiography, Minnie aspired to read many great books. She 
eventually went to Fort Shaw Indian School in western Montana, where 
she gained an even greater appreciation of learning and reading. She 
completed her education at Fort Shaw and returned to teach at the Crow 
Agency Boarding School. She taught Crow Indian children just long 
enough to earn the cost of a one way train ticket to Carlisle Indian 
School. So on her own dime, Minnie went to Carlisle in 1897 at the age 
of 18, and stayed until 1901. She had five outings in Pennsylvania, 
with Quaker families, all of them teachers. Upon her return to Crow 
Agency, Minnie uncovered her mother's and grandmother's allotments, and 
along with her own, put together a landbase for a ranch near Custer. 
She purchased additional plots for the cattle and horse ranching 
business with her husband Owen Blue Williams. Due to the BIA Horse Kill 
of 1923, Minnie and Owen had their livestock slaughtered, leading to 
bankruptcy and the loss of the ranch. Minnie moved to the Agency where 
she took up political activism. She was tribal secretary three times in 
the 1920s and 1930s. She organized the Crow Federation Women's Club, 
and advocated for women's and infant's health, sanitary conditions in 
the Crow Jail and for clean water to tribal members. The club has 
several Carlisle Indian School Alum as members.

    Frank Shively, Graduating Class of 1897. Braided Scalp Lock or 
Frank Shively enrolled in Carlisle Indian School in 1890 and graduated 
in 1897. He was the son of a Union Civil War Veteran Samuel Shivley and 
a Crow woman Girl Sees the Weed. The mother died in childbirth and the 
father was killed in an ambush by the Sioux in 1875. While at Carlisle, 
Frank played football and ran track. After graduation, Frank became an 
Agency stenographer at Lapwai, at the Nez Perce Indian Agency. In a Big 
Horn County News article by Andrew Turck, the family recounted how 
Frank Shively became the first football coach at Washington State 
Agricultural College and Schools of Science, now Washington State 
University at Pullman, Washington.\2\ Frank split his week into two 
parts, working three days at the Nez Perce Agency and two days a week 
at the College coaching football. In 1910, Frank Shively was an 
interpreter for Chief Plenty Coups, in the writing of the famous 
biography by Linderman. The Crow Council authorized Joe Cooper and 
George Washington Hogan, both Carlisle alumni, and Frank to meet with 
Crow tribal attorneys and Senator Dixon to make and execute an 
agreement on opening the Crow Reservation. He was inducted into the 
Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Turck, Andrew. ``19th century Football Coach, Track Star Gains 
Hall of Fame Placement.'' Big Horn County News. November 1, 2018.

    Unintended Consequences. A master's theses by Peter Holman entitled 
``Unintended Consequences: How the Crow Indians Used Their Education in 
Ways the Federal Government Never Intended, 1885-1920.'' Holman stated: 
``Crows who returned from the boarding schools used their education, 
not only to meet the standard set forth by the government, but also in 
ways that reformers, government officials, and even themselves did not 
expect. The U.S. Government's expectation was to use education to 
prepare the Indian for particular limited lifestyles. Farming was the 
occupation intended to further the new cultural direction of the Indian 
after allotment of Indian lands. The curricula of boarding schools 
focused on industrial education, preparing the Indian child to a 
limited future without choice. Instead of following the path chosen by 
others, certain Crow opted to use their education in alternative ways: 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ways that startled agents and commissioners.''

Conclusion
    The legacy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools is 
bitter-sweet. The bitterness comes from the extreme distance Indian 
students had to endure from their homeland, their esteemed loved ones, 
their culture and language. The bitter experience includes the loss of 
classmates and fellow tribal members who were students at Carlisle and 
other boarding schools, who succumbed to diseases so debilitating that 
they were life-taking. It was bitter for the students whose stay at 
Carlisle was cut short due to severe illness, who found themselves 
passengers on the train heading home, and once at home, often unable to 
recover their health, and to lose their chance at life. The sweet 
aspect of the boarding school legacy and experience is the acquisition 
of skills, trades, athletics, rhetoric, writing and knowledge that 
assisted their conduct of life and living on the Reservation. Perhaps 
the brilliant youth whose qualities became recognized and known would 
have been bright and shining no matter what or where the circumstances. 
Perhaps, in some way, the boarding schools staff, teachers, fellow 
students and the individuals themselves coalesced to give these 
achievers a strong resilience in life. Doubtless, the story of Bureau 
of Indian Affairs boarding schools, whether directly administered by 
the Indian Service or contracted by churches, Catholic, Protestant or 
non-denominational (Unitarian) must be told, be reckoned with, be 
recognized, to reconcile the bitter with the sweet, and to heal the 
damages and injuries suffered by the American Indian children and 
youth.

    Madam Chair, I testify today in support of the Bill under 
consideration: H.R. 5444 (Rep. Sharice Davids), To establish the Truth 
and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United 
States, and for other purposes. ``Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies Act.''

                                 *****

Addendum on Bureau of Indian Affairs Off-Reservation Boarding Schools

    The Off-Reservation Boarding Schools. The Bureau of Indian Affairs 
started off-Reservation boarding schools for the older students who had 
attended and finished the local on-Reservation boarding schools. 
Captain Pratt's innovation of Carlisle Indian Industrial School 
developed following his 3 year assignment to Fort Marion in Florida in 
1875-78 guarding imprisoned leaders and warriors from the Cheyennes, 
Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches and 1 Caddo. He made the conclusion that 
education was a solution to the ``Indian problem''. He took this group 
to Hampton Institute, a school for the children of Freedmen. He 
requested to start his own school for Indians, which he said would be 
much less expensive than to wage war on their nations.\3\ His oft 
quoted philosophy was ``Kill the Indian, save the man'' and ``all the 
Indian there is in the race should be dead.'' As the first off-
Reservation boarding school, it was the blueprint for the federal 
Indian school systems to be organized across the UniMadam Chair, Ahoo, 
thank you for the opportunity to share this research and these thoughts 
with you today. ted States. In all, twenty-four military style off-
reservation boarding schools were established.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Fear-Segal, Jacqueline and Rose, Susan D. ``Carlisle Industrial 
School: Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations.'' University 
of Nebraska Press. 2016.
    \4\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The journey to Carlisle Indian Industrial School was a long journey 
on the train, over land or by river boat for the Indian students who 
attended the school. Most children were taken directly from their 
families, although for the Crow Indian children, most had many months 
of local on-Reservation boarding school experience.
    Fear-Segal and Rose tally that 758 of the 10,600 Indian students 
who attended Carlisle graduated, to finish a high school equivalent 
education. Some students begged to go home or ran away. Others 
completed schooling but lived with stress and disturbance for the rest 
of their lives. But since Carlisle students were for the most part 
older, they made friendships among the students of many tribal and 
splayed sports, participated in vocational training, oratory, Native 
arts, and speech and debate. National leaders visited Carlisle as the 
distance between the school and the capital was small. Pratt documented 
the students using photography; a visual proof of the school's success. 
He had publications that featured student writing, prose and poetry.
    David Wallace Adams, in Education for Extinction: American Indians 
and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928 listed the enrollment by 
tribe. For example there were 370 Cherokee, 249 Cheyenne and 998 
Chippewa. The Creek had 104 attend Carlisle, and Adams lists 97 for the 
Crow Tribe.
    Luther Standing Bear said he learned of Carlisle from a tribesman 
Long Chin, who said the shites had come to collect children for a 
school in the East. Luther, a Dakota student, decided he wanted to go: 
``When I went to the East (to Carlisle) I went there thinking I would 
die . . . I could think of white people wanting little Lakota children 
for no other reason than to kill them, but I thought here is my chance 
to prove that I can die bravely. So I went East to show my father and 
my people that I was brave and willing to die for them. Standing Bear 
narrated about the cutting of his hair: ``The fact is that we were to 
be transformed, and short hair being the mark of gentility with the 
white man, he put upon use the mark.'' ``It hurt my feelings to such an 
extent that the tears come into my eyes. None of us slept well that 
night; we felt so queer. Cutting off hair was associated with 
mourning.''
    Zitkala-Sa, a Yankton Lakota, attended a Quaker boarding school at 
age 12. She said ``On the first day, a large bell rang for breakfast, 
its loud metallic voice crashing through the belfry overhead and into 
our sensitive ears. The annoying clatter of shoes on bare floors gave 
us no peace. The constant clash of harsh noises, with an undercurrent 
of many voices murmuring an unknown tongue, made a bedlam within which 
I was securely tied. I struggled for my lost freedom, but all was 
useless.'' She recalled ``Once I lost a dear classmate. I remember well 
how she used to mope along at my side, until one morning she could not 
raise her head from her pillow. At her deathbed, I stood weeping.'' She 
had lost a friend and classmate, so tragic.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Zitkala-Sa/Bonnin, Gertrude Simmons. American Indian Stories, 
Legend and Other Writings. Penguin Classics: New York. P. 89-91.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    David Wallace Adams describes the regulation dress of the off-
Reservation boarding schools. He said there was a changing from tribal 
clothing, that was taken and destroyed, to uniforms that met the 
school's regulations. Boys had 2 plain suits with an extra pair of 
trousers and girls had three dresses. Off-Reservation Schools had 
better clothes. At Carlisle the boys had red shoulder stripes on their 
coats, and Carlisle girls had cloaks with red braid, and some ruffles 
and lace were allowed. The students' individuality was stripped away, 
and they became carbon copies of ``the White Man''. The before and 
after photos were a common part of the arrival to Carlisle ritual.
    The meals were a part of the civilizing experience. The school food 
included fruits, vegetables, dairy products, beef, port and poultry. 
Rules were made and enforced about services; no seconds. Carlisle has 
``army rations'' amounts of food, which was unusual for boarding 
schools. But students' relatives sent the papa and wasna--the 
traditional dried foods. Adams states there was excessive regimentation 
at the table with rituals and rites.
    The student recruitment process was a responsibility of the 
Reservation Agent. It was not until 1893 that parental consent was 
required to attend off-reservations schools. Prior to that year, the 
selection to attend was compulsory with or without parents agreement. 
The schools and the local Agency funded the train fare. Adams notes 
that some Agents kept the best students for the local boarding school, 
others sent ``the poorest material away to boarding schools to get rid 
of them.'' Some Agents did not send any students to Off-Reservation 
schools.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Dr. Pease, for your 
important testimony regarding the importance of listening to 
the voices.
    I thank the panel of witnesses today for their testimony. I 
remind the Members that Committee Rule 3(d) imposes a 5-minute 
limit on questions. The Chair will now recognize Members for 
any questions they may wish to ask the witnesses. I will start 
by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
    Today, we have listened with tears in our eyes and purpose 
in our heart to the tragic stories of the treatment of young 
Native American children who were torn from their parents, torn 
from their families, torn from their culture, torn from their 
homeland, and forced into conditions that if you told us these 
stories today, we would say it was torture.
    We have heard such stories, and we know that it is 
important to continue to hear those stories. Even as I 
recognize that all of you who have shared who are survivors, 
that even telling the story is painful. So, I recognize that 
pain, and I thank you for being willing to go over that pain 
again and again so that we know what happened and so that we 
can move forward. For that, I offer my gratitude.
    And we must acknowledge that Congress played a role in this 
when in 1819, we passed the Indian Civilization Fund Act to 
appropriate funds to church-run schools to ``civilize'' 
American Indian and Alaska Native children. By 1925, 60,889 
American Indian and Alaska Native children were forcibly taken 
to Indian boarding schools. Our own country allowed children to 
die in federally funded schools as we have heard today.
    At least 53 burial sites for Indigenous children in marked 
and unmarked graves exist across this country. And yesterday, 
we heard about the Department of the Interior and its report 
that confirmed that the United States directly used Federal 
Indian boarding schools as a system to dispossess tribes: 76 
schools were in present-day Oklahoma, 47 in Arizona, and 43 in 
my own state of New Mexico.
    The report further calls for an investigation on the legacy 
impacts of Federal Indian boarding schools. It is undeniable 
that these events have led to intergenerational trauma. 
American Indian and Alaskan Native children experienced Post 
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) rates at the same rates as 
veterans returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Of course, they do. They have suffered harm as young 
children torn from their families. They suffer PTSD at triple 
the rate of the general population. H.R. 5444 will establish a 
much-needed Commission to formally investigate and document the 
stories of survivors and the human rights violations that 
occurred against these American Indian, Alaska Native, and 
Native Hawaiians.
    This bill will also include a nationwide hotline service 
for survivors, family members, and other community members. 
H.R. 5444 will focus on the historical intergenerational trauma 
in Indigenous communities.
    Again, I want to thank the witnesses, especially the 
survivors here today. I have almost used up all my time because 
I wanted to make sure we all understood the difficulty of what 
you are doing in testifying here today.
    But, Ms. Parker, I want to just ask you quickly, what are 
the current barriers to obtaining records for Indian boarding 
school and better understanding what took place? Because I 
think it is important to understand those barriers so we can 
truly understand the purpose of the bill and some of its 
provisions.
    Ms. Parker. Absolutely. Thank you for your question, Chair 
Leger Fernandez. I had the opportunity when I was younger to 
work in British Columbia, Canada. And we worked with the 
Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And we were 
funded to do so to work with First Nations, residential school 
survivors and also boarding school survivors from the United 
States.
    And we know from that experience, that obtaining records 
was extremely difficult. Records didn't come forward 
cooperatively. So, now, after many years, I am a citizen of the 
United States here. And it is time that the records come to us, 
to the citizens of this country, to the citizens of our tribes.
    As CEO of the National Native American Boarding School 
Healing Coalition, we have asked for records from churches and 
organizations. We have done a FOIA request to the Federal 
Government, and we have received little support, little 
information.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. With the time left, with regards to 
the subpoena power that the Commission would have, do you 
believe that would assist in recovering those records?
    Ms. Parker. It is absolutely necessary. It is why we worked 
with this bill to make sure that this information comes to the 
boarding school survivors and their families and Tribal Nations 
and organizations who worked for the healing and the truth of 
the Indian boarding school experience.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. My time is expired. The 
Chair will now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Obernolte.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you very 
much to all of our witnesses. I found your testimony this 
afternoon extremely moving. And I am sincerely hopeful that 
this represents the starting point of a process that can bring 
some healing and some catharsis to the victims of this terrible 
tragedy, like yourself, but in tribes across the country.
    Ms. Parker, I will start with you with a question. At the 
beginning of the hearing, we were talking about the Department 
of the Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. 
And as I am sure you are aware, Secretary Haaland yesterday 
released the first volume of findings from that. I haven't made 
my way all the way through it. It is a little over 100 pages, 
but I perused it and hopefully, this weekend I will get some 
time to read through it. But it is very moving and powerful in 
what they have managed to uncover.
    And I was also very happy to hear her announce yesterday 
that she is going to be doing a nationwide tour over the next 
year to gather testimony and stories from people in Indian 
Country about the atrocities that were committed at these 
boarding schools and to try to bring some light and some 
healing to this process.
    As the author of the bill testified, we certainly don't 
want to be duplicating the efforts of the DOI here. We want to 
have this Commission be a parallel process that adds 
meaningfully to what the DOI is doing.
    Can you tell us a little bit about how this Committee would 
distinguish its efforts from that of the DOI?
    Ms. Parker. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. This 
Commission would examine beyond what the scope of the 
Department of the Interior can do. As we know, there are other 
Departments and Representatives in Congress, as well as 
churches and other organizations, private organizations, who 
have records.
    So, this Commission would take a dive deeper into the 
records and public testimony. This will make it a formal record 
for the U.S. Congress and for all of us to understand the needs 
of our boarding school survivors, intergenerational survivors, 
and Tribal Nations.
    And what this bill would do is hold public testimony in a 
way that opens the door to also the experiences of those who 
attended church-run schools.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you. Yes, I think we all have a common 
purpose here. I was actually very disappointed that we didn't 
have the Department of the Interior here to testify on their 
initiative. And I am hopeful that in the future, we will be 
including them in this process because I think that would be a 
very helpful addition. I think we are all on the same team 
here, and we are all working for the same cause. And I think 
that their inclusion is warranted.
    Secondly, I would like to continue a line of questioning 
that Chair Leger Fernandez began on the subpoena power that you 
are requesting for the Commission. As you are aware, that is 
actually a relatively rare thing for a commission like this to 
have.
    In fact, as I think I mentioned at the onset, there are 
some standing policy committees here in the House of 
Representatives that don't have that power. So, I am fearful 
that if we assume this process is going to be adversarial when 
we go out to collect this information, that although we might 
be getting at the truth, we might be also delaying the healing. 
Can you talk a little bit more about that particular concern? 
Why assume that this is going to be an adversarial process?
    Ms. Parker. I guess I am not so sure I would call it 
adversarial. I would just call it the need for records and for 
churches and other organizations to bring the records forward. 
We have heard many stories that they don't have a librarian in 
their church that can compile all the information. We have 
heard a lot of reasons why we cannot receive the records.
    So, with the subpoena power that will allow us to make sure 
the records do come forward in a timely fashion. I think a lot 
of this is just compelling these organizations to bring these 
records forward, especially because we have elders right now 
who are ill, and we have lost a lot through the pandemic. So, 
we need these records now. It is critically important before we 
lose these stories and our elders. They deserve to know where 
their relatives are, what happened to their family members.
    Mr. Obernolte. Right, we all share that goal. But I can 
tell you from experience that when you issue a subpoena to 
somebody, that when someone serves that subpoena, that the 
person is going to assume that the process is adversarial. They 
are going to show up with lawyers. They are going to be very 
defensive. I don't think that is the kind of atmosphere we are 
trying to lay here. So, that is my concern.
    We, the Natural Resources Committee, we have subpoena 
authority. So, I will pledge to you, and I think the Chair will 
join me in this, that if you are having difficulty accessing 
records, sic us on it, because we will go after those records.
    And you know these are agencies that have to come to us for 
approval on their budgets and for approval on the initiatives 
that they are starting. And we will help you get those. But I 
still remain concerned about that subpoena authority just for 
that reason.
    I see I am out of time, but thank you again to everyone. It 
has been very moving this afternoon, and we all appreciate you 
being here.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. The Chair will now 
recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota, Representative 
McCollum.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for having 
this hearing. Thank you, Representative Davids, for bringing 
this forward. And thank you to our Interior Secretary who is in 
Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota this weekend who was at the 
headquarters of the folks who are here trying to seek the 
reconciliation for children who attended boarding schools.
    Really quickly, before I get to the subpoena issue, I would 
like to address the term, ``such sums as may be needed.'' As an 
authorizer when I first came to Congress, that was all that was 
in the education bills unless we were reauthorizing something 
that had a current base number. So, it is custom in usage when 
you're launching something, you need to put in ``such sums as 
needed.'' And that is because when it goes to Ms. Pingree's 
Committee, she will have a targeted amount of money that she 
can spend on the Interior bill. And that gives her the 
flexibility of balancing all the needs of Indian Country within 
the Interior bill. Also, making sure that she works with 
organizations to make sure that they have the necessary funds 
to do the minimum, more if we could do more, and the maximum 
they can spend, if they can spend it at of time, and if Ms. 
Pingree has that amount of money there.
    To have authorizers determine what the appropriating 
committee is going to have is a little awkward because we don't 
have our targets yet. So, such sums as may be needed, doesn't 
mean it is an open checkbook. It just means that the 
Appropriations Committee, which the authorizing committee can 
work with, can do its job at setting the budget.
    I am going to hold up something. I know we are doing this 
virtual. This is called the Catholic Spirit. And I am Catholic, 
for the record, because I will be criticizing my own church. 
The Catholic Spirit had a big report, and it is called the 
Special Report on Indian Boarding School Legacy. And they are 
going through a truth and reconciliation within the Catholic 
Church on this.
    Yet, I know firsthand that my church has failed often when 
children have suffered at the hands of religious clergy with 
sexual abuse, that the church has been involved in cover-ups 
and slow walking. So, the fact that this Commission has the 
ability to quickly let the churches, particularly that were 
involved in these boarding schools, know that they have to 
comply with getting these records moving forward is 
extraordinarily important.
    And this just isn't records to do reconciliation and 
healing. These are all records so we can honor those young 
students who died who are often in unmarked graves. And that is 
something else I worked on in the state of Minnesota. We have a 
legacy at our state of mentally ill and other children being 
institutionalized and being buried in unmarked graves. So, it 
was a very difficult process to move through to get the 
information in that.
    So, subpoenas should be rarely used, but when used 
properly, they can keep someone from stonewalling a commission 
or a group to get to the truth.
    So, Ms. Parker, once again, please, would you say that 
where there has been public money used to a Catholic church, 
one of these other church schools, that the taxpayers have the 
right, that you have the right to get that information for 
taxpayers and how their dollars were used, in many instances to 
abuse and torture children, and to divide families by 
destroying their cultural traditions? Should it be a right to 
get that information for the taxpayers?
    Ms. Parker. Yes, I strongly believe it should be a right to 
obtain those records. And we have already proven that it has 
been incredibly difficult to receive the records. So, I would 
agree with Representative McCollum.
    Ms. McCollum. Madam Chair, as Chair of the Department of 
Defense Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I look forward to 
working with you, Ms. Davids, and the Department of the 
Interior to make sure that the Department of the Defense turns 
over every single record because they too were involved in a 
lot of these schools and the way in which children were not 
treated with the dignity that they deserve. The families had 
their whole future ripped away from them, and we owe it to our 
tribal brothers and sisters to do everything that we can to 
face a wrong, to right or wrong, to make sure it never happens 
again. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Representative. The Chair 
will now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Garcia.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member, and 
especially the witnesses for sharing their most intimate, 
tragic, and important stories that we need to move forward by 
passing this legislation that has been presented by 
Representative Davids.
    Today's hearing comes just one day after the Department of 
the Interior released a report that reveals more about the dark 
history of Native American boarding schools. We know that there 
were more than 400 such schools and that they were supported by 
the U.S. Government in more than 58 associated sites, a figure 
that could grow exponentially as research continues.
    Children were forced to leave their families, were renamed, 
told not to use Indigenous languages, and many killed, among 
many horrors. This hearing may seem timely, especially after 
this report, but let's not forget that to this day, the United 
States has not acknowledged or apologized for its actions 
during the Boarding School Era.
    While we may never be able to bring justice to the Native 
children killed, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian 
Boarding School Policies Act is a first step toward achieving 
necessary measures of accountability.
    Questions for our witnesses--Mr. Matthew War Bonnet, thank 
you for being here today and for sharing your story as a 
boarding school survivor. In your testimony, you said that the 
government and the churches need to be held accountable for 
what happened at these schools. What does accountability look 
like for you and how would the Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies Act achieve that?
    Mr. War Bonnet. Thank you very much for your question. For 
me and my family, and if you would permit, I would like to show 
you a picture. These are my sisters, my family, and my siblings 
that went to the mission school. We all attended that Saint 
Francis School.
    But to me, acknowledgement by the churches, not just an 
apology, but an acknowledgement of what they did to the 
children, and their refusal not to acknowledge the struggle 
that they had when they became adults. That they engaged in 
activities that became abusive to themselves, and as a result, 
they began to abuse their families. They became abusers of 
their communities until they left.
    The churches and the government must sit down and say, by 
acknowledging that they had a hand in this, acknowledging that 
these children that came to the school, they were clean spirit. 
And what happened to those children had a lot to do with how 
they were let out of that school.
    But to say to the children now, the grandchildren and 
parents of the grandparents, to say what can we do by 
acknowledging this? How can we help you today to begin to 
resolve these issues so that this doesn't continue to roll over 
into the future in future generations? How can we help you? Do 
we need to set up some kind of a mechanism or system whereby 
children can get the therapy that they need, and their parents 
can get the therapy that they need? Try to begin to understand 
what it is inside of them that makes life intolerable for them.
    They need to look at how they can work with us so that our 
grandchildren can look good in the future; that they can say 
this is who we are, not who they want us to be. To me, a lot of 
our children that I went to school with, a lot of the children 
are going through this misery, and they don't understand why. 
Instead, people look at them and say it is your fault that you 
are in this situation.
    No. We need the government to recognize that they helped in 
this situation. We need particularly in this situation, because 
it was a Catholic school, that the Catholic Church take 
responsibility to those communities.
    I once asked the Archdiocese in Milwaukee that covers all 
the Catholic schools in the Dakota Territory to meet with me 9 
years ago to talk about this issue. I told him that if we could 
sit down and come up with a plan that could help our children 
and our grandchildren, that I would come back and work with 
them to do this.
    And that was Father Burns who represents the Archdiocese in 
Milwaukee. To this date, I have not heard from them. I don't 
know what it will take for people to meet their responsibility. 
I have no idea. I would hope that the truth and justice 
reconciliation they would want to meet that responsibility 
without a lot of legalities getting in the way.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. War Bonnet, and know that I too 
stand with you in the efforts to get at the truth from whatever 
institution it needs to be obtained from. Thank you, sir. Madam 
Chair.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. The Chair will now 
recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Soto.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Madam Chair. This Committee is often 
one that is tasked with righting historic injustices. There was 
a Voice of America headline titled, ``Florida Prison Fort 
Served as Testing Ground for Federal Indian Boarding School 
System.'' The El Castillo de San Marcos, subsequently known as 
Fort Marion Florida, was an abandoned Spanish Fort, where U.S. 
Cavalry Officer Richard H. Pratt, according to VOA, had the 
idea of ``how to solve the so-called Indian question, whether 
and how to assimilate Natives to American culture.''
    We see with our SAP analysis between 1819 to 1970, during 
the Boarding School Era, that more than 357 of these schools 
extended from Pennsylvania to Alaska came into effect. And, 
currently, less than 38 percent of the Indian boarding school 
records have been located.
    We know the terrible tragedies that happened and thank you 
all for being here and for your stories. These stories matter, 
as tragic and as hard as they are to hear, and this hearing 
enshrines them into our shared history. And the Truth and 
Healing Commission by Representative Davids will help us on 
this long road toward justice.
    Mr. LaBelle, you had told us a lot here today. And it would 
be, if you can, important for you to go into a little bit of 
the abuses that you witnessed in a little more detail for the 
record as we work on this bill. And the floor is yours.
    Mr. LaBelle, Sr. Thank you. Almost from the get-go in 
Wrangell Institute, beatings began almost upon arrival. It 
began with children being shorn of their clothing in a violent 
fashion. Many of our clothes were torn away from ourselves 
until we were sitting naked in the room and forced to look in a 
certain direction and march to get haircuts. I remember being 
toward the end of the room, and as I was approaching the 
barber, the mound of hair that was growing around his feet as 
we were getting closer to my haircut.
    We were told to march up to an open area, a shower room. We 
were still naked, and we were still strangers to each other, to 
us boys, one from the other. And we were ordered into this open 
shower room where the water was already running. And many 
children could not bathe themselves. They were as young as 5 
years old. And I recall. I can see matrons running into the 
shower and getting wet themselves getting a floor brush and 
taking lye soap and scrubbing children until some of them bled, 
the skin bled.
    We were marched to get into a line where we were assigned 
our numbers. And we all were issued two-digit numbers that was 
placed in indelible ink on our clothing and on our bedding and 
on our mail. And many children had difficult names. So, 
oftentimes, it was easier for matrons to refer to these 
children only by their number, and number by their name. Years 
later, I still remember seeing and talking with other people my 
age, who said that for a time, I thought my name was my number.
    We were basically forced to eat foods that were foreign to 
us. We came from traditions of eating wild game, caribou, 
moose, seal meat, whale meat, salmon, grains, berries. And now 
we were forced to eat industrial-sized meals that were in cans, 
three-pound cans. They were like canned meats, canned 
vegetables. We drank powdered milk, powdered juice, ate 
powdered eggs.
    These are all things that became violent in our bodies 
because our bodies rejected the diet. And many of us were 
getting extreme stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And 
sometimes this lasted for weeks until our bodies became 
adjusted to those kinds of foods. We soiled our beds. We 
vomited, and we had diarrhea in our clothing and in our 
beddings. Many of the matrons forced us to clean up our own 
messes. They did it in a lot of anger.
    All along the way, punishments were meted out for speaking 
our language. I was bilingual, as I mentioned once before, but 
I do know that I suppressed my speaking Inupiaq language for 
English because I knew if I didn't, I would get punished as I 
saw many of the children did.
    They were given the strap. They were given the cat-o'-nine-
tails, the paddle. We were forced to run up and down and 
gauntlets where other children ripped our naked bodies. 
Sometimes we had to run numerous times up and down until the 
matrons were satisfied that we had received enough punishment.
    In the classrooms, we were often put in darkened rooms and 
darkened closets for speaking our language. We were often put 
on high stools in the front of the class wearing a dunce cap, 
where other children would laugh and point fingers at them 
because they did that, really thankful that it wasn't them.
    At nighttime, it was the worst, I think, for many of us, as 
War Bonnet said. It happened at Wrangell Institute also. We 
started to cry when the lights went out. We cried for our 
parents and our mothers, and it caught on. Pretty soon, the 
whole dorm, the whole wing of the dorm was wailing into the 
night until the next day, our eyes were closed shut. We could 
barely open our eyes. And that crying occurred days in and days 
out, and weeks in and weeks out, and months.
    Until toward the middle of the school year, no child ever 
cried anymore. And I think you know as parents that when a 
child cries, they are wanting love. They are wanting a sense of 
safety and security and assurances that everything is OK. But 
us children never got those assurances, and we became pretty 
hardened. Our feelings became hardened because we knew that to 
cry and to pine for our relatives was just useless.
    At nighttime, also, it was the worst time for many little 
boys who were sexually molested in their beds by matrons and by 
other staff on the campus. They were often also molested in the 
bathrooms. Wrangell, for some reason, attracted many pedophiles 
looking back on my experiences, my 6 years there from 1955 to 
1961. And we were often warned not to tell anyone, not to tell 
our parents or something bad would happen to them.
    Our mail was censored. I remember trying to write home 
telling about the abuses, and when my mom got the letter, she 
told me years later that a lot of my letters were redacted. I 
never knew what that meant at the time. But today, we know that 
they were blacked out because they didn't want my mom to know 
what kind of abuses we were experiencing.
    In the girls' dorm, the same things happened. Many girls 
were sexually molested, many 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old girls 
were going home in the middle of the school year pregnant. A 
friend of mine was a favorite of an administrator who took her 
out of her classroom almost on a daily basis so that he could 
sexually molest her in his office.
    She showed me her arms. And I don't know if much of you who 
know anything about cuttings. But she had scars on both sides 
of her arms and scars upon scars and scars. And we know that 
she was trying to take the pain away from the memory of all of 
those sexual molestations she had. It was so bad that she 
developed multiple personalities. She died 5 or 6 years ago. 
And her story, to me, is just so graphic. I knew things were 
bad for the boys, but I also realized that the girls suffered 
extremely harshly as well.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you for your testimony. I yield back.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. The Chair will now 
recognize the Chair of the Committee of Natural Resources, the 
gentleman from Arizona, Chair Grijalva.
    Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to 
convey my gratitude to you and the Ranking Member for having 
this crucial and precedent-setting hearing that we needed to 
have, and I appreciate that very much.
    And in the testimony, both written and what I have heard 
today, as painful as it is, it is a reality. And a reality that 
we can't deny. We can't erase. We can't rewrite. We just have 
to expose to begin the process of healing, reconciliation, and 
understanding.
    And that is what this Commission is about. And because we 
are talking about public policy that directed this nation and 
its entities to move in this direction, to move in the 
direction of 47 boarding schools in Arizona, the second-highest 
in the country, and 40-plus in New Mexico, and the list goes 
on. And it should not be a dark secret. It is not a secret to 
Indian Country.
    And the intergenerational effect, we haven't even talked 
about that, but it is there. And the loss of identity on the 
part of who we are as a person, and who these children were, it 
is not something that is trifle or little. It is fundamental to 
a community, and it is fundamental to a people.
    And I think the subpoena power is necessary. We are 
reacting to a public policy. And in order to--we must have, 
this truth-seeking is not about assessing punishment. It is 
about recognizing that this chapter in our history is something 
we cannot hide from.
    And the survivors that are here today, thank you so much. 
Tribal leadership, thank you. Ms. Parker, thank you very much 
for your consistency on this issue for as long as you have been 
working on it and all of us have been working with you.
    But I think you know the report, thanks to the leadership 
of Deb Haaland, the Secretary, and it does make a difference. 
Her report begins the process. It doesn't end the process. And 
I think the Congress has a role that is legitimate, the 
legislative policy setters for this nation, it is time to set a 
policy of this dark and atrocious chapter, not to forget it. 
Acknowledge it and begin the process of hearing.
    The subpoena power is necessary because we are truth-
seekers. This legislation that Ms. Davids, and I want to 
congratulate her as well, is promoting and we all need to 
support, is about truth. And I'll yield back. Yes. But my 
questions are superfluous given their testimony. And the 
urgency doesn't go away with me asking or not asking a 
question. The urgency has been before us for a long time to do 
so, and it is going to continue to be there.
    When I started school, I didn't speak English because that 
is what I learned at home with my parents. But I went to school 
and back home, and I had a particular grade that if you didn't 
know the primary language of English, that you were put into 
this class until you learned it. It was not first grade. It was 
something else. Although we were all supposed to be in first 
grade.
    And you had a teacher that was stumbling through whatever 
Spanish she knew to try to teach us some words. And I remember 
that we kind of struggled and scratched our way out of that 
class and then went to real first grade after about a year, for 
me, about a year-a-half. But I remember the O'odham kids in my 
class whose primary language was O'odham. I remember the Apache 
kids, whether it was from San Carlos or White Mountain, that 
happened to be in the city, and their families, and their 
primary language, essentially, was their Native language. And I 
remember most of us Spanish speakers, most of us, moved on to 
first grade a year later or a year-and-a-half later.
    And the tragedy that I remember, and we started learning 
more about the boarding schools and understanding that it isn't 
a secret, that it has been a secret too long, is that they 
didn't get out of that. They stayed there for a long time. They 
were then diverted to a boarding school before they 
disappeared, would just stop going to school. And I remember 
that in a very vivid way because those were my friends. Those 
were my neighbors. Those were my buddies.
    And yet, we had a dual system, a system that not only 
intended to isolate and remove from children their identity and 
their sense of self, but a system that was intended never to 
educate them. And I think this bill is long overdue, Madam 
Chair, and I applaud you, the staff, the Ranking Member.
    It is a difficult one, but all of us as Americans and as 
Members of this Congress, we have a responsibility. And the 
responsibility in this instance is not the question of 
forgetting about history, rewriting it, erasing it, forgetting 
that it didn't exist, but acknowledging it, and with the 
highest level of respect and candor begin the process of 
healing and reconciliation.
    And that is where we are at. This is what this bill is 
about. And you can't sugarcoat the reality. You can be bold. 
And I think this Congress should be bold, step forward, pass 
this bill, and move it on. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Chair Grijalva. I want to 
thank each of the witnesses for their testimony today and for 
their patience. I want to thank you for being willing to share 
the pain and the stories and the proposals and the answers to 
the many questions you received today.
    And I think that it is important to recognize that this 
bill is about bringing out those stories, finding the 
information, getting the information you need, but it is also 
intended to say what do we do next? Like how do we address what 
happened in a way with recommendations of policy proposals as 
Chair Grijalva said? Do we need to increase funding? Do we need 
to provide a better system? Because we are still educating 
Native American, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian children 
in our schools.
    And are we doing the right thing by those children, 
considering what we did to their grandparents and their 
parents, so that this bill is more than just a truth about what 
happened. We always need to remember it is the reconciliation 
piece as well. Because it is in that reconciliation piece that 
we must dedicate ourselves to look at how do we address the 
wrong and move forward in a way that truly honors the pain that 
everybody went through.
    Because the reason to do this is to create a better future 
for all of those grandchildren and those that would come after 
so they both know the truth, and know that this country is 
dedicated to moving beyond that to yet a better truth that we 
will make in that future.
    So, I thank you for your testimony, I thank the Chair, and 
I do thank the Committee staff for all the work that they did 
in putting this hearing together. And I will remind everybody 
that the members of the Committee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to please 
respond to these in writing.
    Under Committee Rule 3(o), members of the Committee must 
submit witness questions within 3 business days following the 
hearing, and the hearing record will be held open for 10 
business days for these responses. If there is no further 
business, without objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 5:07 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S 
                            OFFICIAL FILES]

Resolutions Submitted for the Record

  --  32nd District Democratic Organization and Cathy Baylor, 
            1st Vice-Chair--Resolution in support of H.R. 5444

  --  Washington State National Organization for Women--
            Resolution in Support of H.R. 5444 dated May 21, 
            2022

Statements for the Record

  --  Amanda Schaefle

  --  American Bar Association dated May 11, 2022

  --  Angie DeMay

  --  Anne Burgeson

  --  Anonymous [2 Statements]

  --  Arlene Dangeli Roberts

  --  Association on American Indian Affairs dated May 6, 2022

  --  Augustina Warledo-Rodriguez

  --  Barbara Anne Namias dated May 26, 2022

  --  Barbara Graham Bettelyoun, Ph.D.--Buffalo Star People 
            Nonprofit

  --  Behnaz Bigmoradi

  --  Ben Sherman dated May 16, 2022

  --  Benjamin A. Jacuk

  --  Bernard Balbot

  --  Beth Hartwell

  --  Beverly Wood

  --  Burton Steck

  --  Carmelita Adkins dated May 19, 2022

  --  Carole McGuire

  --  Cassidy F. Reynolds

  --  Cheryl Lawrence

  --  Corinne Ludy

  --  Crystal A Cavalier

  --  Cynthia Watte Connel

  --  David Jaber

  --  David R. M. Beck

  --  David T. McCoy

  --  Debra Delk

  --  Dena Ammon Magdaleno--Billy Beckwith

  --  Dena Ammon Magdaleno--Deaths at Chemawa

  --  Dena Ammon Magdaleno--The Dark Side of the Indian 
            Boarding School System

  --  Denise Gauthier dated May 25, 2022

  --  Dennis Decoteau

  --  Desiree Porter Acosta

  --  Diane Rosenberg

  --  Dianne Thiel

  --  Donna F. Council

  --  Douglas Reevis

  --  Dr. Denise K. Lajimodiere dated May 15, 2022

  --  Dr. Lena Hammons

  --  Dr. Priscilla Stuckey

  --  Eirene Nakai Hamilton

  --  Eleanor ``Aankeenaa'' (Jones) Hadden

  --  Elisha Big Back

  --  Elizabeth Bourne

  --  Emily Theresa Crampton Goodwin dated May 20, 2022

  --  Encel Harwood

  --  Ernestine Hayes dated May 18, 2022

  --  Seattle Indian Health Board

  --  Fairbanks Native Association dated May 11, 2022

  --  Farina King dated May 17, 2022

  --  Gerald Fisher

  --  Grant Koehler

  --  Irene Vasquez

  --  Jacqueline Siebert dated May 21, 2022

  --  Jadeen and Eva Elving

  --  James Keith Byrd, Sr. dated May 25, 2022

  --  Jami R. Moran LBSW dated May 24, 2022

  --  Janette M. Rautanen

  --  Jay Treat III

  --  Jean Pfaelzer

  --  Jeffrey Burch

  --  Jennifer Frazee

  --  Jewel Bruton Brumley

  --  Jill Perry Neumeister

  --  Jimmy Sanchez

  --  Joanne Faulkner

  --  John DiMino, Ph.D.

  --  John F Stensgar

  --  John H. Yazzie

  --  John S Captain III [2 Statements]

  --  Johnni Miller [2 Statements]

  --  Jolene Thomas (Hawk) dated May 18, 2022

  --  Judy Roy

  --  Julianna Hoskie Kien

  --  Karen Wasageshik

  --  Kate Mook, MA

  --  Kathleen Snyder

  --  Kathryn Guimaraes dated May 22, 2022

  --  Kelli Leiter Lord

  --  Kelly King

  --  Kelly Leah Stewart

  --  Ken Hall dated May 13, 2022

  --  Kerry Hawk Lessard

  --  Kimberly Ann Fyke

  --  Kimberly LaFromboise dated May 26, 2022

  --  Lahoma Schultz

  --  Lakota Harden

  --  Lauren Peters

  --  Linda Cobe dated May 18, 2022

  --  Linda Eben-Jones

  --  Lisa Tabor

  --  Loritta M. Rood dated May 14, 2022

  --  Louellyn White dated May 20, 2022

  --  Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama

  --  Marcida B. Eagle Bear (Morrison)

  --  Maria Daehler dated May 9, 2022

  --  Marie Suzanne Malone Olah

  --  Marilyn Wakefield

  --  Marion Miles

  --  Marjeanna Burge dated May 20, 2022

  --  Mark Kremen [2 Statements]

  --  Mary Baechler

  --  Mary Erickson

  --  Mary Hunt

  --  Matilda Klade

  --  Megan Simpson

  --  Melissa Margaret Rose Moses

  --  Melveena Malatare

  --  Members of the Ohlone Justice Project of the Peace and 
            Justice Task Force of First Congregational Church 
            of Palo Alto

  --  Michele Keyes dated May 18, 2022

  --  Michelle Lewis

  --  Mitch Walking Elk dated May 20, 2022

  --  Monica Gifford Watson dated May 10, 2022

  --  Monica Tsinagini dated May 13, 2022

  --  Moureena Williamson

  --  Nancy Marie Mithlo dated May 9, 2022

  --  Nancy Nickerson

  --  National Council of Urban Indian Health

  --  Nelson N Angapak, Sr.

  --  Oglala Sioux Tribe

  --  Oran Baumeister

  --  Patricia Patrick Gardner dated May 18, 2022

  --  Patricia Pearson

  --  Patti Jo dated May 14, 2022

  --  Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe, Pueblo of San Juan de 
            Guadalupe (PMT) dated May 26, 2022

  --  Ramona Allard-Hendren

  --  Randall Sanderson

  --  Regina Mad Plume

  --  Robert Matthew Hazen

  --  Roberta Capasso dated May 23, 2022

  --  Roberta L. Paul, Ph.D. dated May 25, 2022

  --  Roberto Schiraldi

  --  Rodney A. Robideau

  --  Ronald L. Singer

  --  Roni Schwartz

  --  Ruby Larvie Leneaugh and LaRaine Leneaugh Waln dated May 
            25, 2022

  --  Ruth Robertson

  --  Sally (hiin 'onni) Peterson

  --  Sarah Pincus

  --  Shenoa Prettyshield

  --  Sonia James dated May 20, 2022

  --  Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

  --  Stephen Silva Brave

  --  Steve Filkins

  --  Steve Watson

  --  Steven Brody

  --  SuAnn Reddick and Eva Guggemos

  --  Susan Helf

  --  Suzanne L. Cross PhD, ACSW, LMSW, LLC

  --  Terry S.

  --  Tetana Adkins Mace, LMHC

  --  The Rapid City Indian Boarding School Lands Project dated 
            May 26, 2022

  --  Theresa Burcham Hancock

  --  Theresa Sheldon dated May 24, 2022

  --  Timothy Christian Allen Buck

  --  Valerie Morgan

  --  Valerie Nagle

  --  Wanbli Mayasleca-Francis J. Yellow

  --  Wassillie Gust Sr.

  --  White Hawk, Torres, Axtel, Liebler, Greenleaf, Mann

                                 [all]