- [Ernie] On this native report we talk with family members of those who attended a boarding school that operated on the Bois Forte Reservation.

- [Rita] And we dive into the history of the Morris Industrial School for Indians that operated on the land that today is home to the University of Minnesota Morris.

- [Ernie] Plus we'll talk with the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe president about her thoughts on the blood quantum policy - Native Americans, along with horses and dogs are the only ones with blood quantum.

- [Narrator] Production for Native Report is made possible by grants from the Blandin Foundation, Anishinabe Fund, an Alexandra Smith Fund in support of Native American treaty right administered through the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation and the generous support from viewers like Jack and Sharon Kemp.

(gentle music) - Welcome to Native Report and thanks for tuning in.

I'm Ernie Stevens.

- Thanks Ernie.

I'm Rita Karppinen.

In this episode we're exploring modern impact of past policies such as boarding school experiences lasting intergenerational traumas and blood quantum policies.

- We'll start with a story of Minnesota's past.

We hear from an award winning Ojibwe author as well as Duluth's first female native city attorney about their family connections to the Vermilion Lake Indian School.

It was a boarding school from 1899 to 1954 located on the Bois Forte Reservation in Minnesota.

We discussed the importance of learning about the history of boarding schools in the US.

(upbeat music) - [Linda] Was I guess what you would call an abuse of children and mistreatment of children?

Yes, there was.

- [Rebecca] So there's the stories of the children basically being kidnapped.

There's the stories of them being forced to leave.

- They were removed from their families and weren't allowed to see their families.

My grandmother is from north of lake Vermilion and she and my grandfather and their brothers and sisters all went to the Vermilion school.

And I have researched the school and Indian boarding schools for quite some time now, probably at least 25 years.

I think that Vermilion school might have been one of the kinder, gentler schools.

It was smaller so it wasn't one of the very large industrial schools.

Because of its location in the middle of a native community there might have been a closer eye kept on Vermilion.

This is probably around 1910 and several of my relatives are in this picture.

I know that there were children who ran from Vermilion as they did from all schools.

- My father was enrolled with the Fond du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa, also a descendant of the white earth nation.

He was raised by his grandparents.

He never knew who his father was and his grandfather was a survivor of the school up in Tower.

He apparently ran away when he was 14 from it.

So this is my great-grandfather.

His name was Victor St. George.

And on foot, he went from Tower, Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin alone, like through the woods.

And I just can't even imagine how, what he was going through must have been pretty awful to do that.

And then didn't ever talk about it because whatever it was was that awful for him.

Startling sometimes how much people don't know how much non-native people don't know, most Indian people know a lot of this stuff.

And I think it's important that we continue to figure out ways to keep it alive.

But I think sometimes the harder parts of our history as a country that people don't know then they don't believe it.

And so if we don't find ways to keep it alive so that we don't repeat it so we don't do it again.

It's hard though, when people don't wanna believe it.

- Yeah it's a lot to take in and a lot to swallow.

And I think it is for many native children too, young people it's very hard to comprehend that this is real.

This really happened.

- I know when people went to the boarding schools, one of the really important pieces there for assimilation was that the children speak English.

Sometimes the way to make them stop was they would beat them for using their language.

And so I know a lot of people stopped using it and wouldn't teach it to their children.

And that's part of some of the stories that I learned from my auntie was she told us not to talk Indian.

My auntie talked about how he raised her to, don't talk about it, don't talk about being Indian.

It's not safe, it's not good.

People will be mean to you.

- You know, from my own family's experience a couple generations of people were from families that were broken up.

They were separated, scattered, sent other places didn't see their parents.

And then when they had their own children they did not have the advantage that the Anishinabe people had for many, many generations of intergenerational strength of parents, grandparents aunts, uncles, extended family, blood, or not being part of their lives and part of their upbringing.

And so with that great loss, then they were really kind of on their own raising their own children in dealing with their own traumas.

- Minnesota Historical Society Press recently republished Linda's research collection on a school titled "From Assimilation to Termination, The Vermilion Lake Indian School".

The Historical Society says like many other boarding schools at the time children were not allowed to speak Anishinaabemowin, were given Euro-American clothing and were rarely allowed to see their families even though the school was close to their home.

- Now, to another story of Minnesota's past.

We learn about the history of the former Morris Industrial School for Indians, which operated on the property that is now home to the University of Minnesota Morris.

We talk with a current native student about how the past school impacts their current experience on campus now, and hear from their chancellor as well as an an Anishinabe instructor about the history of the campus grounds and how it shapes much about the campus and its student body today.

(upbeat music) (intense music) - I was told a time or another to not speak my language by teachers there, the sisters that were there.

They were still practicing the philosophy of assimilation.

They were mean to the children.

And there was a lot of strapping going on, and having books thrown at us, some of us rebelled against those types of things and we usually paid the price with the strap or whatever.

- I guess for me specifically, some days it's harder than others especially when the boarding school movements started picking up traction.

It was something that a lot of non-native students didn't know native students struggled with, I think.

Because of the tuition where sometimes there's some tension between native students and non-native students.

And this idea that native students kind of get things for free and we're privileged in certain ways.

But what comes along with getting the tuition waiver is because of the boarding school history.

And that's not something that native students just forget about.

And they're like, yay I get free school.

I feel like the general lack of education around boarding schools is what motivates people to make comments like that.

Especially since they don't know that the boarding school is so heavily tied with the treaty of, well, I guess this legally binding stipulation between the University of Minnesota and the Morris Campus, specifically after it was signed over to them to have the tuition waiver be free.

- No one was surprised that children had died here in other words, and if you talk to students or actually any member of a tribal nation they will say, of course, people died at boarding schools.

Of course, people died here.

So we long knew if you go back to Berta Herns's 1985 article in the Minnesota history article, he talks about deaths here.

There are a few where we just don't know.

So the disposition of the remains is left up in the air.

- The traumatic things that they seen is passed on to them.

So it becomes intergenerational impacts of boarding school and residential school.

- I remember overhearing non-native students when I was in freshman year, say like oh, they just get things for free.

There was this kind of resentment.

And it made me feel bad because I didn't know where it was coming from.

And especially since it was my first year kind of not being where I was raised it made feel, I dunno, attacked, I was just sad about it.

If the university or general education in America did a little bit better of a job educating younger students up into college about Native American history then we would get less stereotypical answers towards native students just trying to get their degree.

Me and my friend, Dylan, the past summer because of the boarding school movement that was happening we thought it would be a good time to push for the school to also search for any remains.

And if possible, repatriate them to the appropriate nations.

It was mainly made as a campaign not only just to make demands and kind of be like, you need to do this, why aren't you doing it and whatnot but also just so that the school has that there.

And as a reminder, and that the native students who attend feel like they have a voice and that their concerns are being met with the school's boarding school history.

- I would like people to have that understanding that residential schools were used to assimilate native people.

- I don't know if it's not broadcasted, then how can you move forward with healing and how can the survivors and their descendants get some kind of closure if no one ever talks about it, no one ever knows about it and things just get covered up and they're like, okay, we can move on.

- Things happened here, unexplained things happened here.

And so we needed to take care of that spirituality, take care of sometimes what we call lost souls.

We have ceremonies like that to send individuals home.

- We know that there were children from multiple tribal nations here, and we won't necessarily be able to identify how to send them home.

And that will be a complicated process.

But I think that what is crucial is that we do this the way that the tribal nations want to do it.

And not the way that I might wanna do it or the way that somebody outside of this might want to do it.

- We can seek a good life.

We call it (speaks foreign language) which means living a good life.

And that's the goal for many of our people.

And that's the philosophy that they try and take when they're trying to heal.

(gentle music) - It's worth noting there's no connection between the Sisters of Mercy Morris Industrial School for Indians and the University of Minnesota.

Other than that, the university's present day campus in Morris is located on the same grounds as the boarding school was.

The school was in operation from 1887 through 1909.

(gentle music) Maaji, could you share with us about your grandmother?

- The Ojibwe oral tradition is carried on by storytelling.

And that's how we learn a lot of those rather than having, like, say for example, my grandmother when I asked her questions, she would tell me a story instead not always at the same time I asked her that question, but she would think about it for a little while.

And then she would say, come and sit over here.

And that's when I know that she would be telling me something that was serious or pertaining to a question that I asked her previously.

And she would tell me a story.

And I don't really like to call them stories because those are teachings.

It's a mode of teaching that's apparent in our culture as a people Anishinabe which is storytelling and sharing.

Our creation story starts from a time when it was total darkness here, there's nothing here.

And later on, as the creation story goes, then there became light.

That's why we have balance and do well a lot of different things and why we have two gender species that reproduce and create new life.

And then later on, the earth was made.

And also there's principle spirits that were made.

One of the first ones that were was made was the, (speaks foreign language) our grandfather, the sun that was the first one that was made because from the source of the sun came light and day.

When there was total darkness then day came.

That (speaks foreign language) right there, the sun has such unconditional love for all of life forms in its solar system, in its galaxy that it does not have judgment on who gets the energy and life source of its light and heat.

(speaks foreign language) is the word.

(speaks foreign language) is you distribute unconditional love to everybody equally.

There's not a one that's gonna have more or less or not anything.

(gentle music) - The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe or MCT is comprised of six Minnesota tribal nations and is a federally recognized tribal government.

Currently the constitution requires a person's combined blood quantum from their parents to be at least 25% to be eligible for MCT enrollment, but not all with an MCT agree with those standards.

- The discussion of blood quantum is nothing new to the MCT.

However, in the past there hasn't been a consensus on what should be done.

We hear from MCT president on her thoughts on potential changes to the constitution in relation to blood quantum.

(upbeat music) - We've been talking about enrollment for 30 years and we can keep talking about it but we need to start moving somewhere with it.

So let's start with the first step.

And if that doesn't work, we'll move on to a next step.

But what's really upsetting to me is the fact that Native Americans, along with horses and dogs are the only ones with blood quantum.

You can't determine someone's, if you're a full blood or whatever, by the way they used to do it in the past.

Some did it by how you looked.

I had a document on my desk that was from an animal biologist from the University of Minnesota, that used hair samples the thickness of hair to determine blood quantum.

It's something that we don't feel is right.

That's why we're trying to do number one constitution reform under the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

(speaks foreign language) My name is Cathy Chavers, I'm the chairwoman of the Bois Forte Band.

I am also the president of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, six Minnesota Chippewa bands or Ojibwe bands are under the umbrella or organizational structure of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe was established in 1934.

The six bands then are each sovereign nations but we meet as a unit quarterly concerning the tribal enrollment figures, which we have over 40,000 Minnesota Chippewa Tribe members, total and each band has their own enrollment figures.

We develop ordinances, we meet with the state.

We deal with different federal and local agencies.

Changes to the constitution are very difficult.

Constitution was developed not by Native Americans, but by the BIA and a non-Indian.

With regards to constitution reform or changing of the constitution that will take the membership to vote on what they want changed in the constitution first, which it does require 30% of the eligible voters of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe to request a change to the constitution.

We are undergoing what we call constitution reform.

It's been something that's been on the radar for many years for the Minnesota Chippewa tribal members, because we want a document that reflects what we want not what others have made us abide by.

What it takes is you need to inform your membership.

And our membership is all over.

We've got white earth members of 20,000 plus, we've got Bois Forte members all over the country and overseas too.

So how do you inform those members of the constitution and the changes that possibly all the membership want made.

Some tribes don't want enrollment.

Some tribes want linear descent.

A lot of the tribes in Minnesota have already addressed some of the enrollment issues, because if we as a Minnesota Chippewa Tribe continue on our road the way we are with the enrollment the way it is now which is one quarter blood that we will not be in existence for years to come because there aren't many whole bloods left.

We have 10 people, at least 10 people from each of the six tribes that have stepped up to become part of a constitution reform committee.

Basically what the constitution reform committee is is they've gone and started with the preamble.

And then they moved on to enrollment.

And article two is regarding membership.

So that's where you talk about the 1941 base roles and people born between April 14th, 1941 and July 3rd, 1961.

You know, their parents have to be enrolled in the quarter blood quantum.

So we kind of jumped the gun, I think and made a hop to enrollment because that is one of the hottest topics.

We didn't impose an enrollment on ourselves.

It was imposed on us by the federal government and actually a form of termination for us, that's what we look at it as.

So there's many laws that have gone through like the allotment act, the termination era all these other things that have happened.

There's such a long history that has not been taught.

Even myself, I know a lot of band members or tribal members that even don't know about our history and our culture because of the historical trauma from the boarding schools.

And also they don't know that we have to abide by a constitution that the tribes don't have the authority, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribes don't have the authority to change the enrollment that needs to be done by the MCT all the MCT members, not the individual bands.

So it's very complicated.

We need to educate our people, our children we need to educate.

We did ask about having a referendum on the enrollment issue.

We want to know do the tribal MCT members feel that the tribe should determine their own enrollment.

Each tribe should determine their own enrollment.

- The discussion surrounding propose and potential amendments to the MC constitution continues.

A referendum is asking current members whether they want to vote to allow the six sovereign bands to determine tribal membership of their own band for themselves, possibly through band enrollment ordinances.

- If you missed a show or want to catch up online find us at nativereport.org and follow us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram for behind the scenes updates and drop a comment on social media if you enjoyed the show.

- Thanks for spending your time with your friends and neighbors across Indian country, I'm Rita Karppinen.

- I'm Ernie Stevens.

We'll see you next time on Native Report.

(gentle music)