Looks Over(Gives Light Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

"They rounded up Native kids and forced them to go to boarding schools.  To learn how to be white."
     
    "Picture this," Mr. Red Clay said.  He leaned across the first graders' table, signing impeccably while he talked.  "You're living peacefully with your tribe.  Your family.  Your brothers and sisters are a pain in the neck, but you love them anyway.  Your elders are your teachers.  You help your father catch game; you help your mother take care of the home.  For most of you, that's true even today.  What if a total stranger showed up on your doorstep tomorrow morning and took you away from all that?  Can you imagine what that would feel like?"
     
    There was silence.
     
    "That is precisely what happened in the 1800s.  A group of white men who called themselves the 'Bureau of Indian Affairs' forced thousands of Native children to leave behind their homes, their families, and their traditions.  The children who attended Carlisle Indian School were not allowed to wear their own clothing.  The teachers forced them to eat lye soap whenever they were caught speaking their Native languages.  If your teachers caught you praying to the Wolf or the Great Spirit, they beat you until you bled.  Many times they beat you for less than that."
     
    I saw Annie clasp her throat, something she only ever did when she wanted to hide her discomfort.
     
    Mr. Red Clay stepped back from the table.  "One by one," he said, "the Native tribes were forced to relinquish their children to these dehumanizing boarding schools, often with no guarantee that their sons and daughters would make it home alive.  Regardless of their desire to resist, all tribes ultimately complied.  They had to.  The BIA weren't above retaliating with brutality in the event that their orders went ignored.  However, despite the greater danger of disobedience, one tribe ignored the BIA's orders.  One tribe clung steadfastly to their children and protected them.  Who can tell me the name of that tribe?"
     
    Aubrey's arm shot into the air, nearly decapitating me in the process.
     
    "Yes?"
     
    "The Shoshone."
     
    "The Shoshone," Mr. Red Clay said.  "We refused to send our children to these boarding schools.  We knew our children were safer with us, where they could express their identities however they wanted, where they could learn at their own pace.  When the BIA finally grew tired of our defiance, they sent armed soldiers to our settlements.  The soldiers literally had to pry the children out of their parents' lifeless hands.  This is where the phrase 'over my dead body' comes from."
     
    I felt a little ill. 
     
    "We lost everything during those days.  Our land, our freedom, even our children.  Our children faced death if they didn't become Christians.  They were even forced to give up their names.  Little boys and girls named White Elk and River Runner and Gives Grain were given brand new 'white' names by their teachers--Charlie, Sarah, Emily.  They were taught to hate everything Native American.  Everything about themselves.  They were destroyed from the inside out.  The children who graduated from Carlisle Indian School suffered from severe psychological trauma.  Many of them committed suicide.
     
    "But," said Mr. Red Clay.  "The spark of defiance was smothered, not extinguished.  In one small, yet very profound way, the defeated Shoshone held onto their heritage.  Charlie and Sarah and Emily all grew up.  They married and had children of their own.  They retained their old names as family names and passed them down to their children.  That's how most of you got your last names."
     
    The whole classroom began applauding.  I'd never experienced that kind of enthusiasm in a school before.  I started to join in when Mr. Red Clay glanced impassively over the student body, cutting short the response.
     
    Mr. Red Clay took a stick of chalk and began writing instructions on the blackboard.  Grade 11 - History - Pg. 44 , he