Indigenous children in Oklahoma were forced to travel more than 1,000 miles away from all they had ever known to receive an “American education” at Carlisle Indian Boarding School.
Elementary school-aged children, such as Nannie Little Robe and Jane Lumpfoot, were among nearly 7,800 forcibly shipped off to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Both Little Robe and Lumpfoot never made it home and died while separated from their families.
Cheyenne and Arapaho Governor Reggie Wasanna said he couldn’t imagine the pain their parents and others like them must have felt.
“It would be very tough for someone just to watch their kid taken and then the fact that you don’t know if [and] how they died,” he said during a phone interview. “Those kids that may have been out there on some other foreign land… where they weren’t really welcomed as true tribal members… and so bringing them home to our traditional and historical homelands is kind of important part of allowing some of this to rest.”…