“The original intent of this [school] was to destroy our culture,” says Stacey Montooth, executive director of the Nevada Department of Native American Affairs and citizen of the Walker River Paiute Nation. Together, under a cloudless Nevada sky in Carson City, she and I stroll the campus of the Stewart Indian School, a boarding school that opened in 1890 by the US government as part of a greater effort to force Indigenous children to assimilate—at all costs—into white society.
As we walk along manicured lawns and past beautifully crafted stone buildings, which I later learn were built by Hopi stonemasons from Arizona, it’s hard to picture the dark chapter of American history that unfolded here. Thanks to the preservation work of Montooth and others, there’s no need to imagine: The proof lies in what’s now a National Historic District that includes an audio-led walking trail of 20 stops along the campus and the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum. Held within the cultural center and museum are the complex stories of children who attended Stewart, oftentimes told in their own words, as well as artifacts like black-and-white photographs from the school’s earliest days, vocational training textbooks that were used, and privilege passes that determined which activities students could attend or take part in.
According to the boarding school’s internal records, nearly 21,000 children were either kidnapped or coerced into attending Stewart. In an effort to strip them of their Native American culture and adapt them to “appropriate American culture,” children were forbidden from speaking their native languages or practicing cultural traditions; their names were changed and hair cut; and contact with their families and communities was cut off. Many students also suffered deeply traumatic experiences, including physical and sexual abuse from teachers and staff.
Montooth is a direct descendant of a Stewart Indian School survivor, and though she never attended the school herself, its impact has rippled through generations in her family. “My grandma was four when she was brought [to Stewart], and she was raised in violence by the matrons,” she says. “She never had an opportunity to learn parenting skills from her parents. That experience, in my family at least, was the start of violence, alcoholism, and generational trauma. I have relatives who still will not step foot out here because our grandma was abused on a regular basis.”…