Wisconsin had at least 11 Native American boarding schools. Here's what to know about them.
Sarah Volpenhein
The history of Native American boarding schools in the United States, including Wisconsin, has attracted new attention after hundreds of unmarked graves were discovered in Canada on the sites of former boarding schools for Indigenous children.
Hundreds if not thousands of Native youth are believed to have died from disease, neglect and other causes at U.S. government-funded schools.
At least 11 boarding schools for Native youth were in Wisconsin, most of them founded in the late 1800s. Thousands of Native children in Wisconsin went to those schools, part of a federal policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to assimilate Native youth into white society.
Many of the schools were government-funded and based off the model at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, whose founder Richard H. Pratt famously espoused, "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."
The schools stripped Native American children of their language, culture and customs. Youth were discouraged or forbidden from speaking their Native languages and forced to speak English. Their long hair, an important part of their culture and identity, was cut short. Their traditional clothing was replaced with uniforms.
Here is a rundown of the boarding schools that were in operation in Wisconsin. This list was compiled through research by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Some of the schools have been written about or studied more extensively than others.
Lac du Flambeau boarding school
Founded in 1895, the boarding school was operated by the federal government on the Lac du Flambeau reservation.
Kelly Jackson, former tribal historic preservation officer of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said that as a child, her grandmother spoke fluent Ojibwe. But after going to the boarding school, she felt she shouldn't pass on her native language.
"In her mind, and over those years of being educated, she was told that her language was basically going to be a negative thing for her children," Jackson said.
The children's days were strictly regimented, she said. They would spend half the day studying and the other half doing either domestic work, in the girls' case, or manual labor in the boys', she said.
Jackson, who interviewed survivors as part of an initiative to document the boarding school's history, described overcrowded conditions and substandard heating that contributed to disease and death among the students.
"They started sending children home on the train before they died at the school," Jackson said.
Many of the school buildings no longer exist, but a boys' dormitory was renovated by the tribe and now houses an exhibit with historical objects and photographs, as well as the tribe's historic preservation office and the Ojibwe language restoration program, Jackson said.
"I wanted to save this building," she said of the old dormitory. "I wanted it to become part of the American story."
Jackson said there needs to be "true recognition" from the federal government of the lasting effects the boarding school era had on Indigenous peoples' culture and well-being, as well as efforts to increase social services for Natives and revitalize Native languages.
Hayward Indian School
Founded in 1901, the school was mainly for children from the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in the northwestern corner of Wisconsin, but Native children from reservations around Wisconsin and Minnesota also were placed there.
In his 2009 thesis, then-University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student Titus Overturf wrote the students lived a military-style life, where strict schedules dictated most of their day and children were forced to adopt Christian names, wear military-style uniforms and cut their long hair.
Overturf also found that the school did a poor job of educating students, writing that academics "took a backseat" to the "civilization" process. School officials said year after year that the school needed more teachers, he wrote. In its early years, the school only had two or three teachers for more than 170 students.
On top of that, students would spend only half the day on schoolwork and the other half on training in a trade or agriculture for the boys and housekeeping for the girls. Overturf found that the trade instructors were unqualified and that students mostly learned by doing, to the extent that was possible.
"The Hayward school is a splendid example of things going in a direction in which they ought not to have gone," an inspector is quoted as having said.
Much of the students' labor — in the field, the barn, the kitchen and the sewing room — financially supported the school and helped keep the students fed and clothed, Overturf wrote.
"Students spent large amounts of time working for the school rather than learning from it," he wrote.
In addition, the Hayward school was "marked early on by inadequate medical care and a high mortality rate," wrote Bryan Rindfleisch, now an associate professor in history at Marquette University, in a 2011 article in the Wisconsin Magazine of History.
He wrote that the overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions, as well as substandard heating, sewage and ventilation systems, made it easier for disease to spread among the students. The students suffered outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles, among other infectious diseases.
In 1910, a measles epidemic swept through the student body, "confining 97 children to the deficient facilities and care of the boarding school hospital staff." In 1920, 10 Ojibwe were listed as dying from tuberculosis at the school, he wrote.
Lutheran Mission School
This boarding school was located outside Gresham, in Shawano County, and opened in the early 1900s, according to a presentation by Jolene Bowman, director of education and career services and vice president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
In the book "Indian Nations of Wisconsin" by Patty Loew, former student Dorothy Davids is quoted as saying: "They tried to erase us. ... They tried to make us into something else."
The book says Davids described herself as one of the luckier children whose grandfather would pick her up every Friday and take her home for the weekend. Other children, the book says, would stay at the mission for the whole school year, only returning home in the summers, if at all.
Davids described harsh discipline at the school, saying she was once whipped as punishment.
Still, in the book, Davids credits the school with teaching her fundamental skills, such as reading and writing. She later went on to earn a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Not everyone's experience at boarding schools was negative. Some met their spouses or made lifelong friendships at the schools, including Bernice Miller Pigeon, also quoted in Loew's "Indian Nations of Wisconsin." She became best friends with a girl from Oshkosh.
"I never would have met her if it wasn't for the school," she was quoted as saying.
Bowman, the Stockbridge-Munsee education director, hopes that U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland's initiative to investigate deaths at former boarding schools brings understanding and truth.
"I think healing begins with telling our stories, and that’s why I think ... every citizen deserves the truth in our history, in our schooling, in our education," she said. "The more that’s reviewed, the more they’ll find. This is just the tip of the iceberg."
Wittenberg Indian School
This boarding school was established in the 1880s and was initially a Lutheran mission school. In 1895, it became a government, off-reservation boarding school. The school boarded children from several tribes, mostly from the Ho-Chunk and Oneida nations.
From 1899 through 1910, the school superintendent also acted as agent for the Ho-Chunk people, formerly known as Winnebago, in Wisconsin, according to the National Archives. In 1902, superintendent Axel Jacobson used that position to compel Ho-Chunk parents wary of the boarding schools to send their children to Wittenberg.
"We were able last fall, by persuasion and threats to withhold annuity money, to bring about two-thirds of the (Ho-Chunk) school population into the school," he wrote in a 1903 report to the commissioner of Indian affairs.
Even while run by the government, the school sought to instill Christian values in the children, believing that "true morality must be based upon Christianity" and that the Ho-Chunk people's ways and ceremonies were "barbarous," Jacobson wrote in 1896. The school held Sunday school throughout the year, and children would go to Christian religious services at nearby churches.
St. Joseph's Indian Industrial School
Founded in 1883, this Catholic mission school was located in Keshena, less than 50 miles northwest of Green Bay, on the Menominee reservation. By its location on the reservation, total isolation from the Native community was impossible. However, as Sarah Shillinger, who published a book on the school, wrote in a 1997 article in Ethnic Studies Review, school officials tried to create "a wall of social and cultural seclusion."
To try to isolate the students, the school severely limited home visitation, Shillinger wrote. Runaways were not uncommon. The students were punished if they spoke their native language, some survivors told Shillinger. One told Shillinger that school workers would put kerosene shampoo or soap in their mouth if they were caught.
Menominee Boarding School
This boarding school, also located in Keshena, was operated by the federal government. As many as 150 children, including from the Menominee, Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee tribes, attended the school in some years, according to government reports.
This is an excerpt from a 1901 report by the school's superintendent to the commissioner of Indian affairs:
"During the year, the pupils have been allowed to visit their homes only every other Saturday, instead of once a week, as heretofore, and I propose another year to reduce this allowance to once each month. I do not think the children have ever come back, after going home, without the necessity of our sending for one or more of them, and sometimes our team has been out as often as three days in a week to bring in absent pupils."
Tomah Indian Industrial School
Founded in 1893, this school was one of the off-reservation boarding schools operated by the federal government in Wisconsin. Located in Tomah, about 40 miles east of La Crosse, it was one of the largest boarding schools in Wisconsin, at one time reporting average attendance of around 350 children, according to a 1929 report by the commissioner of Indian affairs.
Most of the students were from the Ho-Chunk Nation, though children from other tribes in Wisconsin also went to the school.
Tomah received young people from the ages of 6 to 21 and for most of its existence, only went to the eighth grade, according to "Workhouse of Acculturation: Tomah Indian Industrial School," a 1993 thesis by then-University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student Mary Lynn Burke.
Burke wrote that "the vast majority of students" never graduated. The school was criticized for overworking the boys and not giving students enough time in the classroom, she wrote. In 1922, the school faced questions when its records showed that about 60 students had averaged more than two years in a grade, according to Burke's paper.
If students wanted to visit home, parents had to prepay their travel expenses, both from and back to the school, Burke wrote. This kept many of the students at school over summer breaks.
Oneida Indian School
This boarding school was established in 1893 on the Oneida reservation and was run by the federal government.
In the book "Oneida Lives: Long-lost voices of the Wisconsin Oneidas," John Skenandore recalls how he lost one of his hands in an accident while working in the school's laundry room. He said he was injured when he tried to put a sheet through a wringer.
Children at the boarding schools were often detailed to work in the laundry. In the book, Skenandore wonders why he never received some kind of compensation for his injury.
"If I was only playing when this happened, I would not expect a thing, but I was put to work among the machinery at the age of twelve," he is quoted as saying.
Saint Mary's Catholic Indian Boarding School
This Catholic mission school was officially established in 1888 when it won a contract from the federal government to board 20 Native students at a rate of $27 per person per quarter, the school superintendent wrote in an 1889 report. It was located in Odanah on the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin.
Mary Annette Pember, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and a national correspondent for Indian Country Today, has written extensively about her mother's experience at the school — including shaming and beatings — and the lasting trauma it had on her and her mother's life.
Boarding school at Bayfield
This Catholic mission school was located in Bayfield, near the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, in far northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior. In an 1889 report, the school's superintendent said that boarding school students would attend the day school with white children, which he hoped would help in "civilizing the children and entirely abolishing the use of the Chippewa language." In later reports, the school was referred to as Holy Family.
Winnebago Indian Mission School
This school started in Black River Falls, but was moved about 1921 to Neillsville, about 50 miles southeast of Eau Claire, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The boarding school was run by missionaries with what was then the Reformed Church in the United States. The Rev. Benjamin Stucki was the long-time director of the school.
Editor's note: This story was updated on Oct. 11 to reflect an 11th school that was learned about after the original publication.
Sarah Volpenhein is a Report for America corps reporter who focuses on news of value to underserved communities for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Email her at svolpenhei@gannett.com. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at JSOnline.com/RFA.