I N D I A N B OA R D I N G S C H O O LS
For more information on the connection between American Christianity and Indian Boarding Schools go to: • boardingschoolhealing.org • echox.org/news-features/national-day-ofremembrance-for-u-s-indian-boardingschools/
On September 30 2021, the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools, Alison Gudan (author) and Jessie Labrie Wagnon (artist) posted the following text and artwork on Instagram in honor of the children whose remains were recovered. Why today? When the Catholic Church has participated in so much harm to Indigenous people? (Don’t walk back that statement in your mind. Just say it, because it’s true.) Because I believe the Blessed Mother understands. She understands having her child stripped from her—at days old Simeon told her a sword would pierce her soul—and she understands caring for and loving someone, hoping to shield them a little from the ugliness of the world—even when the Crucifixion is inevitable. So, in hope, I envision this is the Ancestor who meets the children I have lost along the way. I hope this Ancestor, this powerful, beautiful, fully realized Mother of Graces, met and held the hand of every child from Residential Schools. Sandy Hook. Ahmaud Arbery. Tamir Rice. Iraqi Christians.
© Jessie Labrie Wagnon, 2021
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n May 28, 1830, the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly removed Indigenous people off their ancestral lands. Less than a hundred years earlier, Thomas Jefferson, indoctrinated by the ideologies of the Enlightenment, penned the Declaration of Independence, 1 in which he wrote, “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” This idea of the “merciless Indian Savage” would inspire the Indian Removal Act and formation of the 1868 “Peace Policy” created with the central belief: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” All of these ideologies laid the groundwork for establishing Indian boarding schools. Indian boarding schools were established for the erasure of Indigenous culture, identity, and spirituality through: cutting hair, changing dress, eradication of language, and Christian indoctrination. All of these “strategies” were manifestations of the “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” mentality. In the United States, 367 boarding schools operated in 29 states. In August 2021, the remains of 1,300 Indigenous children were found in Canadian Indigenous Boarding Schools, pushing the United States to respond.
Blessed and Mourning Mother, As you reached to hold the Infant Jesus at birth, please reach for my child now. Watch over them as you watched over your Holy Son. Walk beside them, too, as they carry their cross. If they must be crucified by this world, let it be for the glory of heaven, and I pray you stand beside them as you stood at the foot of Our Lord’s Cross. Receive them into your arms once more when their time for suffering has passed, holding them close as you held our Crucified King.
—A L I S O N
GUDAN
Alison Gudan is a Powhatan Catholic mother of four. 1
‘He’ refers to King George A M AT T E R O F S P I R IT
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