Stolen identity

From left: Jacqueline Emery, author of the book Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press; Samuel Torres, of the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition; Eric Anderson, who teaches American Indian studies at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. CHINA DAILY

One of Montgomery's favorite stories was told to her by an enrolled member of the Port Gamble S'Klallam tribe named Gene Jones, who attended a day school for indigenous children in the 1950s. Told in class by his non-Native teacher that the S'Klallam people were basically all dead, Gene Jones, 10, raised his hand in objection.

Montgomery says: "The teacher said, 'If you write a report for me that documents the history of your tribe, I'll believe you.' The little boy went out trying to find written records of his community but couldn't find anything. He then went home to his mom, in tears.

"His mom said, 'We never wrote anything down. You have to go talk to your uncles and grandparents.' So the boy did that. And then he wrote his 90-page report and gave it to the teacher, who was absolutely speechless."

Jones' maternal grandmother is Clara, the girl who got bleeding fingers for weaving Indian baskets at her boarding school.

For Emery, one revealing moment came when she encountered the death of Lucy Grey in the last editorial carried by Hallaquah, between 1879 and 1881. Joining her fellow female student editors at the Seneca Indian School in January 1881, she died that autumn from a pneumonia epidemic that swept through the school.

A few years ago Emery also visited the Carlisle School, whose assimilation history, thanks to Pratt's penchant for publicity through photography, had been better preserved in images than any other boarding school.

"There was an active army base," she says. "It was summertime and families playing there in a pool－it was so surreal. There was a signage but nothing else. I feel like you'd have to look for it to know it's there."