Home From School: The Children of Carlisle
In 2017, a delegation of Northern Arapaho tribal members traveled from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to retrieve remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1880s. It’s a journey into the troubled history of Indian boarding schools and a quest to heal generational wounds.
“Kill the Indian in him, and save the man” was the guiding principle of the U.S. government-run Indian boarding school system starting in the late 19th Century. The program removed tens of thousands of Native American children from their tribal homelands, and through brutal assimilation tactics, stripped them of their languages, traditions, and culture. The students were forced through a military-style, remedial education. Most children returned emotionally scarred, culturally unrooted with trauma that has echoed down the generations. Many students never returned home, having died at the schools.
In 2017, a delegation of Northern Arapaho tribal members traveled from Wyoming to Pennsylvania to retrieve the remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the 1880s. Home From School: The Children of Carlisle dives into the history of the flagship federal boarding school and chronicles the modern-day journey of tribal members who seek to recover what remains of the Arapaho children more than 100 years after they perished. In a quest to heal generational wounds, the Northern Arapaho forge the way for other tribes to follow.