WARNING: This story contains disturbing details about residential and boarding schools. If you are feeling triggered, here is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in the U.S. In Canada, the National Indian Residential School Crisis Hotline can be reached at 1-866-925-4419.
Dianna Hunt
and Stewart Huntington
ICT
Edward Spott will not make it home to his Puyallup family just yet.
The 16-year-old Spott, who died on April 18, 1896, about 18 months after arriving at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, was set to be returned home this month to his tribe and family in Washington state.
But the remains disinterred from what had been identified as Spott’s grave turned out to be that of an unidentified young woman 16-22 years of age, according to the federal Office of Army Cemeteries, which has been handling the latest disinterments from Carlisle.
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The woman’s remains were re-buried in a ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 15, with assistance from the Puyallup family, and work is now underway to identify her, officials said.
“The Army is truly saddened we were unable to return Eddie to his family this year,” said Karen Durham-Aguilera, executive director of the Office of Army Cemeteries and Arlington National Cemetery.
ICT reached out to the Puyallup tribe but has not yet received comment about the misidentification.
It’s not the first time officials have discovered that graves at Carlisle were misidentified. The remains of former student Wade Ayres were set to be repatriated to the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina last year but officials discovered the remains in the grave were those of an unidentified young woman.
Spott was among five Native students who died more than 100 years ago at the Carlisle school and who had been set to be disinterred this month for return to their tribes and families. The repatriation of the remains came following a special agreement reached between two tribes and the U.S. Army to no longer require confirmed next-of-kin to claim the remains.
The other students set to be repatriated to their tribes include Beau Neal, Northern Arapaho; Launy Shorty, Blackfeet Nation, Amos LaFromboise, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate; and Edward Upright, Spirit Lake.
The remains found in the gravesites of the other four students were “consistent” with the information known about those students and their burial location records, according to the Army office, though officials have indicated privately that some of the remains may not have been complete.
The remains of LaFromboise and Upright have been returned to their homelands in North and South Dakota, where a period of ceremony and mourning is underway before the planned burial there on Saturday, Sept. 23.
The Army indicated the other remains have been buried on Native lands.
Related story:
—Tribes strike historical deal with Army over repatriations
The students are among more than 10,000 Native children who attended the Carlisle school, which opened in 1879 and became the model for a string of notorious residential schools in the U.S. and Canada until it closed in 1918.
Tens of thousands of Native children attended Indian boarding schools in the United States, with many taken forcibly from their families and taken thousands of miles from home in an effort to strip them of their culture, language and beliefs.
Many died at the schools and never returned home. The Army office said 136 children remain buried at Carlisle, and officials have vowed to work with tribes to help repatriate the remains.
“We remain honored to have had the opportunity to work with these Native American families and to help them find closure,” Durham-Aguilera said in the statement. “On behalf of my team, I would like to thank all of the families for placing their trust in us throughout this journey in returning their children home.”
Records show that Spott arrived at Carlisle on Aug. 9, 1894, and died on April 18, 1896, of “consumption,” a common term at the time for tuberculosis.
According to the Indian Helper, a school newspaper collected in the Dickinson archives, Spott was “a young man full of hopes and possibilities, beloved by all who knew him.”
In an unprecedented move earlier this month, the U.S. Army made concessions long sought by tribes over the disinterment and repatriation of remains. The agreement, which was reached with the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and Spirit Lake tribes, has broader implications for future repatriations.
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