AN APOLOGY by the Bishop of South Dakota, Dr Jonathan Folts, for his diocese’s historic involvement in indigenous boarding schools, has opened the door to a “beautiful relationship”, survivors have said.
Schools of this type forced Native American children to assimiliate into dominant white culture and abandon their own.
Dr Folts made his apology this summer to members of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe, but became public only this month.
The tribe’s chairman and the son of a boarding school survivor, Peter Lengkeek, told the Episcopal News Service that the apology “was one of the most heartfelt, most sincere things I’ve ever listened to coming from another human being. . . I had been praying about bringing healing to my people on this level for a long time. I could actually feel the conviction in every word and every breath. . .
“That was definitely a gateway opportunity to a beautiful relationship and opportunities to heal.”
The Bishop made his apology after Episcopalian links to the boarding schools were uncovered in about 50 instances. Children and young people were forced to speak in English and attend the Episcopal Church. Churches were paid by the federal government to run schools, and children were forcibly taken away from tribes, sometimes as toddlers, and made to attend lessons and services. The schools were open from the 1870s into the 20th century. Cases of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the schools were rife.
Thousands of children are believed to have died in the punitive conditions. Few records remain of the schools, although the Episcopal Church has established a fact-finding commission to investigate its links and the remains of children believed to have died. The Church has acknowledged its complicity in the schools, and ceremonies to return the remains to tribal lands of some of the children who died have been held by church leaders in some parts of the US.
In a private meeting with members of the Cow Creek tribe in August, Dr Folts said: “I wish to confess and formally apologise for the Christian Church’s past complicity in causing harm to the most vulnerable in your community — your children — through the direct and indirect actions of our members.
“We, as members of the Christian Church, oftentimes in collusion with the government, separated children from their families and tribal homes and forced them to be assimilated into the white man’s culture at boarding schools, miles and miles away from their lands.
“We stripped them of their native garments and made them dress like us. We took their language away from them and required them to speak like us. We robbed them of their traditional beliefs and forced them to worship and believe like us. We physically and spiritually abused your children for not conforming to our ways. And, most regrettably of all, when some of your children died while attending these boarding schools, we, the Church, denied their bodies safe passage home to the lands from which they were stolen.
“Our actions have alienated and separated us from you, our Native siblings. Instead of showing ourselves as imitators of Jesus Christ, as our scriptures call us to be, we instead have acted as divine enforcers of a misguided notion of entitlement and betterment. Our actions harmed your children, their parents, their elders, and their entire tribal communities. Our actions betrayed a desire to wipe out your unique culture. Our actions caused God’s heart to grieve.”
He also confessed to “unknown sins” which may yet come to light.
Addressing the South Dakota diocesan convention this month, Mr Lengkeek explained the generational trauma which stemmed from the schools. Life expectancy of tribal members today is only 45 years, compared with the national average of 78.
Dr Folts said that the apology was not an end, but a beginning. “It is the first of many steps as we seek to listen again, learn again, and rebuild trust again — with humility, courage, and hope”.
