The night the Greyhounds came
By: Alastair Lee Bitsoi (highcountrynews)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In northern Arizona and southern Utah, shared experiences of the boarding school round-ups live with survivors to this day.
Alastair Lee Bitsoi Image credit: J.D. Reeves / High Country News Sept. 8, 2022
They told Willie Grayeyes (Navajo) to sleep in his clothes — to not even take off his black shoes. At any moment, the Tuba City Boarding School staff members said, the 7-year-old would be called upon. Not knowing what that meant, he obeyed, and, in the middle of the night, they woke him. Staffers drove Grayeyes 11 miles to the junction of U.S. Highway 89 and Highway 160 near Tuba City, Arizona, in the Western Agency of the Navajo Nation. There, in the red dinosaur land, he boarded a Greyhound bus. He rode it all night long until early morning, when they arrived in Richfield, Utah for a year in the mid-1950s. He did not go back his second year because the residential hall was full and he was transferred back to Tuba City for another Greyhound bus to the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico.
"We were treated in Tuba City like we were in the military," Grayeyes said, remembering the boarding school system that tried to assimilate him and many thousands of other Indigenous children. "We were marched; we were physically abused by being kicked. I did not know anything at the time of the decree."
The decree in question was the compulsory attendance mandate employed by the federal boarding school system, which often resulted in the physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse of Indigenous children. The boarding school staff at the Navajo Mountain Boarding and Day School, built between 1934 and 1946 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, had notified the local trading post announcing that Dine children would be rounded up. Any parents, guardians or clan relatives who resisted were punished by law. Grayeyes, now a San Juan County commissioner, was just 6 years old when he first entered the boarding school system in 1953.
"That was my first encounter with an Anglo, a white lady, by the name of Elizabeth Eubank, who was a schoolmaster and teacher," Grayeyes said. "Ms. Eubank arranged everything, as far as who is going to be transferred and so forth."
After that first year at the Navajo Mountain Boarding and Day School, he was transferred to the Tuba City Boarding School, established in 1903. He loaded up his suitcases and rode in the flatbed trailer of a government vehicle to get there, 93 miles away from his homelands in Paiute Mesa in the community of Naatsis'aan, San Juan County, Utah. After just a few months at Tuba City, his luggage was returned, and they woke him in the middle of the night so he could take that Greyhound bus to Richfield Residential Hall in Richfield, Utah.
This was life as a boarding school student in northern Arizona and southern Utah — constantly being shuttled around on Greyhound buses or flatbed trailers, never told where you were going or who would be waiting for you when you finally arrived. The only stability to be found was in the black shoes on their feet and the Greyhound buses that trafficked them from school to school.
This was life as a boarding school student in northern Arizona and southern Utah — constantly being shuttled around on Greyhound buses or flatbed trailers, never told where you were going or who would be waiting for you when you finally arrived.
Grayeyes survived his boarding school experience. Not everyone did. Some students never returned; they went missing or were buried at unmarked graves at various boarding schools across the country. The survivors' accounts of their experiences — along with the grisly discovery of bodies at residential schools in Canada and the reports of similar discoveries at schools in the U.S. — have finally prompted a federal investigation by the Department of Interior, led by Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) under the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. Earlier this spring, Haaland and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland released the first volume of their investigation. The initial report laid the groundwork, noting that 408 federal schools operated between 1819 and 1969, and that the report's authors have found unmarked burial sites at 53 different boarding schools, a number that is expected to rise.
Newland and other Interior officials made it clear that this first report was never intended to be conclusive; rather, it should be seen as merely the first step in a long review, with a follow-up report slated for 2023. Meanwhile, there remain countless untold histories — experiences that could be lost if the federal review process doesn't reach the survivors in time to hear their stories. As investigators listen to survivors and try to map the lingering impact of the boarding schools in the Southwest, one shared experience comes up over and over: the memory of being lined up to board one of those infamous Greyhound buses.
"I remember everybody on a certain day would go up to the local day school, and there would be these Greyhound buses parked up there," said Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, a Hopi historian, former director of the Hopi Tribal Historic Preservation Office and a Christian boarding school survivor. "There used to be just piles of suitcases out on the sidewalk, and they would be loading that (bus) up."
Hopi students from the villages of Hotevilla and Bacavi boarded buses that took them to the Phoenix Indian Industrial School, more than 200 miles away. Kuwanwisiwma had spoken to other students and felt somewhat prepared for boarding school. His older sister was forced to attend the Ganado Mission School, and her experience there helped him navigate not just school but also the strange customs and fashions, such as the blazer and tie that he wore to Sunday church.
J.D. Reeves / High Country News
"I remember just kind of going on the road and staring out of the back, just thinking, 'Man, I'm leaving the rez,"' Kuwanwisiwma said, recollecting riding in his parents' 1955 pickup on his way to the Ganado Mission School. "I had this inner feeling of uncertainty inside as we drove through the villages."
Kuwanwisiwma often felt lonely at the school, but he enjoyed some of the extracurricular activities — becoming a student-athlete at the Hopi Mission School and later at the Ganado Mission School, both Presbyterian-run institutions. He says his experience differed greatly from that of his ancestors, who endured the trauma of compulsory attendance, military discipline and having their hair cut, back in the days when Hopi leaders were jailed for resisting Bureau of Indian Affairs roundups of their children. That was years before the Greyhounds came.
THE GREYHOUND GENERATION remembers more than just the buses and their polished shoes. They also remember the stories of those who went before them.
Kuwanwisiwma's father and grandfather both went through the BIA boarding school system. His father was forced to attend the Albuquerque Indian School, where he was punished for speaking the Hopi language with other Hopi students. Kuwanwisiwma's father wanted to protect his own children from the BIA boarding school system, so he encouraged them to go to the mission schools instead, for their primary and secondary education.
"I remember just kind of going on the road and staring out of the back, just thinking, 'Man, I'm leaving the rez.'"
As early as 1875, the BIA focused on recruiting Hopi students, often around 4 and 5 years old, from various Hopi villages. In the early 1900s, Kuwanwisiwma's grandfather was rounded up by U.S. soldiers and forced to attend Keams Canyon Boarding School. His grandfather said that he was out herding sheep when he saw other young Hopi children crying for their parents, and the parents crying for their children. He stood there watching, believing that since he was older, he would not have to go. But the BIA agents told him to come with them anyway. Kuwanwisiwma's grandfather resisted, running away. He fled from the agents until they fired warning shots into the air. Then he froze, surrendering.
The soldiers took him and the other Hopi children to a small building in Kykotsmovi Village, where the children cried all night while their mothers wept, calling out their Hopi names. The next morning, his grandfather's long black hair was shaved off. "All their hair was being snipped off, girls and boys. Of, course, long hair was culturally important to both the Hopi boys and men. Long hair meant spiritual strength and courage to face the enemy," Kuwanwisiwma said. "That's what long hair means to the Hopi people."
When his grandfather arrived at Keams Canyon, at the Hopi BIA Agency, the administrator told the soldiers that the boy was too old to attend the school. They let him go, but Kuwanwisiwma said, ashamed of his newly shaven head, hesitated to go home. His parents wondered why he was missing, although he soon came home.
"I tell this story, because around that time, around the turn of the century, there was a big division among the villages of what to expect from the white men," Kuwanwisiwma said. "The white man was imposing education, and some of the people, the conservatives, the traditionalists did not want that. There was a big conflict developing."
Ultimately, Kuwanwisiwma's grandfather sided with the traditionalists and vowed to fight against the white men forever, he said.
"He became a die-hard conservative and traditionalist throughout his life, and those are some of the values I grew up with," Kuwanwisiwma said.
J.D. Reeves / High Country News
Kuwanwisiwma holds the same values and is proud that his Hopi people held on to their language, ceremonies and agricultural lifeways. As a historian, he said, he knows that many tribes were less fortunate than his people — the Paiutes, for instance, who were nearly exterminated by the forced boarding school system. For the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, as well as Shivwits Band of Paiute Indians and Kaibab Band of Paiutes, the trouble started at the former Panguitch Boarding School, which operated from 1904 to 1909. Superintendent Walter Runke — who started his career as a disciplinarian at Tuba City Boarding School — believed in compulsory attendance, meaning that attendance was enforced at gunpoint, according to a news clipping of the Coconino Sun in the Arizona Memory Project. Historical records from an independent researcher show that at least 12 Paiute children were buried at the Panguitch Boarding School. The site is now part of Haaland's federal investigation.
Corrina Bow, chairwoman of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, said that a memorandum of understanding between the tribe, the two bands and Utah State University, which leases the former school's land from the state, has been under negotiation for the last year. The conversations, first reported by the media in August 2021, sparked the investigation of USU's agricultural lands in the predominantly ranching Mormon community of Panguitch. On behalf of her people, Bow said that she is pleased to have the former boarding school included in the ongoing federal investigation by the Department of Interior. Before the publicity, Panguitch was an unknown residential school.
"As a Tribe, we continue to address the former Panguitch Boarding School and are still saddened by the treatment of our little ones at that school," Bow said in a statement. "We thank you for respectfully honoring our wishes to address this heartbreaking piece of our history privately following our cultural practices and beliefs."
Steven Lee, an independent researcher who assisted the tribe, says that the overall narrative around Indigenous boarding schools, including Haaland's federal report, confirms what he has learned so far: that some Paiute children never returned home, and that the story of the former administrator, Runke, did not end with his tragic stints at Panguitch and the Tuba City boarding schools. Runke went on to oversee a Navajo boarding school, and in 1916, was arrested for killing a Dine man, Taddy Tin, who resisted his recruitment tactics. Runke was acquitted by an all-white jury and later served two terms as an Arizona state senator.
J.D. Reeves / High Country News
Lee has worked with Bow to find out whether children were buried at the school, studying the school's old records. He first learned about the traumatic history of Panguitch when he was the town's events and marketing director. His discovery that a schoolteacher had died from an opium overdose back in 1905 inspired him to do more research, and that led him to the death records of at least 12 Paiute children. But city officials discouraged his research, and he resigned from his job working for the town.
The Interior Department's first report, Lee said, confirms his own findings: Indigenous children were highly sought after by townspeople, who used them as cheap labor. The report said that USU is waiting for tribal approval to investigate the possible remains of Paiute children, according to Judson Finley, anthropologist and archaeologist at Utah State University.
Meanwhile, Haaland and her team are hosting listening sessions for their second report. Last month, they held a second listening session in the Midwest, giving boarding school survivors the opportunity to tell their stories, some for the first time in their lives. Another listening session for survivors is slated for Arizona later this fall or winter. For the survivors, at least it's a start.
DESPITE THOSE MEMORIES of the endless Greyhound rides, Grayeyes takes pride in the resilience he and others showed in the face of a system designed to strip him of his cultural identity, starting with cutting off his hair. Today, he proudly wears his tsiiyeel, a Dine hair bun, as he fulfills his various leadership roles — including as the sitting board president of the Navajo Mountain Boarding School.
In his efforts to reclaim the school for the community, Grayeyes has relied on his own experience as a boarding school survivor to inform his decisions about how the school should serve its students. He believes in the importance of parental involvement, something that his generation and the ones before him were denied by the boarding school system. Grayeyes thinks parents need to get involved in their children's education if they want to help shape the minds of their children in a healthy way.
"If it were up to me, I would go for a lawsuit (against the federal government). The treatment of Native American students — with the idea to extinguish their lifestyle, their songs, their language — is pretty well planned out."
This same line of thinking informs his beliefs as to what tribal nations and boarding school survivors should get out of the ongoing federal review. The survivors' needs — their mental health, first and foremost — must be centered. But they deserve more than simply the chance to be heard; they deserve justice and an actual sense of closure. The first report fell short, in Grayeyes' opinion, who thought it "should have had more depth." But achieving that depth, as well as any justice or sense of closure, may require more litigious methods than a review process whose continuation depends on a favorable presidential administration.
"If it were up to me," Grayeyes said, "I would go for a lawsuit (against the federal government). The treatment of Native American students — with the idea to extinguish their lifestyle, their songs, their language — is pretty well planned out."
Until that happens, however, Grayeyes, like so many others from his generation, will hope for the best from Haaland and her agency, and he'll continue to work to provide a stable, healthy educational environment — one free of Greyhounds, guns and polished shoes.
Alastair Lee Bitsoi is Dine from Naschitti, Navajo Nation, New Mexico. An award-winning journalist, he formerly reported for The Navajo Times and The Salt Lake Tribune and now works as a correspondent for High Country News and other outlets.
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A sampling of the horrors inflicted on Native children during the ''Indian Boarding School Era''....
this is the type of american history that is dismissed as crt by those that wish to keep it from public knowledge. I'm familiar with this area of the southwest and it's people from an early age. what I witnessed as a child there helped shape my attitude towards the oppressed and their persecutors, and it has endured with me throughout my adult life.
Exactly right, they cannot let the truth come out.
When one actually sees racism practiced it gives you a whole different attitude.
one such event in my childhood actually happened at tuba city in the 60's. Navajo Mountain is a sacred place in my heart and mind as well. my kids have been instructed to place my ashes within the shadow of Rainbow Bridge after passing them under it.
Waanakiwin (peace)
It was basically US Slavery 2.0.
Stolen from their families, forced to adopt a new language and religion, and farmed out as forced labor.
And in addition to the brutal punishment, sexual abuse and degradation that we were subjected to adds to a period of modern history that should be required reading for every person in the US.
Ist day at a boarding school.
1. strip all your clothes off you and bathe you in lye soap or wash you down with kerosene.
2. cut off all your hair.
3. issue you a ''uniform''
4. issue you the ''rules'' you could not speak your native language, if you were caught speaking it the punishment was severe.
From that day on your only mission was to try to survive.
It was not only the government that ran those houses of horrors. Many of the so-called Christian religions ran many of them at the request of the government. The RCC was one of the main culprits.
The Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole) from the SE U.S. developed and established their own "Day schools and Boarding schools) beginning in 1841.
In Oklahoma the enormous number of Indians, the perceived need for their quick assimilation, and an impatient American population anxious to gain access to Indian lands combined to make Indian schools a crucial component in federal Indian policy. Immediately after removal, for example, numerous academies, day schools, and boarding schools funded by treaty annuities and other tribal monies appeared among the Five Tribes. Importantly, many tribes established these schools to ensure that their own people would be educated in order that t hey might become defenders of tribal political sovereignty , not so that they could become assimilated and disappear into the American mainstream .
The founding and development of the schools pretty much prevented the "wake'm up at midnight for the Greyhounds" for them.
They did good very good in fact but still many ''Indian Boarding Schools'' were run by RCC and other groups in OK.
It seems that there was no 100% way of escaping the boarding schools.
Really, the sad thing is that this shouldn't be news. This discussion has been going on since the 1970s. We knew it was bad then. What we didn't know was how much worse it was actually. The song "Cherokee People" addressed and brought it to popular cultural knowledge:
Took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
What we didn't know is that they were actually murdering children who defied the school system.
The fact that this was permitted until recently and swept under the rug is just reprehensible.
Indeed, what the investigation is finding is that some government agencies and churches are not wanting to release their records.
Not just permitted. Mandated, which is even worse. In a nation that is supposedly based on the principles of personal freedom, equality, and which has theoretically recognized that we are a "melting pot" of cultures, to use the law to attempt to wipe out a first culture goes against everything we're supposed to hold sacred.
Oh, we pay lip service to those cultures, with our reverence for Navajo code talkers, but the reality is, before government had a use for those code talkers, it tried to eliminate the code. And it tried again once WWII was over.
Bingo.
The irony and the cruelty of what the US gov did to the Navajo.
We're going to try our best to eliminate you, but help us when we are down.
Actually, it's been that way since the Revolutionary War.
Gee, I thought America didnt have a white supremacist past. That is what we hear from conservatives all the time, isnt it?
I don’t know who you been talking to, I’ve never heard that and certainly don’t believe it.
Yes, it has been said. What are your thoughts on the Indian Boarding Schools.
The Boarding Schools were operating into the 1980s
If they were white they wouldnt be put in boarding schools, would they?
Of course it is a dark blot on US history and on our national self-image. The big surprise is that it was going on so relatively recently.
Worse still, it was never a part of any history class I took. I wasn't aware of Indian Boarding Schools until we were assigned a book in high school English class in which the protagonist had been sent to one of those schools. That was it. The only mention of such boarding schools I ever came across until I joined NT, and then later when the mass graves in Canadian schools were discovered.
Yes, it was an ugly period of our history. But we must face it honestly in order to prevent it from happening again. Too often, we gloss over the things we've done that show us in a poor light, and we end up repeating mistakes. Slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, Indian Boarding Schools. We seem not to learn from the history we don't teach, which is not at all surprising.
Facing the ugly side of things that America has done is too much for a huge number of Americans.
those so called americans call it teaching kids to hate america, crt, or woke nonsense. then they win seats on school boards in elections with voters that are themselves products of incomplete educations. all via the shortchanging of the american educational system by conservatives, in order to perpetuate an idiot electorate. only white happy endings for non-critical thinkers, the majority of their base.
My maternal grandmother who raised me was half Chiricahua Apache was fully aware of said school system but escaped it having grown up on a ranch in Cananea Sonora, Mexico about 54 miles into Mexico from Douglas, Arizona. I learned about those schools at a early age and was told by her "Never tell the Anglos you know about them, if you do they will call you a liar and punish you." She was right.
Sad commentary on our society.
Indeed.
I'm happy that you don't believe it but sadly it has been said many times including NT.
But that is off the topic. Thoughts on the Indian Boarding Schools?
Thanks Kavika, this is an important part of our history and I need to look at more recent history on the subject.
My initial thoughts fall into two categories. First, there are obviously many unimaginable abuses do to individuals involved in the system and either their sadistic desires or depraved indifference. The second is probably more complicated. Given the prevalent thinking of the time, what was the motivation for the 1819,Civilization Fund Act, which authorized the President, “in every case where he shall judge improvement in the habits and condition of such Indians practicable” to “employ capable persons of good moral character” to introduce to any tribe adjoining a frontier settlement the “arts of civilization.”
I don't know if the prevalent motivation was a well intended, albeit misguided effort to help assimilate Native Americans into the growing USA or was it one of many attempts to eliminate Native Americans? Like much of man's history, it may have had elements of both.
I'll appreciate any recommendations you have on source material that I can read to get better educated on this.
IMO, a combination of both and the slogan dating back to Pratt and the Carlisle Indian School was, ''kill the Indian, save the man". Any discussion on Indian Boarding Schools has to include both the government and the Christian groups that ran many of the schools, which sadly were some of the very worst. All of this dates back in one way or the other to the ''Doctrine of Discovery'' which laid the groundwork for what Natives have endured for centuries.
Here is a link to a Vox article with a video and there is additional videos if you google Vox Native American.
Another article from the Atlantic is good with some references in it.
Here are a few of the books on the subject. Education for Extinction, Kill the Indian Save the Man, Boarding Schools Blues, and Changed Forever, this book (s) takes a different approach which is numerous writing/letters from Native that were forced to attend these schools.
Thanks Kavika, I knew that you would have some good recommendations.
There is some good stuff in that grouping, which will lead to other sources.
That was a good start for me, thanks. While I knew a little bit about the boarding schools, I didn't know that there were so many or that they were so widespread across the country. I assumed that they were largely in the North Central and South West. I knew that Carlisle had been in PA because it was an underused Army post at the time.
I knew a little about Carlisle because I had read a Jim Thorpe biography when I was a kid and because the Army War College has been there for around 70 years. More recently, I reads an interesting book, "Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle". Pop Warner had established a long winning streak with Carlisle and the Captain of the West Point team, Ike, wanted badly to stop that. In addition the the thrilling sports story, the author seemed to get into the heads of the key characters as well as vivid descriptions of the culture and history of the time.
The Vox video was especially moving. I had no idea of the scale of these adoptions or that it continues in large numbers. I remember reading about the Congressional hearing in the 70's (I was in college at the time), but I was viewing it from the lens of white families trying to do the right thing, not that native families were losing their children for no legitimate reason.
I've always thought of myself as relatively knowledgeable on American history, as it always been an interest of mine from childhood and I minored in it for my undergrad degree, You've shown me that there is a major gap in my education and I excited now not to pick up yet another book on the Civil War or our founders, but instead I'll spend a couple of years learning about our Native American History.
I took my daughter to the National Museum of the American Indian here in DC. It was shortly after it first opened and since she was so young, we didn't spend as much time as I wanted. I think that I will return soon. Like many people living here, I have failed to fully take advantage of all the Capital offers.
A great book, ''The game that changed football'', I did an article on the game a few years back.
It will open a whole new world for you. Rich in culture and history the Native nations are history both old and modern of incredible diversity.
I can well remember sitting next to my grandfather and him telling me about the last battle of the Indian wars in which he was a participant. Leech Lake MN 1898 when the Ojibwe defeated the US 3rd Infantry out of Fort Snelling MN.
If you're interested in the Civil War check out Company K 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. I had a relative that was part of Company K.
I think that I will best understand the history if I read it in chronological order, both overviews and separately, detailed history of tribes. I've only done a little research, but was considering starting with, "An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States", by Roxanne Ortiz and "The Lumbee Indians" by Malinda Lowery.
Appreciate your thoughts before proceeding.
I haven't been this excited about something for a long time. Part of it is that I'm just now finishing most of my recovery from a 2 1/2 dance with cancer, but it is also the enjoyment of learning about what will be a new world for me.
I've walked many Civil War battlefields and know I would like to do the same as I reach that time and tribe in Native history. I will likely find that there are far fewer that have been protected and maybe none with the kind of museums and guide material that I have used with Civil War terrain walks. That will just make it more important to read the details before visiting.
Since you mentioned the Ojibwe defeat of the 3rd Infantry, I just found "Warrior Nation", by Anton Treuer.
A good add? Don't mean to burden you with becoming my librarian, but appreciate your advice and I don't want to waste time reading poor accounts.
An Indigenous People's History of the United States would be a great start and overview.
Also, very good reading is anything by Vine DeLoria JR. God is Red, Custer Died For Your Sins etc.
Link to the story of Company K.
Also, google Polly Cooper and Chief Shenendoah and Valley Forge. There are statues of them at the Smithsonian.
An excellent book about one specific band is Anton Treuer, ''Warrior Nation The Story of the Red Lake Oijbwe'' one of the most unique bands in US Indian history. Ojibwe is a name the French gave us and the British couldn't pronounce it so it came out as Chippewa...In reality, our real name is ''Anishinaabe'' the first of the original people.
Red Lake is my band.
Just saw your comment above, so you have the answer on Warrior Nation.
Morning.. it's not just America it happened our history is very similar with our Koori people...maybe not to the same extent but it is certainly there..
I don't recall anything been written about it in my history classes in the 70's..it was all about, convicts, white settlers and the gold rush.. only time Kooris were mentioned was when they attacked settlers etc..
And it much the same in NZ with the Maori people... actually it more or less the same all over the world, where ever White man went.
Sadly, that is true.