Unspoken

 

PBS Utah’s documentary examines the federal Indian boarding school system and the lasting impact it had on Native communities across the United States. These schools were created with one purpose: to force Native children to abandon their languages, traditions, and identities in order to fit into Anglo‑American society. The film uses firsthand Native testimony to show how these policies reshaped families, communities, and tribal nations for generations.

The story traces the roots of the system back to the late 1800s, when military officer Richard Henry Pratt pushed the idea that Native people could be “civilized” only by removing children from their homes and immersing them in English, Christianity, and military discipline. His approach became the model for federal boarding schools across the country. Children were stripped of their hair, clothing, and names. Speaking their own languages was punished. Many never returned home.

Good to Be Back

 Sixties Scoop survivor raised in U.S. reunites with siblings in Winnipeg

Melody Roberts, 66, only learned she was taken from family after outreach worker tracked her down

Arturo Chang · CBC News · May 19, 2026 

Donna Morin, left, and Joseph Lambert, right, welcomed Melody Roberts, middle, at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday evening. The biological siblings were separated in the Sixties Scoop, with Lambert and Roberts only learning recently they were taken from their family. (Coleen Rajotte)

Siblings separated in the Sixties Scoop have reunited after one of them — raised in the U.S. knowing nothing about her family — returned to Manitoba.

Melody Roberts embraced biological siblings Joe Lambert and Donna Morin during their first in-person meeting at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday evening.

"It's good to be back," the 66-year-old from Eugene, Ore., said as a welcoming party greeted her with signs, singing and drumming at the airport's arrivals area.

Morin, 61, wept as she hugged her older sister.  She recalled a story her grandfather told her decades earlier, about taking Morin's mother to hospital and that "she'd come out without children."

"I just thought she left them there, and then I heard about the Sixties Scoop," Morin said.

"I got a list of the children that she had lost. And so I found most of them. I only had [Joe] and Melody to find — and I finally found them."

The Sixties Scoop refers to a period from the 1950s to about the mid-to-late '80s when government policies enabled First Nations, Métis and Inuit children to be removed from their homes and placed instead with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents.

Joseph Lambert, far left, and Donna Morin, far right, with Morin's daughter Samantha Sinclair, and granddaughters Madison and Lily, ahead of the arrival of Melody Roberts at Winnipeg's Richardson Airport Sunday evening. Lambert holds an image of Roberts on his phone. (Justin Fraser/CBC)

Roberts didn't know she was a Scoop survivor until recently.

"When I was old enough, I was told I was adopted. But that's all I knew," she said Monday.

"It was shocking. I was kind of taken aback by it. I had mixed emotions about it."

More than 20,000 children are estimated to have been taken from their families, though advocates say the numbers could be much higher.

• 'I'm not alone': Sixties Scoop survivors gather in Winnipeg to reconnect, heal

• 10 years after apology, '60s Scoop survivors call for support beyond 'grossly inadequate' payout

In Manitoba, a provincial inquiry from 2015 said more than 3,400 Indigenous children were "shipped away" to adoptive parents between 1971 and 1981 alone — some sent to other countries.

Survivors "grew up thinking they were not wanted," said Susanna Tasse, social services and outreach co-ordinator with Winnipeg charity Hope Centre Ministries.  

"There's abandonment issues all their lives because they felt they were not wanted."

It was Tasse who helped reunite Morin, Roberts and Lambert. She said it all started about a year and a half ago when she realized Lambert — one of her clients — was also a survivor.

• Far-flung '60s Scoop siblings — one in Texas, one in New Zealand — meet Manitoba uncle

• Survivors say cases of 'pretendians' make reconnecting with community even harder

"I said to him, 'You know, Joe, you're a Sixties Scooper,' and he just was very confused, [asking] well, what's that?" Tasse said.

Tasse tracked down Roberts first, and arranged for her and Lambert to exchange emails and meet over Zoom.  Then she found Morin, who lived only "a few blocks away" from Lambert in Winnipeg, and looped her in.

"It's really heartbreaking, now that they're in their senior years, that they ended up finding each other … wishing that they would have tried sooner in life," Tasse said, but "this is also a beautiful story, too."

Having family has 'totally changed my life'

Lambert did not get a chance to meet his mother or some siblings who died before he learned about his past.

"I didn't know I had a family, so I didn't have anything to miss," he said.

But the 68-year-old said the discovery has made his life better. He said he's now a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation after a long time struggling with his identity.

He's also hoping to visit another brother, who lives in B.C., in the coming months.

Before discovering he had family members, Lambert "was just being self-destructive to myself, [because] I had nothing left to live forward to," he said. "It's totally changed my life."

Coleen Rajotte, vice-president of the 60's Scoop Manitoba Council Inc., said many other survivors would also like to reunite with their families, but "have no idea where to start."

Supports are needed to help them with the search, and to allow them to "get back home," she said.

"Melody, who's coming all the way from Oregon, she had to save up to make this trip. And that is, in our minds, completely wrong," Rajotte said.

"She was taken away from her family and shipped to the United States by the Manitoba government. Why should she have to pay to come back to meet her family?"

Roberts will be spending three days in Winnipeg with her siblings, Morin said.

"We just got done looking at a bunch of pictures of my family and my other brothers and sisters and my mom and dad," Roberts said during a phone interview, as the siblings drove to The Forks Monday afternoon.

"It's been really awesome. I'm really enjoying myself here."

WATCH | Siblings reunite decades after Sixties Scoop:

Siblings reunite decades after Sixties Scoop May 19| 

Three siblings have reunited in Manitoba decades after being separated during the Sixties Scoop, which saw thousands of Indigenous children removed from their homes and placed with non-Indigenous families. Melody Roberts, who grew up in the U.S. and until recently knew nothing of her family, returned to Manitoba over the weekend for the first time to meet her brother and sister.

Data Center Protests | How To Stop Data Centers

The Numbers That Explain Why Your Grandchildren Will Be Fighting Wars Over Water (But With Robots)

Over the next four years, they’re planning to build more than 12,000 data centers in the United States. Currently there are 5,500. They’re going to MORE THAN DOUBLE them in four years. Total investment: $5.2 trillion.

 

Protesters rally against STAMP data center plan during Hochul visit in Buffalo

The demonstration called for a moratorium on new data center development across the state.

Tommy Gallagher (WGRZ)  May 22, 2026

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Environmental activists, local organizations, and members of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation gathered outside the Buffalo Irish Center to protest proposed data center development in New York State.

Specifically, they targeted plans for the STAMP site in Genesee County while Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a fundraiser inside on Thursday evening.

The demonstration, organized by several local groups and environmental advocates, called for a moratorium on new data center development across the state. Protesters focused their concerns on the proposed project at the Genesee County STAMP site.

Although Hochul did not directly address demonstrators outside the event, she discussed the Genesee County STAMP plant earlier in the day, saying New York has some long-term interest in data centers, but only with certain standards.

Stream Data Centers, the company behind the proposed project, says the development would create 125 permanent jobs at the STAMP site and approximately 1,200 construction jobs during the buildout.

RELATED: Litigation aims to stop latest STAMP project in Genesee County 

According to Honor the Earth, there are currently at least 106 proposed data center projects near or on Native lands. In western New York, a proposed $19.46 billion data center project would sit adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory, threatening an old forest that tribal citizens use for hunting, fishing, and gathering traditional medicine. 

STOP DATA SURVEILLANCE CENTERS 

The Underground Blueprint to Destroy the Tech Bro Plan to Enslave the Planet With AI Data Centers by 🐺The Wise Wolf

OR: How a Broke Hobojournalist With No Car Weaponized a Zero-Budget Strategy to Kill the Coming AI Dystopia Before It Starts

Read on Substack

**

TRICKS:

Step one: Corporation identifies land it wants. (”That subdivision would make a great server farm!”)

Step two: Corporation identifies local politicians who appear purchasable. (This step is easier than you’d think. Most politicians advertise their availability through campaign finance disclosures.)

Step three: Campaign contributions flow. (Legally! It’s all very legal! Just structured donations that definitely don’t constitute bribery because we’ve defined bribery in a way that excludes all the ways rich people buy politicians.)

Step four: Local politicians create or gain control of a “development authority” or similar governmental body. (Every state has slightly different names but they all do the same thing: provide legal cover for theft.)

Step five: Corporate executives or their proxies sit on that authority. (Just like how Pfizer’s VP George Milne sat on New London’s development board. Totally normal. No conflict of interest here. Just government officials who happen to work for the corporation benefiting from the government decisions they’re making.)

Step six: The authority declares the project serves “economic development” and therefore provides “public benefit.” (Jobs! Tax revenue! Economic growth! Never mind that a Costco also provides all those things.)

Step seven: Eminent domain gets deployed. (This is the part where armed government agents show up to inform you that your family home of 30 years now belongs to people who own more money than your town’s entire assessed property value.)

Step eight: Properties get seized. (The government takes your house. You get “fair market value” which is determined by the government. You cannot negotiate. You cannot refuse. You leave or they arrest you.)

Step nine: Land transfers to the corporation. (Usually for $1 or some other nominal fee because why pay market rates when you’ve captured the government.)

Step ten: Corporation gets massive tax exemptions for 10 to 20 years. (Because obviously a multi-billion-dollar data center needs tax breaks. How else will the investors afford their fourth vacation homes?)

Step eleven: The public pays for all the infrastructure upgrades. (New roads to the facility? Public expense. Upgraded power lines? Public expense. Water infrastructure? Public expense. The corporation pays for none of this.)

Step twelve: Corporation keeps all the profits. (Shocking twist: the economic benefits that supposedly justified the taking don’t actually benefit the public whose property and tax dollars funded everything.)

 

More on data centers: Almost Half of US Data Centers That Were Supposed to Open This Year Slated to Be Canceled or Delayed 

 Futurism

https://futurism.com › artificial-intelligence › data-centers-tribal-communities

Tech Companies Are Using Insidious Tactics to Build Data Centers on Native Lands...

Apr 24, 2026 Data center developers are using NDAs and bait-and-switch tactics to force Tribal leaders into building data centers on Native lands.

 

VISIT: 

 

https://www.instagram.com/stopdatacolonialism/ 

Stomping Freedom

New film revisits country's founding from Shawnee perspective in Ohio during American Revolution

WYSO | By Adriana Martinez-Smiley

Caesar's Ford Theatre/ Provided

A still from the film "Stomping Freedom." It will premiere for the first time at the Little Art Theatre on May 27.

The American Indian-led arts nonprofit Caesar’s Ford Theatre will premiere a new film called “Stomping Freedom” in Yellow Springs this month, ahead of America’s 250th anniversary.  The film examines who was in Ohio at that time.

Caesar’s Ford Theatre is a performing arts organization focused on telling American Indian historical dramas with American Indian actors.  Using the term “American Indian” is deliberate as well, as this is the legal term used by the United States government to identify citizens of federally-recognized tribal nations, which have specific legal rights.

“Stomping Freedom” is a political thriller that recounts the tension between Shawnee villagers and American settlers during the American Revolution in 1778.  The story begins at Caesar Creek, when an interpreter for the Shawnee tribe Caesar receives a letter with news he’s charged with delivering to Shawnee war chief Weyapiersenwah, also known as Blue Jacket.

Every American Indian role in the film is portrayed by actors from federally-recognized tribal nations. That includes the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin as well as historic Ohio tribes like the Seneca-Cayuga Nation and Shawnee Tribe.

“This was the home of tribal nations that lived here and could trace their culture and heritage back thousands and thousands and thousand years to this area."

Kane Stratton, the director and screenwriter for the film said Caesar's Ford Theatre wants the audience to understand Ohio wasn’t part of the United States 250 years ago.

“This was the home of tribal nations that lived here and could trace their culture and heritage back thousands and thousands and thousand years to this area,” he said.

Jake Tiger (enrolled Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Red Lake Ojibwe and Sac and Fox of Oklahoma descent) played Blue Jacket in the film. Although not Shawnee himself, he said he worked with Shawnee language specialists when speaking Shawnee in the film.

He said he tried to channel his own ancestor, the Seminole warrior Osceola, who also fought for the sovereignty of his people against the U.S. government, when portraying Blue Jacket.

“You know, that kind of grit and tenacity and that steadfastness of that lifestyle, and I tried to portray that in this dialog. So I took a lot of inspiration from my own cultural background and tried to do the best I could with due diligence and respectfully portray it as a Shawnee war leader,” he said.

Tiger said he appreciated the level of consultation that went into the screenplay, set design and attire to ensure everything was historically accurate and culturally appropriate.

“It felt like a movement, more than just one person doing this on their own and kind of dictating the narrative,” Tiger said.

The film was funded in part by the America 250-Ohio Commission to recognize the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Yellow Springs Community Foundation was also a major donor to this effort, Stratton said.

The film premieres at the Little Art Theatre on May 27 at 7 p.m. A donation is required for admission. Tickets can be reserved in advance.

The film includes mature language, so it may not be suitable to view for younger kids, Stratton said.

Following the screening, production team members will reflect on the filmmaking experience and share plans for Caesar’s Ford Theatre's future.

Stratton said if there’s enough interest from the first premier, there’s potential to put on more screenings.

SOURCE:  https://www.wyso.org/indigenous-affairs/2026-05-21/new-film-revisits-countrys-founding-from-shawnee-perspective-in-ohio-during-american-revolution 

ICT NEWS May 22, 2026

 

Still Here: Native American Resilience in New England

2026 marks a milestone in America’s history – 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Our founding document put forward aspirations that have shaped America and inspired the world. But the Declaration may surprise you. It calls the Native peoples of America “merciless Indian Savages.”

For generations, stories of Native America have been kept separate and apart from the American story.

Take a fresh look at the history of our region — and hear today’s Indigenous voices. It’s part of Still Here: Native American Resilience in New England — a special series from Connecticut Public, featuring radio storytelling, in-depth videos, digital stories, pictures and a community conversation.

👉

VIDEO:  https://www.ctpublic.org/still-here-native-american-resilience-in-new-england 

Chapter 1: An enduring spiritual connection to the land

Mark Mirko / Connecticut Public

In the several hundred years since the arrival of Europeans to New England, known as "Dawnland" to its original inhabitants, Native peoples have been forced to live on a small fraction of their ancestral homelands.

For more than 10,000 years before Europeans arrived, the Northeast was home to many tribes with organized leadership and governance; it was among the most prosperous parts of North America. A connection with the land endures – and you care for it like it’s a member of the family.

Watch, listen and read the story

---

Chapter 2: The hidden history of Indigenous slavery

Sir John Henry Lefroy / Cornell University Library

This image — a portrait of Jacob Minors of St. David's Island — helped reconnect Indigenous peoples in Bermuda and New England. Its caption contained a clue: "Reputed to be of Indian descent, and probably descended from one of the Pequod captives."

It's a surprising and overlooked story, a blind spot in the narrative of early America: the hidden history of Indigenous slavery. As colonial powers took over Native land, white settlers were enslaving Native people. Some worked in New England. Others were kidnapped and shipped to an isolated tropical island. For generations, a lost tribe in Bermuda wondered about its past. Centuries later, they’ve reconnected with family – in New England.

Watch, listen and read the story

---

Chapter 3: ‘An unsung hero:’ A runner puts his tribe on the map

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library / Leslie Jones Collection

Ellison "Tarzan" Brown's victory at the 1939 Boston Marathon is seen as a turning point in the visibility and recognition of New England's Native people.

In the 1930s, runner Tarzan Brown twice won the Boston Marathon – and carried the Narragansett tribe’s name out of obscurity and onto a global stage. “He was like an unsung hero for a long time,” his granddaughter says. “It’s just good to see him get the recognition he deserves.”

Watch, listen and read the story

---

Chapter 4: A reverence for water, celebrated with music

Katie Lenhart / Dartmouth University

Jeremy Dutcher and Yo-Yo Ma greet the dawn with a song and music from We Are Water at the bank of Kwenitekw (the Connecticut River).

A Connecticut singer is taking Native art and culture to new places. He invited Indigenous musicians – as well as one of the world’s most famous cello players – to perform at sunrise on the banks of the Connecticut River. The performance highlights Native peoples’ deep connection to nature and water.

Watch, listen and read the story

---

Chapter 5: The cultural power of a powwow

Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public

Visitors to the 2025 Schemitzun, one of the largest powwows in the Northeast and hosted by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation

As Native communities face continued challenges to their overall well-being, many find strength in cultural heritage and tradition. Powwow gatherings are a chance to reconnect with family, culture and values.

Watch, listen and read the story

 

Listen to the Stories

Subscribe to the limited series podcast now.

Listen Now

 

ICT Newscast| May 15, 2026 | A Small Fish with Big Impact, MMIP, and More

 

Here we go again

GOLDWATER INSTITUTE is still trying

and Four days ago, yet another apology in Canada..

Unless an apology and the 60s Scoop history is on nightly news and broadcast where the entire country can hear it, it's pointless. Nothing changes... Native Adoptees in the US are still waiting for open records and repatriation... Trace

and it gets worse: 

NEWS SCOTUS is Asked, Again, to Overturn ICWA as Unconstitutional - The Imprint News The Imprint News A legal team that previously challenged the Indian Child Welfare Act is bringing the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court once again.  

👇 

Sask. Premier Scott Moe apologizes to '60s scoop survivors - Global News

Global Player

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe delivered a formal apology to the survivors of the '60s scoop at the legislature on Monday morning.

 

**

 

 May 1, 2026

Court urged to toss '60s Scoop lawsuits - Brandon Sun

A provincial inquiry in 1985 deemed the practice, which came to be known as the '60s Scoop, as cultural genocide.  Manitoba apologized for the practice in 2015.

 

Ghost Babies

‘Dark side of Quebec’s history’: Indigenous families exhuming their children’s bodies for answers, closure

Rachel Lau | May 10, 2026

VIDEO: More than 130 families are working to locate over 220 Indigenous children in Quebec through documents and exhumation. 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/dark-side-of-quebecs-history-indigenous-families-exhuming-their-childrens-bodies-for-answers-closure/

 

Viviane Echaquan-Niquay was 12 years old when her sister Lauréanna died of pneumonia at the Saint-Eusèbe Hospital in Joliette, Que., in 1973.

At least, that’s what she says her family was told by the health care officials in charge at the time.

“My mother told me when she arrived in Joliette, she went to the funeral home,” Echaquan-Niquay recalls, adding that, to facilitate her parents’ journey, she was tasked with caring for her younger siblings at their home in Manawan, an Atikamekw First Nations community in Quebec’s Lanaudière region.

She continues, “She says she saw a baby in a styrofoam box. She said, ‘That baby is too big. They look like they’re 10 or 11 months old. Are you sure that’s my baby?’”

Lauréanna was two-and-a-half months old.

Echaquan-Niquay says the funeral director waved her mother’s concerns away, closed the box and explained that Lauréanna would be buried in a nearby cornfield.

“My mother and my father said, ‘Can we put a cross?’ They told them, ‘no,’” Echaquan-Niquay tells CTV News. “‘A plaque, at least?’ ‘No, not if the child isn’t baptized.’”

She insists her sister was baptized the August prior.

“When my parents said they were going to get my sister, if it really was her, they said, ‘we’ll bring her to the cemetery here in Manawan, and we’ll put a cross for her,’” said Echaquan-Niquay.

Lauréanna’s body was never released to her family.

An empty tikinagan, a baby carrier. (Echaquan family)

Ghost babies

Lauréanna Echaquan was born on July 20, 1973.

To this day, Echaquan-Niquay says she still has “flashes” of her sister’s short existence.

“I remember my sister was in a tikinagan, [baby carrier] and my mother was doing the laundry,” she said, looking off into the distance. “We didn’t have a laundry machine, so she was doing it by hand.”

Echaquan-Niquay repines she’s always felt disturbed about what happened to her family.

She says she understands now that historically, Lauréanna is just one of Quebec’s many “ghost babies,” Indigenous children who went missing or died after being admitted to hospital to receive medical care, mostly between the 1940s and 1980s.

In many cases, parents were later informed that their child had died, but were never given death certificates, access to their bodies or told the exact location of where they would be buried.

Rumours have pervaded that some babies may have been swapped and later offered up for adoption or sent to residential schools.

The Echaquan family in 2019, including Vivian Echaquan-Niquay and her parents, Armand Echaquan and Madeleine Dubé. (Echaquan family)

Uncovering the truth

The Echaquans are one of 130 families taking part in investigations to find more than 220 children following the passing of Bill 79, An Act to authorize the communication of personal information to the families of Indigenous children who went missing or died after being admitted to an institution.

The bill was introduced in the National Assembly in 2021 by Ian Lafrenière, Quebec Minister of Domestic Security and First Nations Relations.

“This is a dark side of our Quebec history,” he tells CTV News. “We’re talking about families who have been looking for their children for years, some as much as 40, 50 years.”

The government is working with Awacak, an Indigenous organization dedicated to finding missing Indigenous children across the province.

Part of the search, Lafrenière explains, involves unlocking decades-old documentation.

As such, the Echaquan family says they have been able to access Lauréanna’s birth and death certificates, as well as some medical records.

However, Echaquan-Niquay says she questions whether the records are a truthful recollection of what happened to her baby sister.

She explains that the registry in Manawan lists Lauréanna’s death as Oct. 27, but the provincial civil registry states Oct. 28.

Additionally, the autopsy report from the hospital has Lauréanna’s death on Oct. 30.

Some families, like the Echaquans, Lafrenière adds, have told him that they were unsure whether the bodies they were shown were of their children at all.

“In some cases, kids were sent to adoption without notifying the families, so you can imagine how hard it is,” he said. “They have been living without knowing what exactly happened.”

Since Bill 79’s passage, four exhumations have taken place in Quebec.

Lauréanna’s would be the fifth.

Awacak is an Indigenous organization dedicated to finding missing children. (Echaquan family)

Searching for Lauréanna

On May 1, Quebec’s Superior Court authorized the exhumation of Lauréanna’s presumed resting place.

Four sites were identified, including a soccer field near the Joliette cemetery, where a cornfield once stood.

“I felt light,” said Echaquan-Niquay of the court decision. “But I also felt pain because my parents weren’t there.”

Her parents, Armand Echaquan and Madeleine Dubé, both died within weeks of each other in the spring of 2021, never knowing what truly happened to their baby girl.

“I have hope that we will find my sister,” she said, adding that her wish is to bring her home to Manawan and offer her a proper burial.

If the exhumation process doesn’t lead to little Lauréanna’s body, buried in her styrofoam box, Echaquan-Niquay insists that she will continue looking - even if it takes forever.

The exhumation is set to begin on June 8 and last three weeks.

Snow Raven: A Person who Knows

Arctic Siberian SHAMAN REVEALS Humanity’s Imminent Awakening  

Snow Raven takes us on a mesmerizing journey into the heart of shamanism, the power of sound, and the sacred connection between humans and nature. Born in Yakutia, she shares her experiences growing up in the vast Arctic wilderness, where silence and the elements shape the spirit.  She explores the deep-rooted traditions of her people, the significance of the drum as a portal between realms, and the transformative power of voice and rhythm. 

From surviving -96°F winters to using sound to heal and communicate with unseen worlds, Snow Raven reveals ancient wisdom that modern society is only beginning to understand.  With a mission to reconnect people to their primal essence, she teaches indigenous singing techniques and rituals that awaken hidden parts of the soul.  A powerful storyteller, healer, and musician, Snow Raven bridges the gap between ancient and modern worlds, offering a path back to the wisdom we have forgotten.  

 

ICT NEWS

 Missing and Murdered and more...

Black-Inuk woman traces history of Black settlers in the North in pursuit of answers to racial divisions today

Jaelyn Jarrett believes Black and white settlers had very different experiences in the North

Samuel Wat  · CBC News  · May 1 

Jaelyn Jarrett and her aunt Leah Ford. Jarrett, a woman originally from Nain, N.L., has Inuit and Guyanese roots. She's embarking on a journey to trace the history of Black settlers in the North. (Submitted by Jaelyn Jarrett)

Jaelyn Jarrett remembers moving from Nain, N.L., to Ontario as an eight-year-old when she started being called a ‘Puatugi’.

“I didn't really understand what that term meant at the time, but I knew people would reference my hair, and so I figured that it meant black,” she said.

After conversations with her grandmother, Jarrett discovered that word meant Portuguese. She wondered why she — a Black-Inuk woman with Guyanese roots — was being referred to as Portuguese.

That memory led the Carleton University master’s student on a journey to trace the origin of the word, where she came across Canadian historian Kenn Harper’s Names We Call Each Other. 

The book explains many of the whalers in the Arctic were Black men from Cape Verde — islands located off the west coast of Africa once colonized by Portugal. 

Many Cape Verdeans emigrated to the United States starting in the 1800s, particularly to coastal towns with thriving whaling ports like New Bedford, Massachusetts. From there, some Cape Verdean men joined whaling ships travelling to the Hudson’s Bay and Cumberland Sound. 

A photo by Captain George Comer, estimated between 1897 and 1899, showing the crew on deck of a whaling schooner. Brass Lopes is believed to be in the far right of this photograph. (Mystic Seaport Museum)

Those Black whalers were then referred to by Inuit as ‘Puatugi’, which was adapted from the word Portuguese to flow better in Inuktitut. 

While Black whalers did head North for economic pursuits, Jarrett believes those men had very different experiences than their white counterparts. 

"They were able to get opportunities to come to the North and make money, but they were still under the confines of racism and colonialism," she said. 

She thinks many people don't realize that part of Nunavut’s history, which she believes could offer answers to the racial divide that exists to this day.

My friend John

John and I worked together at the Pequot Times. His health is not good right now. Please help if you can:

Narragansett author John Christian Hopkins is in need of financial help!

Check out:  

https://gofund.me/3f67a8d6ahttps://gofund.me/a776cb85fhttps://gofund.me/a776cb85f

https://gofund.me/a776cb85f