The remains of 12 Indigenous children are coming home from the most notorious federal Indian Boarding School in the U.S., including two students from Oklahoma.
Frances Bones and Fannie Gibson are among a dozen Indigenous children expected to return to their communities after passing away at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The school led the way for others in the country, striving to assimilate nearly 7,800 children by isolating them from their communities and cultures.
Bones was 14 years old when she left her mom and dad in the winter of 1894 to attend Carlisle. Comanche Nation Chairman Forrest Tahdooahnippah said she was the daughter of one of the tribe's chiefs, "Cho-nip (Tsunipu), which means 'bones,' and his wife Cha-yah."
"At that time, in the early days of Carlisle, the children of tribal leaders were the focus of the conscription efforts for boarding schools," Tahdooahnippah said in an emailed statement.
A physician in her area called the young Comanche member healthy a couple of days before she arrived in Pennsylvania to start school. Six months later, she passed away. Her cause of death is not listed in the Carlisle Digital Archive.
"Our community still struggles with the legacy of boarding schools, and I hope that her return home provides healing and closure for her family and for our entire community," Tahdooahnippah said.
Gibson will be returning home to the Absentee Shawnee Tribe.
She arrived at Carlisle on Christmas Eve in 1899 at the age of 17. She studied there for about one year before passing. ICT reports that Gibson died from tuberculosis, the most common cause of death for the students currently being repatriated.
The Chief Executive Officer at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Nikki Santos (Cour D'Alene Tribe), said the grief that comes with losing children who were taken from their homes and never came home has rippled across generations.
"We call on institutions entrusted with the care of Native children's remains and cultural belongings to carry out this work with transparency, respect, consultation and accountability," Santos said in a statement. "These children were loved, they mattered, and their lives and stories must never be forgotten."
This is the ninth year the U.S. Army has worked to reunite Indigenous families with their loved ones who passed away at Carlisle. Throughout their years doing this work, there have been disinterment issues due to past operational mistakes — notably, a Wichita boy named Alfred Charko, whose remains couldn't be reinterred because they weren't where the plot maps indicated.
"Navigating the disinterment and return process requires the highest level of professional care and compassion and we are committed to providing the expert assistance needed to return their loved ones to their families and communities," said Director of the Office of Army Cemeteries Renea Yates.
All boarding school students will be honored on Sept. 30 during Orange Shirt Day, an annual day of truth and reconciliation aimed at raising awareness about the Indian boarding school system that impacted Indigenous people across the U.S. and Canada.
The Absentee Shawnee Tribe declined to comment.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
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