Making Progress in the Journey of Reconciliation

www.catholicregister.org /item/2406-grandfather-rock-a-sign-of-reconciliation-in-st-boniface

 6/23/2025  WINNIPEG

For St. Boniface Archbishop Albert LeGatt, the Grandfather Rock is just a “small symbol” of reconciliation — even if it stands over 1.5 metres tall. 

The Grandfather Rock, so named by Indigenous people for how it contains generational knowledge, ancient memories and a spirit, was unveiled June 20 in the Archdiocese of St. Boniface’s Heritage Park, across the street from St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg.

“I hope it will indicate to Indigenous people this is a safe place and all are welcome,” said LeGatt, adding it represents an “intertwining of Christian faith and Indigenous spirituality, values and beliefs, a weaving of the two together.”

Called M’shoomis Asin in Ojibwe, the Grandfather Rock was donated to the archdiocese by a parishioner five years ago.  It is surrounded by a symbolic see-through sweat lodge made out of rebar by local high school students.

The placement of the Grandfather Rock and sweat lodge in the Heritage Park is a way for Roman Catholics to indicate they are taking seriously the Calls to Action directed at the churches by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, LeGatt said.

“It shows how we are playing a part on the long and rich journey of reconciliation between First Nations people and non-Indigenous people," he said. “It is a way to understand and share our common values that are truly essential for a unified humanity."

At the same time, it’s a way to acknowledge “the inherent value and worth of Indigenous spiritual values” and the Church’s acceptance of Indigenous culture and spirituality, he said.

Elder Clayton Sandy (adoptee) of the Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation worked with LeGatt to create the installation.  For him, the placement of the Grandfather Rock and symbolic sweat lodge on property owned by the archdiocese is significant since Indigenous spiritual practices like sweat lodges were forbidden for many decades by the Roman Catholic Church.

“Now there is a representation of a sweat lodge on church grounds,” said Sandy, whose parents and six siblings are residential school survivors while he was a Sixties scoop child.  It is, he said, a “symbol of healing between Indigenous people and the Church . . . we have come a long way.”

It also shows that Roman Catholics and Indigenous people are making progress in the journey of reconciliation, he said, adding “if we don’t come together with open minds, nothing changes.”

Beside the installation are two panels, one explaining the significance of the Grandfather Rock is in English, French, Dakota and Ojibwe and the other, in English and French, describing the role of sweat lodges in Indigenous tradition and culture.

In addition to the Grandfather Rock and symbolic sweat lodge, the Heritage Park also contains information and statuary about the religious orders who were instrumental in the development of Manitoba’s health, educational and social service systems. 

SOURCE: https://www.catholicregister.org/item/2406-grandfather-rock-a-sign-of-reconciliation-in-st-boniface 

A historic Native American hospital is once again bringing health care back to the community

Paitients will be able to once again receive healthcare at the Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte Center in Walthill, Nebraska.(KTIV)

By Nathan Price : Jun. 22, 2025 

WALTHILL, Neb. (KTIV) -The Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte Center held its open house Sunday afternoon.

Dr. Picotte was the very first Native American physician and founded the center back in 1913 as the first privately funded hospital on a Native American reservation.

Over the years, it fell into disrepair, prompting community members to restore and preserve it.

One member, Gary Bowen, said it took many years and a lot of fundraising to restore the center to its former glory.

“It’s a wonderful dream come true for all of us,” Bowen said. “We had wonderful support from private foundations and government agencies and individuals.”

The executive director of the center, Elizabeth Lovejoy Brown, said Doctor Susan’s legacy inspired her, and others, to make the center into a place of healing once again.

“When I was a little girl, I was told about Doctor Susan, and from that point on I said, I want to do the same thing as her. I want to go to college and I want to come back and give back to my tribe,” Brown said. “We want to fulfill and carry on the legacy that she had made. For this hospital.”

The Picotte Center will feature health care services like a medical clinic and mental health support.

It will also have an exhibit on Dr. Picotte’s life, and a makers space where community members can access tools to create cultural pieces and regalia. 

SOURCE: https://www.ktiv.com/2025/06/23/historic-native-american-hospital-is-once-again-bringing-health-care-back-community/ 

New study confirms ancient human footprints in New Mexico date back 23,000 years

 Dario Radley  June 22, 2025

A newly published study in Science Advances provides the strongest evidence to date that ancient human tracks found at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, are approximately 23,000 years old. If confirmed, the find could dramatically change the history of human migration to North America, placing humans on the continent during the Last Glacial Maximum, thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

Some of the White Sands footprints. National Park Service (Public domain)

The footprints, first reported in 2021, were excavated in 2019 by a team from Bournemouth University in collaboration with the U.S. National Park Service. Early radiocarbon dating of seeds and pollen found in overlying and underlying sediment layers indicated an age between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. However, these findings were challenged. Some critics argued that using aquatic plants like Ruppia cirrhosa, which absorb ancient carbon from water, could result in artificially old dates.

To address these concerns, the new team, led by University of Arizona archaeologist and geologist Vance Holliday, returned to the site in 2022 and 2023. Instead of dating the plant material, they radiocarbon dated ancient lakebed mud. They sent the samples to two independent laboratories, both of which reported the same range of ages: 20,700 to 22,400 years ago.

Together, scientists now have 55 radiocarbon dates on three types of materials—seeds, pollen, and mud—all pointing to the same time period. “It’s a remarkably consistent record,” Holliday said. “You get to the point where it’s really hard to explain all this away.”

The footprints were found in streambeds which once flowed into an ancient lake called Lake Otero, in a region now dominated by gypsum sand dunes. Holliday first visited White Sands in 2012 and contributed geological data that was utilized to date the tracks and made him a co-author of the original and current study.

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Doctoral student Jason Windingstad, who worked with Holliday on the most recent fieldwork, described seeing the prints as a profound moment. “It basically contradicts everything that we’ve been taught about the peopling of North America,” he said.

The discovery challenges the long-standing Clovis-first theory, which held that humans arrived on the continent around 13,000 years ago.  While some scientists still question the evidence—particularly the lack of tools or settlement—Holliday argues that such artifacts wouldn’t necessarily be present.  “These people lived by their artifacts, and they were far away from where they could get replacement material,” he said. “They’re not just randomly dropping artifacts.”

With multiple dating methods and separate lab confirmations now supporting the timeline, the White Sands footprints offer compelling evidence that humans came to the Americas far earlier than had been believed.

SOURCE: https://archaeologymag.com/2025/06/new-study-on-ancient-human-footprints-in-new-mexico/ 

More information: University of Arizona

Publication: Holliday, V. T., Windingstad, J. D., Bright, J., Phillips, B. G., Butler, J. B., Breslawski, R., & Bowman, J. E. (2025). Paleolake geochronology supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico. Science Advances, 11(25), eadv4951. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adv4951

Toronto celebrates National Indigenous Peoples Day with sunrise ceremony, powwow

CBC News | June 21

Celebrations happening amid pushback from First Nations communities over provincial legislation

Image | Jay Lomax, a Sixties Scoop survivor who was at the Na-Me-Res Powwow celebration at Fort York, said Saturday's celebrations are a way to connect with First Nations culture, and to heal. (CBC)

National Indigenous Peoples Day was celebrated in Toronto Saturday with music, dance and a sunrise ceremony outside city hall amid pushback from some First Nations leaders over provincial laws that some say bypass consultation with their communities.

The holiday, first observed in 1996, is a day of recognition and celebration of the cultures and contributions of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Indigenous peoples of Canada.

Hundreds of events are taking place around the country Saturday, and in Toronto, festivities began with a sunrise ceremony outside city hall, with Mayor Olivia Chow in attendance.

• Sunrise ceremonies, celebrations across Canada mark National Indigenous Peoples Day

• Community event at Fort York celebrates National Indigenous Peoples Day

Grandmother Kim Wheatley of Curve Lake First Nation led the proceedings, which included prayers, greetings to the sun and giving thanks to the Earth.

"As we walk the road of reconciliation, Canadians need to know we're still here and we have something beautiful to offer and beautiful to share," she said at the ceremony.

Celebrations are continuing all day at the Na-Me-Res Powwow celebration at Fort York, which is in part sponsored by CBC.

Fort York, Indigenous Peoples Day : The Na-Me-Res Pow Wow started Friday evening and will run until 8 p.m. Saturday at Fort York in downtown Toronto. (CBC)

The event began on Friday and is hosted by Na-Me-Res, a residence for homeless Indigenous men in Toronto. Hundreds were in attendance Saturday to take in traditional music and dance on the grassy field.

One of the dancers, Jay Lomax, said the celebrations are in part a way of healing, and connecting.

"I'm here because I'm one of the Sixties Scoop survivors and I was raised out here in Toronto. And I've been dancing since I got reconnected with the culture in my 20s, doing ceremonies, connecting through the land, connecting with our people, and that's what today is really all about."

Along with music and dance, the powwow includes the Indigenous Arts Festival, where culture is celebrated through crafts and cuisine.

Celebrations are going all day, with the powwow at Fort York continuing well into the evening.

Strained relations between province, First Nations

The celebrations come as First Nations communities push back against new provincial mining legislation that many say goes against the government's duty to consult Indigenous peoples.

This week, Premier Doug Ford apologized for comments he made, saying he has treated First Nations "like gold" but they "keep coming hat in hand."

 

WATCH | Ford's apology to First Nations chiefs:  Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized to First Nations chiefs representing Ontario on Thursday. As CBC’s Mike Crawley explains, this comes after the provincial government sparked anger amongst Indigenous communities over Bill 5.

Open Full Embed in New Tab

Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict of the Chiefs of Ontario, which advocates for all 133 First Nations in the province, told CBC News Network Saturday that the comments were hurtful.

"What we've been very clear with is that the rights holders need to be at the table talking with the government about these bills, about a pathway forward," he said. "[Ford has] acknowledged that, and I'm hoping that our leadership can accept that apology, and look to a pathway forward with the premier."

• First Nations opposition continues after passing of Ontario's Bill 5

Speaking about National Indigenous Peoples Day on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report, he said the holiday was in part a chance to reflect on what's been done since the commission released its 94 calls to action.

"We've made tremendous strides, but there's a lot of work to do," he said.

REDUCE STEAL REMOVE ERASE DISENROLL

by Blog Editor Trace L Hentz  

I have followed the disturbing tribal dis-enrollment issue many years, first as a journalist and then as a concerned adoptee who is still without tribal membership.  

First of all, since CONQUEST, the governments of Canada and the US had goals.

The inter-country ARENA program and the Indian Adoption Projects were clearly planned genocide, essentially kidnapping and trafficking in children, as an act of war on Indian families.   

Other goals?  Reduce the populations.  Write bad treaties then break them.  Steal more land.  Move who is left on to concentration camps but call it a "reservation" or reserve.  Remove children on those reserves to faraway places like the Carlisle Industrial Boarding School.  Erase children permanently from tribal rolls.  It's how the governments of Canada and the US planned this.  They kill us by military force then colonize remaining savages, then they upped the game to use paper genocide with bad or fake history, to where we are now:  blood quantum sorcery.   

They'll keep us divided, a Third World stuck in poverty and fighting for scraps forever.   

That was the plan. 

Let me start over...

Adoptees want to go home, meet family and if possible, have a relationship with tribal relatives.  We were dis-enrolled essentially and the fake papers we were given are not real birth certificates, not tribal membership, and not land rights and treaty promises. (Yes, some adoptees found out they were enrolled before they were taken away.)

For an adoptee today, Tribal membership would be icing on the cake, and all of us absolutely deserve it!

Too many Tribal leaders are not traditional, as I see it.  I see Tribal leaders adapted to the white man rules too well.  Clearly it's about money now, not us, and not our recovery.

Why?  Do they not see we had no CHOICE as children adopted out... It wasn't our fault.  Is this also about money?

Are you kidding me? 

Since 2004-5, I took the stance there was no awareness of the cultural genocide on Indigenous People since conquest.  I also could see how too many adoptees were struggling to get their tribal membership.  Too many cannot and do not approach their tribe without papers, or some kind of legal proof.  Who do we call?  Phone messages and requests for help go unanswered.  One Native adoptee told me a judge refused her request for her adoption file in Utah, which is against federal law and what the Indian Child Welfare said is our right. 

Sadly, Reserve Indians do not prioritize bringing STOLEN GENERATIONS back, and many do not know how many adoptees are out here, spread across North American and beyond.  

Now tribes are disenrolling their own people? Casinos changed the landscape. Tribes are protecting their profits.  Greed, as you know, is a disease.

As the governments planned this, it was to control tribal populations. And it worked.

Go READ:

"You're No Indian" Examines the Disenrollment Issue (documentary) (top photo)

LINK: https://nativenewsonline.net/arts-entertainment/your-e-no-indian-examines-the-disenrollment-issue 

 

FILM: https://www.yourenoindian.com/ 

Vigil to honor Melissa and Mark Hortman

More than a thousand people attend a candlelight vigil for Melissa and Mark Hortman at the State Capitol building Wednesday. (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

 “We wanted to sing her an honor song, a traveling song, to send her off in a good way, for all she did for our nation and for all native people, standing up for us, our sovereignty, and our treaty rights,” Strong said. “She would not only just work on our behalf, but she would be a part of our community. She came and participated in our community and our culture and our ceremonies, and she was very empowering.”

READ: https://www.startribune.com/minnesotans-will-gather-at-state-capitol-for-candlelight-vigil-for-melissa-and-mark-hortman/601374809 

Life Expectancy for AI/AN individuals just 72.7 years

very very bad news... poverty can do that... TRACE

U.S. government has overestimated Native American life expectancy, study finds

By Marcos Magaña, Los Angeles Times

The ruins of an old church building and cemetery at the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, a living Native American community located at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Official U.S. records dramatically underestimate mortality and life expectancy disparities for Native Americans, according to a new, groundbreaking study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Dreamstime/TNS)

LOS ANGELES — Official U.S. records dramatically underestimate mortality and life expectancy disparities for Native Americans, according to a new, groundbreaking study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The research, led by the Boston University School of Public Health, provides compelling evidence of a profound discrepancy between actual and officially reported statistics on the health outcomes of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations in the U.S.

The study, novel in its approach, tracks mortality outcomes over time among self-identified AI/AN individuals in a nationally representative cohort known as the Mortality Disparities in American Communities.

The researchers linked data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey with official death certificates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System from 2008 through 2019, and found that the life expectancy of AI/AN populations was 6.5 years lower than the national average. They then compared this to data from the CDC’s WONDER database, and found that their numbers were nearly three times greater than the gap reported by the CDC.

Indeed, the study found that the life expectancy for AI/AN individuals was just 72.7 years, comparable to that of developing countries.

The researchers also uncovered widespread racial misclassification. The study reports that some 41% of AI/AN deaths were incorrectly classified in the CDC WONDER database, predominantly misrecorded as “White.” These systemic misclassifications drastically skewed official statistics, presenting AI/AN mortality rates as only 5% higher than the national average. When they adjusted the data to account for those misclassifications, the researchers found that the actual rate was 42% higher than initially reported.

The issue of racial misclassification “is not new for us at all,” said Nanette Star, director of policy and planning at the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health. The recent tendency for journalists and politicians to use umbrella terms like “Indigenous” rather than the more precise “American Indian and Alaska Native” can obscure the unique needs, histories and political identities of AI/AN communities, Star noted, and contribute to their erasure in both data and public discourse. “That is the word we use — erasure — and it really does result in that invisibility in our health statistics,” she said.

Issues related to racial misclassification in public records persist across the entire life course for AI/AN individuals, from birth to early childhood interventions to chronic disease and death.  Star noted that in California, especially in urban regions like Los Angeles, Native individuals are frequently misidentified as Latino or multiracial, which profoundly distorts public health data and masks the extent of health disparities. “It really does mask the true scale of premature mortality and health disparities among our communities,” Star said.

Further, said Star, the lack of accurate data exacerbates health disparities. “It really is a public health and justice issue,” she said. “If you don’t have those numbers to support the targeted response, you don’t get the funding for these interventions or even preventative measures.”

According to U.S. Census data, California is home to the largest AI/AN population in the United States.  That means it has a unique opportunity to lead the nation in addressing these systemic issues.  With numerous federally and state-recognized tribes, as well as substantial urban AI/AN populations, California can prioritize collaborative and accurate public health data collection and reporting.

Star noted that current distortions are not always malicious but often stem from a lack of training.  She suggested that California implement targeted training programs for those charged with recording this data, including funeral directors, coroners, medical doctors and law enforcement agents; allocate dedicated resources to improve the accuracy of racial classification on vital records; and strengthen partnerships with tribal leaders.

The study authors suggest similar approaches, and there are numerous examples of successful cases of Indigenous-led health partnerships seen across Canada and the U.S. that have helped reduce health disparities among AI/AN communities that could be used as a template.

These efforts would not only help to move toward rectifying historical inaccuracies, but also ensure that AI/AN communities receive equitable health resources and policy attention.

“When AI/AN people are misclassified in life and in death, it distorts public health data and drives inequities even deeper,” said Star. “Accurate data isn’t just about numbers — it’s about honoring lives, holding systems accountable and making sure our communities are seen and served.”

SOURCE:  https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2025/06/20/study-finds-that-us-government-has-overestimated-native-american-life-expectancy/

 

Sixties Scoop survivors reflect on a decade since Manitoba’s historic apology...

10 years after Apology

'60s Scoop survivors call for support beyond 'grossly inadequate' payout

First Nation, Métis, Inuit children taken from families 'have often been forgotten about': Manitoba advocate 

Bryce Hoye · CBC News · June 18

VIDEOS LINK: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sixties-scoop-apology-decade-anniversary-1.7564426 

Sisters Lorraine Sinclair, left, and Cindy Munro attend an event marking 10 years since then Manitoba premier Greg Selinger apologized to survivors, like them, of the Sixties Scoop. (Zubina Ahmed/CBC)

Survivors of an infamous Canadian campaign to take Indigenous children from their families are underscoring the need for more action on the 10-year anniversary of the Manitoba's government formal apology for its role.

Lorraine Sinclair and Cindy Munro are grateful they reunited. The sisters say they're from a family of 11 children — nine of whom, including them, were separated and adopted out during the Sixties Scoop.

"We're learning about each other. Our other extended family and our other brothers and sisters, we don't really know them," said Munro. "I don't know who they are. That's not fair — that's not fair to my children, my grandchildren, my siblings."

The sisters were among a group of survivors and supporters at an event at St. John's Park in north Winnipeg on Wednesday to mark a decade since then premier Greg Selinger apologized to families caught in the Sixties Scoop.

The once legal and systematic practice removed thousands of First Nation, Métis and Inuit children from their birth families from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Most were adopted out to non-Indigenous families in Canada and abroad.

• Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger apologizes for Sixties Scoop

• Manitoban taken during Sixties Scoop returns after 2 decades behind bars in U.S.
• KEEP READING👇 

More can be done

 

Nelda Goodman, a Menominee tribal elder, remembers when her white friend, Miriam Horneff, bought a ceremonial Big Drum on eBay from a former Boy Scout leader.

The drum belonged to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.  Horneff wanted to return the drum to its original owners, so, with her will executors, she met with Alton “Sonny” Smart of the related Lac du Flambeau Chippewa tribe. 

Smart is a traditional helper — or “skapaewes” in Menominee — who can be given the cultural authority from Bad River elders to transport it back to its Wisconsin reservation. 

After Horneff died, Smart covered the drum with a blanket and returned it with a private ceremony.  However, Goodman said Horneff had a deep fascination with cultural artifacts, and her estate sold off much of her collection, which included other Native objects that were not repatriated with such care.

KEEP READING:  https://mndaily.com/294574/campus-administration/weisman-is-taking-steps-to-return-their-indigenous-artifacts-but-more-can-be-done/ 

Federal Government ‘Stuck Tribes With a Bill’ for Indian Boarding Schools, Lawsuit Alleges

By Nancy Marie Spears

Navajo students after entering the Carlisle Indian School in 1882. Photo courtesy of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.

A year ago, the Department of the Interior concluded a first-ever accounting of the toll that Indian boarding schools inflicted on Indigenous people in this country over centuries.  Nearly a thousand Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Native American children were buried in 74 marked or unmarked gravesites across 65 school sites. 

Another number also stood out: the $23.3 billion the U.S. government spent on a system of forced assimilation that subjected tens of thousands of children to torture and abuse — the bulk of which was at times paid for out of Native Nations’ trust funds from the sale of Indigenous lands.

In the wake of these revelations, a class-action lawsuit filed by the Washoe Tribe and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes alleges the $23.3 billion “barely scratches the surface” of the total losses to Indigenous communities imposed by the federal boarding school program between 1871 and 1969. 

They say the tally does not account for funds generated by forced child labor, money removed from Native Nations’ trust accounts and the resulting economic harm of extracting children from their families and tribes.

The lawsuit, filed May 22 in a Pennsylvania U.S. District Court, calls on the federal government to show its receipts by preserving and publishing “all documents related to the Boarding School Program on an openly accessible electronic database,” as well as all documents used to prepare the Interior Department’s July 2024 investigative report  “until a full accounting is provided and authenticated.”

An attorney representing the tribe describes this accounting as a key step toward economic justice for tribes.

“The United States forcibly separated Native children from their parents, and systematically sought to erase their cultural identity, killing, torturing, starving, and sexually assaulting many in the process and doing untold damage to generations,” the plaintiffs allege in their 68-page complaint. “And it made the Native Nations put up the money to pay for it all.”

Navajo students before and after entering the Carlisle Indian School in 1882. Photos courtesy of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.

The Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education are named as defendants. They have 30 days from the time of filing to respond to the complaint or seek a continuance. 

Agency spokespeople said they could not comment on pending litigation, but in a statement noted a broader obligation to tribes.

“The Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs remain committed to our trust responsibilities of protecting tribal treaty rights, lands, assets, and resources,” it said, “in addition to its duty to carry out the mandates of federal law with respect to American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and villages.” 

Plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania case represent the thousands of students across 574 federally recognized tribes whose children were forced to attend boarding schools designed to strip them of their culture and language. 

One of those children was a Wichita boy, Oscar Stephens, who is named in the suit. In 1905, the 10-year-old was playing by a creek near his home when he was taken by federal agents. He spoke two words of English at the time: “yes” and “no.” 

“The United States stuck tribes with a bill for the Boarding School Program. at points, as much as 95% of the funding for Indian boarding schools came from ‘Indian trust fund monies.’ raised by selling Indian land.” 

— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch

Oscar was initially sent to Oklahoma’s Riverside Indian School. Three years later, on Sept. 10, 1908, he was enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, weighing 94 pounds with “numerous scars,” the complaint reads. 

Oscar’s student file notes he was routinely sent on forced “outings” — a euphemism at the time for children sent away from school to perform free labor. 

“His head was shaved, and he was beaten for speaking his native tongue, the only language he knew,”  court documents state. “Over the years as a young teenager he was routinely placed with families to do servile work — his file described him being sent to do housework for a family at the age of 14 — and routinely ran away.”

👉SEE Oscar Stephens’ student file from the Carlisle Indian School

Oscar Stephens Student File From Carlisle Indian School Download

Akin to apprenticeships or indentured servitude, the “outing system” was formalized by Richard Pratt, who opened the first federal boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a half-hour drive from Harrisburg, where the class-action was filed. 

The lawsuit describes “outings” like the ones Oscar was sent on as central to the boarding schools’ mission. Indigenous children were relocated from schools to farms and non-Native homes to perform manual labor — earnings they often never saw that helped sustain the system of servitude.

In an 1895 letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, Pratt said the practice “brings the Indian youth directly in contact with good, wholesome, civilized life, and they absorb it rapidly, and it absorbs them, and they become a part of it.”

---

Chicago-based attorney Adam Levitt is part of the legal team that represents the tribes suing on behalf of boarding school students like Oscar. 

He said there are many unique aspects of the suit brought by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes in Oklahoma and the Washoe Tribe in the Lake Tahoe region of Nevada and California. 

Adam Levitt

Though they are asking for an accounting of boarding school spending, they are not yet demanding funds be returned to tribes. 

“We need to know where the money went,” Levitt told The Imprint. “So this is not a reparations case, or a damages case. Whether money will at some point change hands stands to be seen.”

He described the early-stage case as long overdue, and the first-ever attempt to request such an accounting from the federal government. 

In a 2023 ruling in the Brackeen v. Haaland case that unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch discussed the relevance of such an accounting. 

“The United States stuck tribes with a bill for the Boarding School Program,” Gorsuch wrote, “at points, as much as 95% of the funding for Indian boarding schools came from ‘Indian trust fund monies,’ raised by selling Indian land.” 

The plaintiffs acknowledged the work it will require to document  and itemize boarding school expenses but noted “that such an accounting may be hard is no excuse.”

“The suffering so long inflicted cannot be undone,” the complaint reads. “But the law does not turn an uncaring eye toward historic wrongs. Justice demands a remedy. That remedy begins with an accounting.”

 

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Last Real Indians: Afro-Indigenous Man to Receive Nearly $7 Million for Wrongful Conviction in City of Milwaukee

 

Danny Wilber, 44, an Afro-Indigenous man enrolled at the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, fought for post-conviction relief after spending nearly 18 years in Wisconsin prison for first-degree intentional homicide, a crime he was able to prove he didn’t commit. A federal judge granted his petition for habeas corpus, and he was released from prison on Dec. 22, 2021, pending the state’s appeal, with his case being dismissed on May 27, 2022. His claim for wrongful conviction was denied by the Wisconsin Claims Board in July 2024, but his federal civil rights claim was settled by the Milwaukee Common Council on May 13, 2025 for $7 million, the second largest in Milwaukee’s history. Photo of Danny Wilber at the Wisconsin State Capitol on December 4, 2022 courtesy of Lacey Kinnart.

By Darren Thompson

MILWAUKEE—On May 13, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a $6.96 million settlement for the wrongful conviction of an Afro-Indigenous man who spent 18 years in prison. 

Danny Wilber, an Oneida Nation of Wisconsin citizen, was convicted for first-degree intentional murder in Milwaukee County for an incident that occurred in Jan. 2004. The wrongful conviction settlement is the second largest in Milwaukee’s history, and is the result of a federal lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee and nine former Milwaukee police officers alleged to have violated Wilber’s constitutional rights. 

“The Milwaukee Police Department knew Danny Wilber was innocent—and they framed him anyway," said Lacey Kinnart, Wilber’s partner for more than a decade, in an interview with the LRI Native News Desk. “The Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office had physical evidence proving his innocence and still spent years fighting to keep him in a cage. This wasn’t a failure of justice—it was a full-scale, intentional cover-up.”

KEEP READING: https://lastrealindians.com/native-news-desk/2025/6/3/afro-indigenous-man-to-receive-nearly-7-million-for-wrongful-conviction-in-city-of-milwaukee 

 

And do subscribe to their news... it is important! xox Trace 

Adoption Reality: Australia

Unwed mothers’ forced adoption and a “wonder drug” they were forced to take | 60 Minutes Australia

 

LandBack: Illinois

The U.S. sold this tribe’s land illegally. It’s now the latest Native group to get its home back

Harvest Public Media | By Héctor Alejandro Arzate and Peter Medlin | June 16, 2025 

Peter Medlin / Harvest Public Media

Raphael Wahwassuck, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomie’s tribal council and a direct descendant of Chief Shab-eh-nay, said he looks forward to having more youth in the community connect to their land. "A lot of times all you hear is negative stories or stories of defeat," he said. "But now they have something that they can refer to in a positive aspect and show that, yes, good things can happen if you have people that are sincere and want to recognize and understand how we can correct these things."

The United States government promised the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation about 1,280 acres of Illinois reservation in an 1829 treaty. Instead, the U.S sold all of it illegally to white settlers. The Prairie Band is now the latest tribe in the Midwest and Great Plains to get some of their ancestral home back.

MORE:  https://www.kcur.org/news/2025-06-16/the-u-s-sold-this-tribes-land-illegally-its-now-the-latest-native-group-to-get-its-home-back 

Accommodating Religious Practices of Native American prisoners

I am not sure how many states do not accommodate Native prisoners and allow ceremonies... Trace.

R.I. prisons did not accommodate Native American religious practices for three inmates, lawsuit alleges

By Christopher Gavin  June 13, 2025

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PROVIDENCE — A new lawsuit alleges the Rhode Island Department of Corrections has denied opportunities for three inmates of Native American ancestry to practice their religion, in contrast to federal and state correctional institutions around the country.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and the Roger Williams University Law School Prisoners’ Rights Litigation Clinic filed the lawsuit in US District Court in Providence on Friday on behalf of Tyler Smith, Kyle Moreino, and Joseph Shepard, who are all incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, R.I., according to the complaint.

“Prison systems around the country have adopted comprehensive policies for accommodating the religious practices of Native Americans, under which incarcerated individuals have access to a spiritual counselor, typically a Native elder; the opportunity to participate in religious ceremonies, including pipe ceremonies, sweat lodge ceremonies, smudging ceremonies, drum circles, and powwows; and the opportunity to obtain religious items, including medicine bags, feathers, and dream catchers,” the lawsuit states.

Related: Native American inmate secures right to wear religious Apache headband in settlement with R.I. prisons

 

 

Demon Mineral (documentary)

 

The Radioactive Southwest with Hadley Austin

CounterPunch Radio

On this episode of CounterPunch Radio, Joshua Frank and Erik Wallenberg talk with Hadley Austin, director of the new documentary, Demon Mineral, which traces the radioactive legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation.

CounterPunch, Pilsen Community Books and Science for the People are co-sponsoring a screening of the film at Socialism 2025 in Chicago on July 4th.  You can also check out Demon Mineral on Kanopy.

Hadley Austin is a filmmaker/director, producer, poet, photographer, and aerialist. Along with Yoni Goldstein, she is one-half of Formidable Entities, a Chicago-based film production studio.

CounterPunch Radio is produced by Nathaniel St. Clair, and co-hosted by Joshua Frank, Erik Wallenberg and Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt. 

LISTEN:  https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/16/the-radioactive-southwest-with-hadley-austin/ 

 

DEMON MINERAL WEBSITE: https://www.demonmineral.com/ 

Alan Michelson’s Answer to the “Vanishing Indian” Myth

Cyrus Edward Dallin, “Appeal to the Great Spirit” (1909) in front of Alan Michelson’s “The Knowledge Keepers” (2024) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit” (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  He was riveted by the statue’s grand horse and the powerful yet melancholy figure wearing a striking Plains Indian war bonnet.  It was only in his 20s that the artist learned that he had been separated through adoption from his own Native heritage and Mohawk birth family in the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, Canada.  He soon learned that the Dallin sculpture he marveled at in childhood symbolized the nefarious “Vanishing Indian” myth, which cast Indigenous peoples as doomed to extinction. 

PODCAST:  

TRANSCRIPT: https://hyperallergic.com/1017795/alan-michelson-knowledge-keepers-mfa-boston/ 

 

Let's call this another good example of #ArtBack! - Trace 

The Policy Slowly Erasing Tribes

 Native News Online, Grand Rapids, MI/USA

June 13, 2025 / 12:00m EDT (UTC -4) / 18:00h CEST (UTC +2)

https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/next-on-native-bidaske-the-policy-slowly-erasing-tribes

(virtual)

Is blood quantum slowly erasing Native tribes?

Host Levi Rickert sits down with Norbert Hill and Megan Hill to tackle the colonial policy that’s mathematically eliminating Indigenous communities — one generation at a time.

Drawing from their new book, Beyond Blood Quantum, the Hills examine how a 150-year-old colonial weapon is still being used against Native people — often by their own tribes. The math is brutal: blood-quantum requirements mean some tribes could legally cease to exist within decades.

Norbert Hill, former area director of education for the Oneida Nation, and his daughter, Megan Hill, senior director at Harvard University, bring both lived experience and scholarly insight to the conversation. Together, they explore how blood quantum has historically divided Native communities and present bold solutions for reclaiming identity and strengthening tribal citizenship for future generations.

This episode is more than a conversation—it’s an urgent call to rethink the frameworks that define who belongs. Discover how blood quantum weaponizes identity against Indigenous survival and learn about innovative solutions for preserving tribal futures.

Don’t miss this critical conversation that challenges outdated thinking and centers Indigenous perspectives.

TUNE IN:
Date: Friday, June 13th
Time: 12:00 pm ET / 11:00 am CT / 10:00 am MT / 9:00 am PT

Platforms: Facebook and YouTube