Research Guides: Indigenous Appalachia: American Indian Boarding Schools

Oral histories and digitized archives

Digitized Indian Boarding School archives

Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center Represents an effort to aid the research process by bringing together, in digital format, a variety of resources that are physically preserved in various locations around the country.
Chilocco Indian Agricultural School Oral History Project Includes YouTube videos and transcripts of oral history interviews
Indigenous Digital Archive Explore the history of US government Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. More than 500,000 archival documents about Santa Fe Indian School and others, all kinds of boarding school records, yearbooks, and letters.
Archives at the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation The NCTR is a place of learning and dialogue where the truths of the residential school experience will be honoured and kept safe for future generations.
Sherman Indian Museum collection Documents the history of the Perris Indian School, Sherman Institute, and Sherman Indian High School as well as the Native American experience in the US and within government-run American Indian boarding schools.

Oral histories: content notes

Oral history

aligns to indigenous ways of recording history and transmitting knowledge
is sometimes mixed in with collections of other formats
may or may not have written transcripts available

Oral traditions include stories meant for specific people, or intended to be told at specific times. The oral histories and videos here are understood to be those Native people have chosen to share widely.

Oral histories: American Indian boarding schools

Cante Sica Boarding School Stories
Collection of interviews on video from the Autry Museum of the American West with former American Indian Boarding School students

La Plant Oral History Project: American Indian Boarding Schools

Edited from series of interviews conducted from 2014 to 2015 in the town of La Plant on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation, located within South Dakota. To view the entire project, visit: http://www.simplysmiles.org/la-plant-oral-history.

American Indian boarding schools in the news 2021-2022

American Indian boarding schools in the news 2022

Selected current news coverage of Native American Boarding Schools from a mix of Native news sources and national/multinational news agencies and media groups, named beneath each article link.

Volume One of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report

Tribal elders recall painful boarding school memories
AP July 9, 2022
Leaders Respond to Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report, Call it 'Monumental'
Native News Online. By Darren Thompson May 16, 2022
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“This report is devastating and important,” tweeted Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan on May 11. “We have a responsibility here in Minnesota – and across the country – to understand the impact the boarding schools had on our families and to take action.”

An enrolled citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Flanagan also tweeted, “Too many do not know about this painful chapter in our history. It is time to tell the whole truth and address the impact federal boarding schools have had in Native communities – the link to disparities in health, education, child welfare, and many others.
Department of the Interior Releases Investigative Report, Outlines Next Steps in Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
U.S. Department of the Interior press release. May 11, 2022
Interior Department Releases Indian Boarding School Report
Native News Online. May 11, 2022.
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The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today released its initial findings after a nine-month investigation into the fraught legacy of Indian Boarding Schools that the U.S. government ran or supported for a century and a half.

American Indian boarding schools in the news 2021