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Suffering

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Many bad and horrible things happened to Native Americans during the boarding school era that caused us and them all to be very courageous. First of all, many of our people were suffering way back then, even today they are. False promises were also a problem for us, they tricked Native people to give up their land in return for food and things like that, but they were never granted what was supposed to be given. Hatred was a very common thing towards native people and caused emotional suffering as well. They had a large loss of family to warfare and diseases like smallpox, and influenza that also made their emotions worse.

A lot of Native Americans were suffering from broken hearts and spirits. Mainly because of war, poverty, disease, and the loss of their people. It lasted so long and they were forced to do many things they didn’t want to do. Like forgetting their native ways and adopting the white man ways. That also means making them forget their native language.

The main reasons for Native People having to be so courageous in that era is because the only way for them to stay strong and get it over with was to be courageous. They had to stick together through lots of stuff and help each other. Stuff we still deal with today. Like racism, warfare, poverty, and diseases. They wanted to interrupt communication that the children had with their elders. And they wanted to christianize them and control them.

This reporting is made possible by readers like you.

The Circle is a nonprofit newsroom with no tribal affiliation, no corporate ownership, and no paywall. Independent Native journalism depends on reader support.

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