FREDONIA, Ariz. — Pipe Springs National Monument (PISP) has received a grant to research the impact of Indian Boarding Schools on the Southern Paiute.
Pipe Spring is among the inaugural 31 recipients of the National Park Foundation’s (NPF) Inclusive Storytelling program. The program awarded $2 million nationwide to bolster interpretive programming to voices that have been historically under-represented.
Pipe Springs received $75,000 to hire two interpretive seasonal rangers and an equivalent tribal intern from the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative at Southern Utah University. This will allow ranger and Kaibab Paiute Tribal Elder Benn Pikyavit to continue his research project, “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man – The Lasting Impact of Indian Boarding Schools” as well as create interpretive products and update park signage.
“PISP is appreciative of NPF’s direct contribution to the park and for creating the Inclusive Storytelling Program,” Ian Harvey, PISP lead interpretive ranger, said in an email. “The role of the National Park Service is to tell all American stories, good, bad and ugly, and a change in NPS over the past 30 years has been to have more stories shared and this is another opportunity … to bring to light some of the darker patches of our history and address them honestly. ”
As early as 1801, the federal government was operating or overseeing Indian Boarding Schools across the United States. The main purpose of these boarding schools was to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-American culture. Native children were forced to leave their homes and give up their language and religion. If they refused, they were often met with corporal punishment – solitary confinement, whipping, or having food withheld. In some cases, the children would die from this treatment with no acknowledgement given to their families, being buried in unmarked or group gravesites near the schools.
The federal Indian Boarding School system was composed of 407 schools from 1819 to 1969 with 47 in Arizona. At least 53 burial sites for Indigenous children have been identified so far with more expected, according to a 2022 investigation by the Department of Interior.
Pikyavit is among hundreds of thousands of individuals who were enrolled in boarding schools. He attended schools in Santa Fe and Phoenix far from his home in the secluded Arizona Strip. He said his goal is to bring out the perspectives of the people who experienced the schools and he wants to bring those stories out before they are gone. He also wants to bring together the information of the impacts of the boarding school system on the Southern Paiute. Much of the information is scattered between oral history projects in the ‘70s and books from the ‘40s, according to Harvey.
Pikyavit has conducted extensive research on the matter and will be conducting interviews with former students and their families to understand the lasting impacts of the boarding system and how the effects vary between Indigenous groups.
Planned final products for the project include: creating a museum display about Indian Boarding Schools and their impact, updating the park’s training for educators, creating a limited series podcast based on the research compiled by Pikyavit and updating the information presented on the park’s website.
The award coincides with the monument’s centennial and highlights the shift over how history is presented within the National Park Service. In 1923, President Warren G. Harding designated Pipe Spring as a national monument, but largely didn’t recognize the Indigenous groups that had inhabited the region and instead PISP was established as a “memorial of western pioneer life.”
“The staff of PISP are not planning a ‘celebration,’ but rather a ‘commemoration,’ as the stories shared are not always a cause of ‘celebration,’ PISP’s said in their grant application. “We look to utilize 2023 as a year to continue working toward being inclusive in the stories told, including the impacts of Indian Boarding Schools.”
PISP’s centennial event schedule is available online at www.nps.gov/pisp/planyourvisit/pipe-spring-centennial.htm
FREDONIA, Ariz. — Pipe Springs National Monument (PISP) has received a grant to research the impact of Indian Boarding Schools on the Southern Paiute.
Pipe Spring is among the inaugural 31 recipients of the National Park Foundation’s (NPF) Inclusive Storytelling program. The program awarded $2 million nationwide to bolster interpretive programming to voices that have been historically under-represented.
Pipe Springs received $75,000 to hire two interpretive seasonal rangers and an equivalent tribal intern from the Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative at Southern Utah University. This will allow ranger and Kaibab Paiute Tribal Elder Benn Pikyavit to continue his research project, “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man – The Lasting Impact of Indian Boarding Schools” as well as create interpretive products and update park signage.
“PISP is appreciative of NPF’s direct contribution to the park and for creating the Inclusive Storytelling Program,” Ian Harvey, PISP lead interpretive ranger, said in an email. “The role of the National Park Service is to tell all American stories, good, bad and ugly, and a change in NPS over the past 30 years has been to have more stories shared and this is another opportunity … to bring to light some of the darker patches of our history and address them honestly. ”
As early as 1801, the federal government was operating or overseeing Indian Boarding Schools across the United States. The main purpose of these boarding schools was to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-American culture. Native children were forced to leave their homes and give up their language and religion. If they refused, they were often met with corporal punishment – solitary confinement, whipping, or having food withheld. In some cases, the children would die from this treatment with no acknowledgement given to their families, being buried in unmarked or group gravesites near the schools.
The federal Indian Boarding School system was composed of 407 schools from 1819 to 1969 with 47 in Arizona. At least 53 burial sites for Indigenous children have been identified so far with more expected, according to a 2022 investigation by the Department of Interior.
Pikyavit is among hundreds of thousands of individuals who were enrolled in boarding schools. He attended schools in Santa Fe and Phoenix far from his home in the secluded Arizona Strip. He said his goal is to bring out the perspectives of the people who experienced the schools and he wants to bring those stories out before they are gone. He also wants to bring together the information of the impacts of the boarding school system on the Southern Paiute. Much of the information is scattered between oral history projects in the ‘70s and books from the ‘40s, according to Harvey.
Pikyavit has conducted extensive research on the matter and will be conducting interviews with former students and their families to understand the lasting impacts of the boarding system and how the effects vary between Indigenous groups.
Planned final products for the project include: creating a museum display about Indian Boarding Schools and their impact, updating the park’s training for educators, creating a limited series podcast based on the research compiled by Pikyavit and updating the information presented on the park’s website.
The award coincides with the monument’s centennial and highlights the shift over how history is presented within the National Park Service. In 1923, President Warren G. Harding designated Pipe Spring as a national monument, but largely didn’t recognize the Indigenous groups that had inhabited the region and instead PISP was established as a “memorial of western pioneer life.”
“The staff of PISP are not planning a ‘celebration,’ but rather a ‘commemoration,’ as the stories shared are not always a cause of ‘celebration,’ PISP’s said in their grant application. “We look to utilize 2023 as a year to continue working toward being inclusive in the stories told, including the impacts of Indian Boarding Schools.”
PISP’s centennial event schedule is available online at www.nps.gov/pisp/planyourvisit/pipe-spring-centennial.htm