Indian Boarding Schools in the 4 Great Plains States I visited Summer 2025 Part Six of several likely

 Real early on this travel morning, I went to the Black Hills first, fell in love with their ponderosa pines and was able to finally see Buffalo roaming and prairie dogs playing. Then it was back onto the plains.

I was not sure of when I was in the Black Hills or Badlands or Lakota territory. I am a product of colonial/settler perspectives and needed to look for signs. 

When I came upon this sign I was a bit confused. I wasn't on the rolling pine covered hills anymore, which I would call grasslands. I also wasn't quite on the reservation yet either. If I were with hubby, I may have stopped and searched for rare and precious Fairburn agates, but I wasn't and I didn't. I drove on.

These I am guessing are the Southwestern edges of Badlands National Park, which is co-managed with the Oglala Lakota. I remember how afraid I used to feel as a kid whenever I first heard the words "badlands." Once again, if I had time or was on another pilgrimage I may have gone off to find the black-footed ferret, who through conservation efforts, were successfully reintroduced to the area. But I didn't seek, I drove on.

Finally... a place I have been wanting to visit for a very, very long time.

Oglala Lakota Nation for a quick overview

This article is written from an outside perspective and does not represent the Oglala Lakota Nation. It aims to provide an accurate and respectful overview based on historical and public sources.

Oglala Lakota are one of the 3 main Plains area groups of Indigenous People who historically were known to be nomadic and hunters of the buffalo. 

The homelands of the Oglala Lakota are now defined by the government as being the Pine Ridge Reservation, an area of almost 11,000 square miles. 

This picture is up the road a bit from my destination, and is the actual small town of Oglala (pop. 1,300). BTW Oglála in Lakota means "he scatters his own." 

As I came further South on Rt. 18, a water tower and buildings came into view. 

Maȟpíya Lúta wasn't anything I had heard or read about, so I wasn't sure I was in the right place. Apparently in 2023 the school was renamed with the Lakota meaning of "Red Cloud." I had arrived!

The entrance to this school had a mixture of old, newish, and newer. All Catholic once upon a time (1888-1980), by the 1960's the dormitories began to close, and by 2019 leadership was Lakota with many of the staff having attended the school. I am still undecided on whether that is a good or not-so-good a thing.

Drexall Hall is the oldest building on the campus. Built in 1887 it now houses the Jesuits and administration.

It was hard to discern the different entities on this campus and here is an example why. This newish looking sign, that is identified in the left bottom corner as Red Cloud School, is posted up in front of the oldest, and hence religious building. The Heritage Center is still marked as being in this building. I didn't get to go into any buildings as the campus was empty.

This Jesuit building began as the Holy Rosary Mission in 1887 set up to serve the government's assimilation policy, it took in children removed from their families and attempted to erase their Indigenous ways and culture. This was the original building where both classrooms and the dormitory was.

As in all the other stops, this Indian Boarding School also has its fair share of controversy. Check this one out if you have the inclination (from 2023, the same time the school changed its name to Maȟpíya Lúta):

The Dark Secrets Buried at Red Cloud Boarding School

There are allegations of harsh treatment, and some call this place (and many  boarding schools in fact) a "perpetrator institution." Others, have several generations of Indigenous families that attended and thought the education beneficial. As seen from just these pictures alone, there is quite a bit of overlap.

From the current school:

Truth and Healing (? Current from Maȟpíya Lúta/Red Cloud Catholic School)

This site contains a video, a "Truth and Healing Radio Hour" episodes, and lauds the inconclusive search for child graves as conclusive. The current school states:

"We recognize we can never authentically serve our community, or honor our own staff members, students and families, parishioners, and artists with whom we partner, if we do not first openly and humbly address the tragic injustices in our past."

Buried Secrets: America’s Indian Boarding Schools Part 2

10/2022

In the second half of a two-part collaboration with ICT (formerly Indian Country Today), members of the Pine Ridge community put pressure on the Catholic Church to share information about the boarding school it ran on the reservation.

Ground blessing marks Pine Ridge’s first stand-alone museum

The link is to an article from 9/2023 and as you can see the center was not done when I visited. 

The grave of this famous war chief lies 200 feet East of this sign. He was born in 1822 near the forks of the Platte River in Nebraska. He was named Red Cloud from the ball of fire meteorite which passed over Sioux country from west to east and was observed at Fort Snelling Minnesota the night of September 20, 1822. Red Cloud was an Oglala Sioux of the Bear people band of “ Badfaces”. His family had no tradition of Chieftain ship, but he became a great war chief counting coups. He represented the fighting Sue from 1865 to 1870. in 1858, Red Cloud and warriors killed 30 Crow Warriors and their Chief Little Rabbit. Chief Red Cloud and Chief Man Afraid Of His Horses walked out of the Fort Laramie Treaty Council where in Red Cloud spoke, “ I will kill every Soldier or white man who goes north of Crazy Woman's Fork.” they took their Sioux bands to the Powder River Country.



In the summer of 1866, Col. Henry B Carrington opened Bozeman Trail to Montana goldfields and built 3 Forts; Fort Reno on Powder River, Fort Phil Kearney (18 miles south of Sheridan Wyoming), and Fort CF Smith in the Big Horn Mountains. this Army Act caused 1866 to be the “Bloody year on the plains,” and precipitated the Red Cloud war of 1866 to 1868. Chief Red Cloud and his Warriors close the Bozeman Trail and attacked Fort Phil Kearney 51 times.




On December 21, 1866 Red Cloud used the great young War Chief Crazy Horse to decoy to their doom Captain William J Fetterman and 80 men of his command who had been sent to rescue a wood train. the Warriors under Chief’s Hump , Sword, DullKnife, He Dog, Short Bull and Black Elk Charged Captain Fetterman, killing all of the 81 men. on August to, 1867, under Red Cloud, Chiefs Crazy Horse and Hump attacked captain Jay and Powell's wood cutters in the “Wagon Box Fight.” This fight resulted in Red Cloud being recognized as the leader of the several thousand hostile Sue Warriors and as speaking for the Sioux Nation.

HB Damon of the Indian office reported the United States could either make peace with Red Cloud or flood the country with troops. This resulted in the Sioux Treaty of April 29th, 1868, whereby the United States made peace on the terms of the enemy giving Red Cloud (Article 2) the whole state of South Dakota as a reservation. (Article 16) “ US troops would abandon Bosman Trail and leave three military posts (which Red Cloud burned). the country north of the North Platte River and east of the Summits of the Big Horn mountains Shelby unseeded Indian Territory where no white person shall be permitted.” Red Cloud signed the 1868 treaty on November 6th, 1868 at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. After Red Cloud touched the pen he and Crazy Horse and their wild bands disappeared into the unseated Powder River Indian Territory to live and hunt.

When War Chief Red Cloud returned from the Powder River Country in 1870 he became an advocate of peace. However, he retained his arms and War making capacity. with spotted tail and others he went to Washington in June 1870, and tried to get the government to live up to their treaty obligations. Upon his return he lived at the first Red Cloud agency located in 1871 one mile west of Henry Nebraska; Next at the second Red Cloud agency in 1873, which was located near Fort Robinson Nebraska. In 1874 Col. George a Custer's expedition to the Black Hills opened a trail called “Thieves Road” by the Sioux, which together with the finding of gold in Paha Sapa spelled the end of the Sioux ownership of the Black Hills.

Indian Agent Dr. Saville in November 1874, began the first Oglala Sue Indian count over the objections raised by Chief Red Cloud. In December 1875, the Interior Department called all Indians living in unceded Indian Territory to come to reservations on the Missouri by January 31, 1876 or be considered “Hostile.” Sue Warrior incidents provoked by the government breaking the Sioux Treaty of 1868, resulted in the Army taking over the Sioux Indian agencies from the Indian office in 1876. The Army began full scale War. The Sioux lost the Black Hills by signed treaty in August 1876, Red Cloud and other Chiefs signing under duress. on October 24th, 1876 Col. McKenzie disarmed Chief Red Cloud near Chadron Nebraska And brought the band into Fort robinson, thus ending red clouds final resistance. Henceforth he worked for peace.

Red Cloud move to the Pine Ridge agency, territory of Dakota in 1878 which was established for the agOglalal Sioux. He lived here until his death on December 10, 1909.

I did not go any further up the dirt road to the cemetery b/c it was in pretty rough shape. Here is a bit more on Red Cloud:

The famous Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud (Makhíya 'Usin) died of natural causes at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on December 10, 1909, at the age of 87, after a long life as a warrior and diplomat who fought to protect Native American lands. He lived to see his people confined to reservations, famously lamenting that the government kept only one promise: to take their land.

Holy Rosary Church is one of several Roman Catholic church sites on the reservation that is run by this group (with six active churches and three active missions, the pastoral ministry programming serves more than 800 families on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation).

The original church burned in a fire in 1996 and this church was replaced in 1998 with the current one.

The inclusion of Indigenous art and art by school students goes a long way towards community integration, IMHO. Four Lakota artists designed and executed the Stations of the cross that hang in the church. Nope I didn't get to go in.

The stained-glass windows of the chapel at Red Cloud were designed by Francis He Crow and a group of high school students in 1997.

Even though the name changed in 20243, it is not reflected here. I thought that odd. People I talked to also still call it Red Cloud. It is no longer a boarding school (ended in 1980). The current school was built in 1979.

This campus is still a Catholic School Campus. There is one other Catholic School on the reservation (an elementary school), in Porcupine. I think this site has the high and middle school.

Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory - February 8, 1879

At twelve o'clock noon of this date the cornerstone of the School House at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was laid, and the following named Sioux Chiefs were present: Red Cloud, Red Dog, American Horse, Little Wound, Lone Bear, Slow Bull, and Old Man Afraid of His Horses. The Oglala Sioux, under Red Cloud, are in a peaceable and well disposed condition, and the sentiment of the tribe is, and has been, that they particularly want their children, "educated in the English Language. Education, intelligence, and virtue when acquired make every people strong."

This was the first school established by the Fed. Government. It was called the Oglala Indian Training School; is now known as Pine Ridge School + is run by the Bureau of Indian Education. Pine Ridge School is now located on the west end of Pine Ridge Village. There is a high school building that was built in 1995, a two-story building that houses K-12 grades, a boys and girls dormitory, a dining facility, and several other buildings as well as school housing. Now the school has over 1,000 students. Below is the only current picture I could find of Pine Ridge School, despite a lengthy scroll.

The newest, and uber-modern school in Oglala Lakota Nation is the technical high school, built in 2021.

I was thrilled to meet and talk with a woman who is a teacher in this school (she went to St. Joe's boarding school in Chamberlain and liked it). I learned so much from our chat; things I had already suspected, like how complex issues have complexities not easily explained and/or categorized. Of note, is a historical truism about the reservation system and set up. They are mostly in isolated places with little to no economic support or outlook and many exist in bone-crushing poverty. The federal government was and is to blame I say. I wish I had a crystal ball that I could look into the future to see how things will change, if at all.

They even have a daycare AND Teacher housing! They have struggled with getting teachers to the new school (it's that isolated thing again).

I bought a newspaper and a breakfast sandwich at the store in the center of Pine Ridge before I hit the road. I don't know if I quite found the truth I sought, my integrity felt a little tattered, but I definitely felt the Lakota Spirit all around me.

Indian Boarding Schools in the 4 Great Plains States I visited Summer 2025 Part Five of several likely

 Still on the road, still on the East side of the Missouri River north of Crow Creek and Chamberlain. If you asked me I would not have been able to answer the question, "What is the state capital of South Dakota?" Now I know. The ancestral lands of this place were where powerful Plains groups such as Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota lived and long before them the Arikara people farmed the land and lived in palisade forts.

They call it a city, but Pierre, SD only has a population of about 15k. It is the 2nd smallest state capital after Vermont (I'll leave you'all to answer that one). It is near the center of the state (settler boundaries), and like many other places in this state, with disregard of the ancient or original peoples, named this place after a colonial white fur trader of French origin. By the 19th center the Mighty Muddy Missouri River had trade routes and Forts all along its banks. When the highways came, Pierre wasn't on the interstate highway system, so it is fairly isolated Nothing much happening here except...

Yes indeed they did! The Pierre Indian Learning Center is an off reservation boarding school. Started in 1888 in the territory that became South Dakota. The original name Pierre Indian School on approximately 180 acres, was to be an industrial school. It operated this way for the next 80+ years. The shift came in 1972, in which the focus was to be on the "special needs" in the Indian communities (homelessness, social maladjustment, absenteeism, truancy), which in this case were students with behavioral problems. Control of the school shifted to the Bureau of Indian Education, and it became an "alternative boarding school" serving 15 Tribes across SD, North Dakota, and Nebraska.

Not mentioned on the sign is the location of this facility. It is across from the solid waste facility. An interesting little fact= in 1937 "Wotanin Waste" (meaning "Indian News" or "Indian Report") was the student newspaper for the Pierre Indian School. I think this may show how successful "assimilation" was for the students at that time. 

Also, Pierre Indian Learning Center faced significant issues with student treatment, leading to settlements like one for a wrongful death in 2017, highlighting systemic problems.

 This school operates as a boarding school; it serves grades k-8; only students with a certified degree of Indian blood. The families  these children come from have been characterized as "unstable." Some of the students who attending have  been unsuccessful at 6-7 other schools.

The campus is shrouded by tree cover and is fenced in. No one was around and despite the well worn sign welcoming me, I did not feel comfortable going in. I took my photos and drove on.

Records were made of Indian Agent visits from the early days:

This microfilm publication from the National Archives contains reports prepared by inspectors

for the Indian Service and submitted to the Office of Indian Affairs. Inspectors for the Indian

Service were first appointed July 1, 1873, under the provision of an act of February 14, 1873 (17

Stat. 463). The 1873 act required each agency to be visited by an inspector at least once a year,

preferably twice a year by alternate inspectors. The inspectors investigated all matters pertaining

to the conditions of the Indians and the extent to which they adopted white civilization,

reservation boundaries, the use of reservation lands, the state of industry, the character and

abilities of the agent and other employees, school conditions, the state of agency fiscal records,

and enforcement or violation of the law.

From the Fall of 2023 American Studies course at Dickinson College:

 Federal Boarding School Annotated Bibliographies

The Pierre Indian School, which opened in 1891, was a federal boarding school located on the outskirts of South Dakota’s capital. At the junction of the Lower Brule, Crow Creek, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud Reservations, the school still stands today as the Pierre Indian Learning Center. While today the learning center serves to educate, for almost a century, it was designed to dismantle, destroy, and dilute Native American culture to the point of extinction.

The perpetuation of Native American mistreatment, trauma, abuse, and cultural genocide stems from the development of the Indian Boarding School System. One of the first of these boarding schools was Pierre. During the school’s 83 years under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, students were given lashings with open safety pins secured to wet towels, made to hold bricks with open palms until their arms gave out, forced to kneel in the name of God, under threat of his punishment, until their knees bled. The children who attended, some as young as 5 years old, left as shells of their former selves.

One person's perspective, one (or more) lawsuits, but there is currently a facebook page and glowing reports can be found on it.

This photo is from covid times (2020-2021), but gives a small window inside the facility. 

I continued North to next stop, Rapid City South Dakota. A seriously much larger place than most I had been to since Minneapolis. I had read quite a bit about this place.

In 1896, the US government began acquiring land for a boarding school in the rural valley west of Rapid City. At the time, the city was growing from a small mining camp to a regional trade center. By 1900, the population was just over 2,000 people. Like federal boarding schools across the United States the Rapid City Indian School sought to assimilate Native children into mainstream American society.


In 1929 and 1930, the school closed due to a tuberculosis outbreak and served as a temporary sanitarium. The school reopened briefly but was closed for good in 1933.


After the school closed, the campus was converted to a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp. Between 1933 and 1939, the CCC and the Works Progress Administration conducted extensive renovations that created the buildings, landscape, and general aesthetic that would characterize the main campus into the 2020s.


Sioux San became part of the Indian Health Service in 1955.

Not only did it have an Indian Boarding School, but there had recently been press about the children's memorial being erected on what is now being called a sacred site. A site where dead children were buried vs. sending them back to their home and kin. A site that has 50 recorded child deaths that previously was not known to the public. Seven children are unnamed and seven grave locations are unknown. Some deaths have causes, like the common cause of death in these schools= disease. However, others don't have a cause listed.

From the Washington Post's Investigation and pretty scathing report in 12/2024 an extensive list of 3,104 students who died in Indian Boarding Schools was formulated, and Rapid City Indian School is on that list:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/native-american-deaths-burial-sites-boarding-schools/

In South Dakota at Rapid City Indian School, researchers and lawyers representing the local Native American community and tribes spent years talking to descendants and poring over historical documents to find their lost children. They now believe that many of the 50 students who died are buried on a hillside near the former school. But the group decided not to exhume them. They have preserved the area as sacred and plan to build a memorial.

The Rapid City Indian School was an off-reservation school located here on the west side of Rapid City, on 1200 acres and included a campus replete with dorms, a farm, barns, root cellars, and a school. The school ran from 1889-1935, with a majority of students from the Oceti Sakowin (Lakota, Nakota, Dakota). Some students came from as far away as 700 miles. Many students tried to or did run away from the school (a common theme I was discovering as I visited these sites and schools). Some died due to the harsh winters (i.e. froze to death), and in this place, in 1910, two boys were trying to get back to Pine Ridge by following the train tracks, lay down on the tracks from sheer exhaustion, were hit and killed by the train. 

In 1909, over 10 boys ran away in less than a year. During the 35 years the school was in operation, several students attempted to run away. Most were caught relatively quickly, and those caught were punished harshly. Students who ran away were subjected to unpaid labor for the entirety of the summer break, and some were recorded to have been kept in jail cells.

Remembering the Children

The above site explains about the memorial project and also the history of the school. A bit from the site:

The project addresses multiple interconnected needs: the lack of public knowledge about the federal Indian boarding school system; the continued marginalization of Indigenous histories and voices; unresolved grief and trauma within Indigenous communities; and deep social divisions in Rapid City rooted in historic and ongoing land dispossession. These needs demand a response that is not only tangible but also active, inclusive, and ongoing.

From South Dakota Searchlight 

 https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2023/10/10/uncovering-the-history-of-rapid-city-indian-school/

"In 1909, over 10 boys ran away in less than a year. During the 35 years the school was in operation, several students attempted to run away. Most were caught relatively quickly, and those caught were punished harshly. Students who ran away were subjected to unpaid labor for the entirety of the summer break, and some were recorded to have been kept in jail cells."

This photo is from circa 1925-27 with the school buildings in the background.

The next 2 photos are of a dormitory at the school

A winter count on a buffalo hide from the Remembering the Children Exhibit. Winter counts are a traditional way for plains tribes to depict and remember significant events from the year. This winter count depicts a year spent away. (Photo by Amelia Schafer, ICT/Rapid City Journal)

In spring 2023, the Sioux Sanatorium and Lakota Lodge (the original boarding school boys’ dormitory) were torn down.


All that remains of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School is the horse barn, the root cellar, unmarked graves and the memory of what once happened there.

After the school closed in 1935 it was converted to a segregated Indian tuberculosis Sanatorium. You can still make out the rest of the word on the above photo. In the 1960's this site became an Indigenous/Oyate Health Care Center

There is an excellent documentary as well as a website on this site. The documentary, is  called "Remember the Children," and is by Oglala Lakota filmmaker Jim Warne:

“Remember the Remember the Children: Honoring the Missing Children of the Rapid City Indian School.

An entire memorial park will be here. I was very bummed that I missed the exhibit downtown and that the memorial was gated and locked.  

Rapid City Unveils Indian Boarding School Memorial: A Step Toward Healing
This article was from 6/10/2025 and I was there in the beginning of July 2025
The unveiling was the realization of over a decades worth of work by activists. The sculpture itself was worked on by over 100 people!

The memorial site is located on a 25-acre plot of land that includes the unmarked graves of these children. Plans for the site include a walking path with boulders displaying the names of the children, ceremonial scaffolds, and sweat lodges, all designed to provide a space for reflection, healing, and cultural practices.

The exhibit is called "Tiwahe," which means "family" in Lakota. The 7 foot tall bronze sculpture depicts a Lakota family surrounding a young boy who is dressed in a boarding school uniform (this particular school was run very much in line with a military school). The Tiwahe sculpture was created in collaboration with local artist Dale Lamphere and Indigenous artists, with mentorship provided by Lamphere.

I foolishly thought that the site was open since it had a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the past. The park has public events as progress is made. There is much more to come (walking paths, sculptures, boulders marking children deaths).

There was one other living sentient being that hung around the entire time I paused and rooted my feet into this sacred and sad place. 

Remembering the Children continues building memorial

I found myself talking to my mule deer friend and I felt they were listening. They certainly didn't run away. It was odd to encounter only one deer. The hillside area is pretty barren + there were no other deer in sight. I felt like mule deer was a messenger. It may take me years to understand the message sent that day.

One last sad look at the "coming soon" sign, and a silent send up of "I'm Sorry" juju into the universe, and I headed on to the next school site.