American Indians and the American government have lived with a harsh Legacy for 130 years the government took tens of thousands of Indian children far away from their reservations to schools where they were required to dress pray work and speak as mainstream Americans many Indians remember those boarding schools as places where they were abused and where their culture was desecrated after years of reforms the government still operates a handful of off-reservation boarding schools but funding is in Decline and now some Native Americans are fighting to keep the schools open NPR Chara bear has the first of two reports the late performer and Indian activist Floyd redcrow Westerman was haunted by his memories of boarding school as a child he left his reservation in South Dakota for the wapon Indian boarding school in North Dakota 60 years later he still remembered watching his mother through the window of the government bus my first impression I thought my mother didn't want me and it just hit me hard like that but when I got in the bus and I sat down I looked and she was just crying it was hurting her too it was hurting me to see that I'll never forget all the mothers were crying westerman's music summed up the feelings of generations of former boarding school students you me in your board in school make me learn your white man Ru a fo the federal government began sending American Indians to boarding schools in the late 1870s when the United States was still at war with Indians an army officer Richard Pratt founded the first school that took children far from their reservations he based it on an education program he had developed in an Indian prison he described his philosophy in this speech read by an actor a great General has said that the only good Indian is is a dead one in a sense I agree with the sentiment but only in this that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead killed the Indian in him and saved the man in the 1940s this philosophy was still common Bill Wright a butwin Indian left his reservation in California for the steuart Indian School in Nevada when he was six wri says matrons bath them in kerosene and shaved his head students at Federal boarding schools were forbidden to express their culture everything from wearing long hair to speaking even a single Indian word Wright says he lost not only his language but his native name and I remember coming home you know then my grandma asked me to talk Indian to me and I told her grandma I don't understand you she says then who are you I went my name's Billy she said your name not Billy she said your name is Stam that's who you are that's your name and I went not what they told me the intent of the school was to completely transform people people I mean Inside Out language religion family structure economics the way you make a living the way you express emotion everything chanina lomawaima heads the American Indian studies program at the University of Arizona she says from the start the government's objective to erase and replace Indian culture was part of a larger strategy to conquer Indians they very specifically targeted um native nations that were the most recently hostile there was a very conscious effort to recruit the children of leaders and this was also explicit essentially to hold those children hostage the idea was it was going to be much easier to keep those communities pacified with their children held in a school somewhere far away the government operated more than a 100 boarding schools for American Indians both on and off reservations children were sometimes taken forcibly by armed police L maima says other families were were willing to let their children go for many communities for a whole variety of reasons federal school was the only option public schools in many places of the country were closed to Indians because of racism at the boarding schools most students learned trades carpentry for boys and housekeeping for girls it wasn't really about education we didn't really learn English Basic English or math Lucy Toledo who's Navajo went to the Sherman Institute in California in the 1950s she also remembers some unsettling free time activities Saturday night we have a movie every Saturday night you know what the movie was about Cowboys and Indians Cowboys and Indians you getting all our people killed that's the kind of stuff they showed us and for decades there were reports that students in the boarding schools were abused children were beaten malnourished and forced to do heavy labor in the 1960s a congressional report found that many teachers still saw their role as civilizing native students not educating them the report said the schools had a quote major emphasis on discipline and Punishment Bill Wright remembers an adviser hitting a student hard bust his head open and got blood all over and I had to take him to the hospital in told me to tell him that he run into the wall and I better not tell him what really happened Wright says he still has Nightmares From the severe discipline he worries that he and other former students have inadvertently recreated that harsh environment within their own families it's mostly you do what I tell you you jump when I tell you to jump you don't talk back so you grow up with discipline but when you grow up and you have families so what happens if you was my daughter and if you left your dress over there you know know I knock you through that wall why because I'm taught disciplined then you go like oo man better behave but you have to look at look what they done to us not all Indians had negative experiences at boarding schools some have fond memories of meeting spouses and making lifelong friends but the scathing government reports led to the closure of most of the boarding schools one school that remains is Sherman Indian High School in Riverside California the same boarding school Lucy Toledo attends herel Martinez and a group of his friends gather casually in a school hallway and begin a drum [Music] circle the school encourages native activities like this that's one reason Martinez feels more comfortable here than at his former public school in Los Angeles and everyone was running what nationality what race mind and I tell them like oh wow you're Indian you're like the only guy I know as native but here at Sherman they know how I feel about being native and they understand where we're all coming from but a recent change in federal budgeting means the off-reservation boarding schools are receiving less money and their future is in doubt Charla bear NPR news