But his father carried his own permanent scars: In second grade, he ran away from the school in the dead of winter and froze all of his toes off. War Bonnet suspects it was too traumatic for them. Francis themselves, although they didn’t talk about it with their children. If they didn’t send their kids to school, they would be put in jail.” So when we grew up later, we found out that there was a law at that time which was being used against Indian parents.

“This was a question that really bothered myself and a lot of the kids,” he says. Francis, until he came to learn that they’d had no choice. For years, War Bonnet harbored intense anger toward his parents for leaving him at St. Annie Marie Musselman for Rolling StoneĪs a part of this program, Native children as young as three were stolen out of the arms of their parents. War Bonnet made these replicas of instruments of punishment used on him and his classmates at St. His father found him hanging from a rope attached to a tripod used to pull motors out of vehicles that his father used to work on. His body trembles and he begins to sob as he recalls his attempt to take his own life during a summer break after completing the eighth grade. Some of his classmates died from addictions, others by suicide. War Bonnet didn’t know what the tool was at the time, only that it burned his flesh and left marks that are still visible on his backside.

He came to refer to the razor strap as his friend, because, he says, “it taught me not to feel when they were hitting me.” Priests would even use cattle prongs to electrocute the children. Whippings were so severe, War Bonnet explains, that it was standard to be sent to the infirmary to recuperate, sometimes for hours, or even days. Physical abuse continued for years.Īcross his kitchen table, War Bonnet lays out instruments similar to those that were used on him for punishment at the school: a thick leather belt with metal grooves, a willow stick, and a braided rope the children named “the Jesus rope.” War Bonnet made the replicas when he began sharing his story, to help people visualize the brutality to which the children were subjected. They were told they were rotten for being born Indians. Seven days a week, they were forced to attend Catholic mass. The boys were made to do physical labor and regimented chores while learning the language of the white man. He was only permitted to see his parents on holidays and summer break. Though his sisters were at the school in the girls’ dormitory, he wasn’t allowed to speak to them.

Waves of Reckoning by Terri Marie