Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Should Natives who attended American boarding schools sue for the abuses they endured? Should the U.S. government pay for the generations of harm it has caused? Should the Catholic Church be made to pay? Recent cases in Canada have raised the specter of similar lawsuits and media interest here in the United States. For example, in Canada the case of Floyd Steven Mowatt v. Derrick Clarke, the Anglican Church, and Her Majesty the Queen (1999 S.Ct, BTit. Col., Docket 7838) resulted in compensatory recovery that may bankrupt the Anglican Church. In Australia, in the glare of summer Olympics press coverage, stories emerged of the "lost generation" of Aborigines carted off to schools and labor camps, and of forced adoptions without parental consent.

The Canadian cases are primarily proceeding on a case of basic negligence. Some cases also raise the claim of intentional tort, including what would be labeled "infliction of emotional distress"; assault and battery; sexual assault; negligent supervision of employees and students; negligent hiring; and, most interestingly, breach of fiduciary duty legally assumed by the Canadian government toward Natives-what we would call breach of trust responsibility in the U.S.

In order for a case to proceed on the American side, it must overcome such obstacles as statutes of limitations, in which the government sets a deadline for bringing civil actions, and sovereign immunity. The government can waive both its statute of limitations and its sovereign immunity, or make special provisions for such cases.

The most difficult aspect of a reparations case is the calculation of damages. The physical cuts and bruises have long since healed. The evidence of sexual abuse has been doctored by time. The pain has been tempered by years of good and bad living. Despite this, scars-physical and emotional-remain, and the anguish from pain and loss persists.

In the U.S., as in Canada and Australia, the damages inflicted by boarding schools and the litany of systemic abuses demand close scrutiny. Native America knows all too well the reality of the boarding schools, where recent generations learned the fine art of standing in line single-file for hours without moving a hair, as a lesson in discipline; where our best and brightest earned graduation certificates for homemaking and masonry; where the sharp rules of immaculate living were instilled through blistered hands and knees on the floor with scouring toothbrushes; where mouths were scrubbed with lye and chlorine solutions for uttering Native words.

No amount of "reparations" could ever "repair" what has been broken or lost. When I was eight years old my own mother died struggling as a homemaker for a husband, eight children, and several extended family members. Shall I now pretend to feel the pain of her boarding-school years? To harbor her anguish? To know her anger? I recollect images of my mother, to the day of her death, periodically getting down on her hands and knees to scrape away the kitchen floor's old wax with a butter knife only to apply a new layer for the scraping of another day. I came to know the strict boarding-school regimens she adopted for washing dishes, ironing clothes, making beds. What I have sometimes felt is gripping rage for those whose hands unraveled the natural, loving bond between a mother and her children long after the boarding-school experience was over. Had she not been schooled in the hard ways of labor and domestic discipline, she might have made more time in her short life encouraging the natural curiosities of a young boy, rather than discouraging the scuff marks on the floor. Damages awarded to me will not even begin to address the injustices to her. Can the courts offer healing?

Today in reservation communities, you can virtually see the struggle behind the eyes of those who cannot find the words to express the horror of their boarding-school experiences. The healing will be neither expeditious nor easy.

Reparations cannot repair the damage, compensation cannot be made, lives cannot be set right-and thus, true justice cannot be done. But cases can be brought against American boarding schools, churches and individual perpetrators. And they can be won.

The above article appears in the Winter 2000 issue of Native Americas Journal. Call (800) 9-NATIVE, or visit, for information on obtaining this feature article or to subscribe.

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