Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Boarding school policies covered up hidden deaths from tuberculosis and other diseases far beyond those students buried in school cemeteries
A tombstone of an unknown student that attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School sits on the grounds of the present-day U.S. Army War College in this undated photo. Officials with the U.S. Army continue working with tribes and family members to repatriate the remains. (File photo by Addison Kliewer/Gaylord News)
George Little Wound was gravely ill when he was sent home to Pine Ridge from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1889, just three years after arriving at the notorious boarding school.
Little Wound, the son of Chief Little Wound, was among a group of three Pine Ridge students shipped home together with what the school physician described as "incipient consumption" and "scrofula," a disfiguring infection of the skin and lymph nodes caused by the same bacteria as tuberculosis, according to Carlisle records.
All three appeared to survive their illness for some time after they returned to Pine Ridge, though Little Wound was never the same. Forever weakened by the disease, he struggled to support himself and expressed disgust with his school experience.
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