Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life FINALIST FOR THE PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, TIME, Smithsonian, The History Channel “With a government that is rewriting history in real time, Medicine River stands as a testament to the truth.”—The New York Times “Powerful. . . . An important work.”—Los Angeles Times “Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book."—Javier Zamora, author of Solito From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection. Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five.