Historians and the Work of Truth and Healing: The Example of Red Cloud Indian School

This paper is a reflection on the role of historians, especially non-Indigenous historians like me, in the current reckoning with the history and legacy of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States. My thoughts will be based on my experience as the Research Coordinator for Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota), and in particular on my collaboration with the Oglala Lakota community and Community Advisory Council. From 1888 through 1980, Holy Rosary Mission (renamed Red Cloud Indian School in 1969) was a federally-funded boarding school under the supervision of Catholic priests (Jesuits) and nuns (Franciscans).

This paper will examine various issues related to Red Cloud’s Truth and Healing Project, including the significance of building a relationship of trust with the Oglala Lakota community and the need to take seriously the ongoing legacy of the issues at stake for the community, from recovering stolen land to overcoming cultural loss and the general confusion about this history. Ultimately, by analyzing the key role that historians of American Catholicism and colonialism can play in the publicly-oriented work on boarding schools, this paper will be in conversation with the AHA conversation on what counts as historical scholarship.