Siletz community, families and tribal members use Orange Shirt Day to remember horrors of Indian boarding schools

Editor’s note: This article contains disturbing details about federal boarding schools. There is a resource list for trauma responses from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and the Indian Residential School Survivors Society runs a 24/7 crisis hotline that can be reached at 1-800-721-0066.

By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle

SILETZ – When Kateya Rilatos got her 5-year-old daughter ready Wednesday morning she told her it was a special day.

Today she would be walking alongside her family members, friends and community members, she told her. She braided Elody’s long dark hair and told her she would wear braids in memory of those who could not wear their hair long or practice their culture.

Sept. 30 marks Orange Shirt Day when people wear the color in remembrance of federal Native American boarding school policies that forced thousands of children from their homes, from their families and worked to suppress their languages, religions and cultural practices.

The day of remembrance, also called National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, began in Canada but recently has been recognized by American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

In Siletz, more than 100 community members gathered with a prayer, drum song, made signs and walked through town. Tribal council members and Siletz Valley School students and staff who had the day off participated in the event, led by Siletz Community Health Clinic’s CARE team. Students from other Lincoln County School District schools were also bused to town to be a part of the Every Child Matters walk.

There were 417 federal boarding schools and more than 1,000 affiliated institutions created to educate and assimilate Native American children in the U.S., according to a 2024 report by the U.S. Department of Interior.

In Oregon, there were at least 10 schools, including Siletz Boarding School. All but one – the Chemawa Indian School in Salem – have been closed.

Siletz Boarding School

The Siletz Boarding School stood on Government Hill with two dormitories separated by quarters for school employees. At the school and its Agency Farm boys were taught carpentry, horseshoeing and farming skills while girls were taught sewing, cooking, and knitting – the skills to be a servant for homes in the Willamette Valley.

Siletz Boarding School began in the 1870s before shifting to a day school. Early on, the school had a Catholic presence and later the Methodist Church was chosen as the denomination in charge.

Any school-age tribal child went to these schools.

“There was no ability for students to resist, and if they did they were often punished,” said Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians historian Robert Kentta.

Some of what is known about the school comes from records and reports from instructors and administrators at the school.

In the early days children wore clothes from flour sacks before plain clothes were provided, according to historical records and photographs. Parents were concerned that their children would not be taught the tribal language and some feared sending their girls after hearing about teachers who sexually assaulted students, according to historic documents.

One report described the dormitories as “dilapidated, filthy conditions.”

The original Siletz Boarding School burned in the late 1870s, but the building constructed to take its place in the early 1880s wasn’t in much better condition.

In the 1890s a special instructor was sent to the boarding school and dormitory because not one student from the graduating class three years earlier was still alive, Kentta said. The inspector found the buildings had poor circulation, sanitation needed to be improved and spaces between beds in the sleeping quarters needed to be widened.

“Tuberculosis was just rampant. Some families completely disappeared,” Kentta said. “It was a death trap.”

Children who became sick were sent to a sanatorium in Lawpai, Idaho. Some recovered and came back to Siletz while many others died.

It’s uncertain how many students died while at the boarding school without complete historical medical records. Many were likely buried at the Paul Washington Cemetery that stands on Government Hill today, Kentta said, since there was no separate school cemetery like other federal boarding schools.

Tuberculosis wasn’t the only way children died. There is a document of a young girl who was sent out to milk cows and was gored. She later died of infection, Kentaa said. Corporal punishment was also common and there was a whipping post in Siletz.

Years of aftermath

The effects of forced assimilation were long-lasting and still felt today, Kentta said.

Removing children from their homes and boarding them overnight in school took away precious time that cultural customs would have been taught. Often the evening time was when stories were passed down to the younger generations.

“That storytelling was when they learned history and language and they were removed from that,” Kentta said.

This created a generation of passive speakers who perhaps understood their native language but were not comfortable speaking it, he said.

The Siletz Boarding School closed in 1908. The school and Agency Farm was divided into town lots and sold by the federal government. There was no public school for the children of white settlers to attend.

“My dad’s oldest brother born in 1900 told us that when he went to grade school on Government Hill — Indian and white kids they would be taught together, but at recess, they were segregated — Indian kids played on one side of the wooden boardwalk, and the white kids on the other side,” Kentta said. “They got in trouble if they crossed to the other area.”

Kentta believes this was just about the time after the boarding school closed and the Upper and Lower Farm day schools began. From about 1908-1919 the boarding school building sat vacant.

The school was dismantled in the 1930s and materials from it used to build a tribal council meeting hall and cannery. Those buildings weren’t well maintained and no longer stand.

But, every summer, people from all over come to the Nesika Illahee Pow-Wow on Government Hill to dance and share their culture.

“Now we dance on that ground,” Kentta said.

Orange Shirt Day

On Wednesday, CARE education and outreach specialist Megan Van Pelt set out an empty chair with a blanket to represent people who could not be at the event.

A table was set up with orange posters and maps that showed the 10 Oregon boarding schools. Staff of the Siletz Community Health Clinic handed out T-shirts with the words “Every Child Matters”.

“I want to spread awareness that every child matters and acknowledge the trauma they went through back then,” said Mariela Lopez-Attebury, who holds the title of Miss Siletz.

Scarlett Jay, who holds the title of Little Miss Siletz, learned about Native American boarding schools in her Toledo Elementary School classes.

“They couldn’t see their parents, they got their hair cut and if they spoke their language, they put rocks in their mouth, and some kids died,” Jay said.

On Wednesday, marchers met at Siletz Valley School with drummers leading the way. As students and Siletz community members walked through town, they thought about what children in federal boarding schools had endured, the collective grief of that trauma and what acknowledgment and healing looks like.

“We want to recognize the day by cherishing language and culture and honor sacrifices, but we also want to acknowledge resilience,” Van Pelt said. “We had this awful thing that happened, but we are embracing our culture and we are still here.”

• Shayla Escudero is an enterprise reporter for the Lincoln Chronicle covering local governments, education, housing and social services and can be reached at [email protected]