Shaking The Clouds

Our Story

Genevieve Jacobs, 1914, Carlisle Indian School. Cumberland Co. Historical Society.
John White, Left. Arionhiawa:kon Mitchel White, Right. 1906. Carlisle Indian School. John White personal scrapbook.
Cast of Captain of the Plymouth, John White, back row, 2nd from left. 1909. John White personal scrapbook.

“Imagine the children. They have no choice and no advantage whatsoever. They are helpless and afraid. They are brought here by force, and in a matter of days they are dispossessed of their names, their dress, their religion, their language, their childhood, their culture, their identity, their human being” (N.Scott Momaday, 2016, p 45).

Arionhiawa:kon, 1972. Photo by L. White

The seeds for Shaking the Clouds were planted many years ago when I sat on my grandfather’s lap and listened to him play harmonica.  He learned how to play clarinet while at the Carlisle Indian School and was in the marching band. My grandfather Mitchell White’s  Kanienke:ha (Mohawk) name is Arionhiawa:kon:

According to archival documents, my Grandpa was at Carlisle from around 1900 – 1910. 

His brother John White, enrolled at Carlisle in 1900 when he was around 14 and was one of the few graduates of Carlisle in 1909. John White was an opera singer and performed for white audiences in the school play, Captain of the Plymouth. 

Genevieve Jacobs (see above photo), was my grandmother, Elizabeth White’s, sister. I don’t know if Arionhiawa:kon knew Genevieve while at Carlisle, but they were both from Akwesasne (St. Regis), and he would later marry Elizabeth.  Genevieve entered Carlisle around age 14 and was transferred to Haskell Indian School in Kansas when Carlisle Indian School closed in 1918. 

 

“I left home in 1899 and was home two weeks in 1906. I was only allowed two weeks.” ~ John White

Arionhiawa:kon and his brother John left their home in Akwesasne (St. Regis) as young boys and set off to Pennsylvania to learn English, to read and write, and for better opportunities to earn a living in a changing world. The reservation offered a life of poverty at that time and a bleak future. They started out at the Lincoln Institution in Philadelphia and then Carlisle Indian School. Their mother died while they were away and they both stayed at Carlisle through their young adulthood. Arionhiawa:kon returned home for a time to work on his father’s farm. John White never returned home to live in Akwesasne, instead settling and working in central Pennsyvlania where he found work at the Mount Holly Printing  company, close to Carlisle. 

 

“Tell them we didn’t have a choice.” ~

Arionhiawa:kon 

It was 2009 and I had just finished my PhD at the University of Arizona and spent a year at the University of Illinois for a Postdoctoral position with the American Indian Studies department.

I was heavily grieving the loss of both of my parents and had inherited my father, Louis White’s extensive photo collection. I was preparing a lecture on the Carlisle Indian School and had immersed myself in family history, photos, and everything I had gathered over the years about Carlisle. 

The night before the lecture, my Grandpa paid me a visit. I asked him, “Grandpa, what do you want them to know?” He plainly replied, “Tell them we didn’t have a choice.“

I thought about what he meant for a long time. Either they lived their young lives hungry without much hope for their futures OR they venture into the unknown with promises of three meals a day, and an education that would help secure their place in an rapidly changing society. But they, like many others, would pay the price of leaving their homelands, families, cultures, and languages behind; and their identities as Kanienkeha:ka. This was no choice.

Many children were sent to Indian boarding schools by force. Some were ripped out of their parents’ arms, others hid and others went willingly looking for a better future for themselves, for their families, and for their communities. Some used the boarding school system to their advantage, to rebel and fight for the rights of their people.

Many children died while at Indian boarding schools, some were sent home, some were buried in school cemeteries with markers bearing their names, but many died and still remain interred far from home. 

Carlisle students, 1892. CCHS.

Examples of letters from parents requesting to have their children returned home from Carlisle.

National Archives and Records Administration.

This website contains sensitive and potentially triggering information, especially for individuals who’ve experienced Indian boarding schools and their legacies.