The
Sherman School I Names Project
Western historical
methods have given us many tools with which to interpret events:
dates, times, demographics, statistics. Using these constructs
we can derive a general abstraction of what a particular period of
time was like. Many times, however, this way of "seeing" neglects
the humanity behind the circumstances. Statistics do not have
faces, names, identities. It is easy to dismiss the fact that
real people, or in the case of Indian Boarding Schools, real children,
make up the substrate of these statistics.
The Names of Sherman
Project hopes to add dimension to this history. By listing the
actual names, home towns and tribes of students, the project attempts
to recover the "humanness" lost in the hundreds of rosters, numbers
and statistics. These names represent real people who
came from real homes, with real hopes, dreams and disappointments.
They just happened to live in a time when other real people
in positions of power believed the best solution to a changing American
culture was to gather these children together into a military boarding
school, to change them, Americanize them, train them to become citizens
within the culture in power. It seems that our countries leaders
chose to ignore one thing: these children already had a culture.
They already were Americans. It
is a small offering on our part to publish the names of these students,
to honor them as the individual boys and girls they were. We
hope that this list will serve as a resource for genealogists and
social historians, and as a celebration of ancestry, our own and others
. Some of the names on these lists may not have been written,
spoken, or even thought of in the last hundred years. It is
our privilege to be able to restore them to memory.
The archives of
names are accessable through this index. Names are listed alphabetically
by surname. Please click on a letter corresponding to the first
letter of the last name of the student you would like to access.
You will then be linked to the table containing the list.
This archive is a work in progress. Names will be continually
added to the list. Should you have any inquiries about a name
on the list, or one you cannot locate, please contact the Sherman
Indian Museum Curator, Lorene Sisquoc, for assistance
INDEX BY SURNAME
