Summary of the impact

Jacqueline Fear-Segal researched the 19^thCentury campaign to educate Native American children for US citizenship, bringing to light the stories of two Lipan Apache (Ndé) students. These children were captured by the US army on the Texas-Mexico border in 1873 then deported to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, and their links to family and community had been totally severed. Fear-Segal traced the children's surviving family to Texas, reconnecting them to their long-lost kinsfolk. This resulted in: (1) traditional funeral rituals at the children's graves, enriching Lipan spiritual and cultural lives and bringing this still-marginalised group a new sense of historic empowerment; (2) new evidence supporting the Ndé's continuous cultural heritage, strengthening their petitions for state recognition (achieved March 2009) and federal recognition (petition submitted August 2012); (3) increased recognition of the enduring legacy of the government's educational campaign for both Native American communities and mainstream America.

Underpinning research

Fear-Segal conducted research for this project in Washington DC and Carlisle PA, during an academic exchange from the University of East Anglia (1999-2000). Her resulting monograph, White Man's Club (reference 1), examines government Indian schools within the broad framework of race relations. Biographical studies of individual students, pieced together from archival fragments, are an important component of the book and one of these led directly to this case study.

From the late 19^th Century, American educators embarked on an ambitious and controversial campaign to quash traditional cultures. Native children were re-educated in the religion, values and customs of white America, to prepare them for assimilation into mainstream society and citizenship. By the 1920s, thousands of Native American children had been forcibly removed from their homes across the US and transported to military-style boarding schools. The denigration of Native Indian cultures and the destruction of family and kinship networks had profoundly negative results, which still resonate strongly in Native communities today. One source of continuing distress has been the unknown fate of children who died without returning to their communities. According to Native beliefs, this denial of closure limits the capacity of successive generations to move forward in either spiritual or material terms.

The US government sent over 10,000 children to the Carlisle Indian School [1879-1918], which supplied the blueprint for its Indian School system. Among them were two Ndé. Kesetta and Jack were captured and sent to Carlisle as prisoners of war, without their people's knowledge. They never returned home. In the 18^th century, the Lipan had been a very large tribe inhabiting present- day Texas and New Mexico, but during the 19^th century they faced persistent attack by the US army, as white settlers moved onto their lands.

While researching the lives of Kesetta and Jack, Fear-Segal approached the Ndé General Council Chairman, Daniel Castro Romero, to enquire if he knew about their capture and transportation to Carlisle as prisoners of war. She learned that the Ndé had been searching in vain for the two children for four generations. She sent photographs of the children, from Carlisle's Photo Archive, to Texas to confirm their identities. (For the Lipan, these also provided important evidence of their historical occupation of Texas lands). The Ndé were determined to bring resolution by travelling to Carlisle to perform traditional ceremonies at the children's graves. In May 2009, Romero and two other elders made the long journey from Texas to Pennsylvania and, after over a century, spirit-releasing ceremonies finally took place. A documentary DVD based on Fear-Segal's work, The Lost Ones: the Long Journey Home (reference 2), has been shown widely to Native and White audiences. This contributed to growing public disquiet about the Indian boarding schools' legacy, which culminated in President Obama signing The Native American Apology Resolution (December 2009).

References to the research

Underpinning Research and Direct Outputs:

Key Grants and Awards:

The high quality of the underpinning research is indicated by the wide range of academic funding organisations continuing to invest in this research and its dissemination. Further, recognition of the significance of this research has led to a grant to digitise the archive on which it is based. To Jacqueline Fear-Segal (UEA 1992-present) for research into the Carlisle Indian School:

• British Academy Small Research Grant, December 2006 - March 2008, (£3,194).

• AHRC Research Leave (Application ID number AH/F005687/1) January - June 2008, (£25,400).

• Visiting Research Fellowship at the Community Studies Center, Dickinson College, Carlisle PA, 2007-2008: Housing, Library, Medical Insurance, Office expenses for the year, ($25,000), for research in the Carlisle Indian School Photo Archive.

• British Library Eccles Centre, Best Research Project Prize, 2008 (£2,000), For follow-up research on the Carlisle Indian School.

To Dickinson College:

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Digital Humanities grant ($700,000) to digitize Carlisle Indian School records. A multi-year project to develop a comprehensive, searchable, digital database of Carlisle Indian School resources, work started in May 2013 with records at the National Archives, Washington D.C., and by July 2013, 50% of the student records had been digitized: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/digitalhumanities/2013/08/06/401/

Justification of Quality:

White Man's Club was published in hardback, 2007 [print run 2,000], and reprinted in paperback, 2009 [print run 5,000]. This book won the European Association for American Studies Best Book prize 2008, and the British Association of American Studies Best Book 2008 Honorary Mention. A notable critical success in the US, it received laudatory reviews in ten major academic journals in America. For instance, in the American Historical Review [113.4, 2008], which has the highest impact factor for history journals (Thompson Reuters): `The author adds significantly to the subject of American Indian boarding schools'; in the Journal of American History [96.1, 2009]: `With the publication of Jacqueline Fear-Segal's White Man's Club, the historiography of Indian residential schooling has reached a new level of sophistication'; in the Journal of the West [47.2, 2008)]: `Perhaps only once in a decade does a book come along that truly sets the standard for the rest of the field. White Man's Club is such a book.'

The Lost Ones: The Long Journey Home was awarded Honourable Mention for the Historical Content Award, at the 8th Annual Montana CINE International Film Festival, September 2011.

Details of the impact

The principal beneficiaries of this research are members of the Ndé community. The impact has been largely cultural. As a result of Fear-Segal's research, the Ndé learned the fate of their two lost children and could put to rest a sense of loss and injustice that had gone unresolved for generations. This had been a constant reminder of the suffering of the Apache people, who kept the memory of the children alive for over a hundred years by annually re-telling the story at community gatherings each August. In the documentary, The Lost Ones, Chairman Romero explains how, as a result of Fear-Segal's work, members of his community can now move beyond those feelings of loss to claim a new strength: "Fear-Segal...found our little ones. The Ndé will forever make mention of her name in our traditional oral history, for finding the Lost Ones. The lives of the Ndé become much richer with the knowledge that the Lost Ones have come home in our hearts and minds. Now the Lost Ones are found, the Ndé can again be strong as a people, they say" [Source 1]. Margo Tamez, an Ndé historian and poet, suggests Fear-Segal has also brought increased understanding of Ndé-US relations to her community: "Fear-Segal's contributions to the Ndé revitalization and empowerment are important and noteworthy because they are having a positive impact on the Ndé community's appreciation for the complexity of our ...history with the settler nation" [Source 2]. The Ndé have acknowledged the significance of Fear-Segal's work for their community by posting her book on their web site: http://www.lipanapachebandoftexas.com/ancestry_005.htm

Crucially, at the same time that Fear-Segal was communicating the issue of the lost children, the Ndé elders were beginning to petition state and federal governments for formal recognition of their tribe's status. To do this, they had to demonstrate continuity of geographic location and cultural traditions. News of the re-discovery of the two Ndé children (2002), publication of White Man's Club (2007), and the spirit-releasing ceremony enacted at the children's graves (2009), provided public evidence of these continuities [Source 3]. In March 2009, the Ndé were granted State Recognition by Texas. In August 2012 they presented their petition for Federal Recognition. Fear-Segal's work thus contributed to this broader context of cultural reawakening within the Ndé community, to the recreation of their cultural capital, and to political recognition by the state of Texas and, it is anticipated, by the Federal government. Their Vice Chairman explained: "Fear- Segal's work provided some of the vital evidence needed for the Ndé to seek and gain official recognition" [Source 4]. More broadly, as a paradigm for collaborative research leading to significant impacts, Ndé scholar Tamez asserts that Fear-Segal's "work in all its dimensions has established a vital model in how to conduct research with and alongside indigenous peoples" [Source 2].

In 2010, in response to interest generated by Fear-Segal's work on the Ndé among other Carlisle descendant communities, Barbara Landis (Indian School biographer at Cumberland County Historical Society, PA) set up a Facebook group to facilitate Carlisle descendants' search for ancestors, sharing of stories, circulation of photographs, and assessment of the school's legacy. At July 2013 this group has 547 members: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/168544626516258/

Fear-Segal's work has been instrumental in bringing stories, once only narrated within the Ndé community by oral tradition, to a national and international audience. Firstly, press coverage of the Ndé blessing ceremonies contributed to public understanding of Apache history and culture, as well as the enduring legacy of the government's programme of Native American assimilation [Source 3]. Secondly, The Lost Ones documentary, exploring issues of loss, cultural damage and indigenous boarding schools, is described by the Ndé Vice Chairman Gonzalez as "an extraordinary piece of work" [Source 4]. Screenings, in Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Czech Republic, UK, US, [Source 5] consistently provoke "powerful discussions about this history [of boarding schools], the current conditions of many indigenous peoples living both on and off reservations, and human rights" [Source 7].. At a California screening, vociferous audience demand for an event on the site at Carlisle led Fear-Segal and Susan Rose (the film's director) to organise a public symposium: Carlisle PA: site of indigenous histories, memories, and reclamations (October 5-6, 2012) [Source 8]. This brought over 290 delegates to Carlisle, including Pulitzer Prize winner N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and over 150 other Native Americans from 36 tribes. Events were covered in the press [Source 9].

An immediate impact of this symposium was the indefinite suspension of a US Army order to demolish the Indian School Farmhouse, after an intense roundtable meeting between symposium delegates and Army officials [Source 6]. The farmhouse, which today stands on the campus of the US Army War College in Carlisle, is the only surviving building where Indian students lived and worked, and in recognition of the role Fear-Segal's work played in the preservation of this building, Rose asks, "How many of us can say our work has led to the U.S. Army deciding to stop a planned demolition?!" [Source 7].

A further key impact of this symposium was a successful grant application to fund the digitisation of the Carlisle Indian School records, to create a comprehensive searchable database of Carlisle Indian Industrial School resources. [Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Digital Humanities grant awarded: $700,000, Source 10].

Sources to corroborate the impact

1. Daniel Castro Romero, Jr., General Council Chairman of the Lipan Apache (Ndé) Band of Texas [letter: May 17, 2009].
2. Margo Tamez, Co-Founder of Lipan Apache (Ndé) Women Defense, an Indigenous Peoples Organisation of the UN, and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia [letter: November 23, 2012].
3. "`Lost One' buried in Carlisle inducted into American Indians' oral history," Rick Seltzer in Patriot News, Saturday, May 16, 2009, [newspaper article published in hard copy and on-line].
   http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/05/lost_one_buried_in_carlisle_in.html
4. Richard Gonzalez, Vice Chairman Lipan Apache (Ndé) Band of Texas [letter: November 29, 2012].
5. Key Screenings and Audience Numbers for the documentary, The Lost Ones: the Long Journey Home, Director's Record, 2009-2012.
6. "Farmhouse demolition on hold: Army to re-evaluate building's history," US Army War College Community Banner, October 6, 2012 [US Army news release, and on-line]:
   http://www.carlisle.army.mil/banner/article.cfm?id=2715
7. Professor Susan Rose, Director of the film The Lost Ones: the Long Journey Home, and Director of Community Studies Center, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013 [letter: August 16, 2013].
8. Symposium Web Site, Carlisle PA: Site of Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations, gives details of the symposium, poster, responses, reflections, press reports, and on-line viewing of the Plenary Sessions: http://www.carlislesymposium.org/
9. "Indian schools' century-old lesson still unlearned," Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish in Baltimore Sun, October 4, 2012 [newspaper article published in hard copy and on-line]:
   http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-schools-history-20121004,0,4748610.story
10. Website for the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Records' Digitisation gives details of the Andrew W. Mellon grant and progress of the project:
    http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/ and http://blogs.dickinson.edu/digitalhumanities/