This film examines the historical attempts to “Americanize” Indians during the late 1800s, focusing on the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania that served as a model for boarding schools for Native youth around the nation and Canada. Poet and professor Ron Wellburn (Gingaskin & Assateague/Cherokee/African American) from UMass Amherst introduces the film and discusses the issues it raises about cultural genocide with the audience afterward. The latest of his six books “Coming Through Smoke and the Dreaming” (Greenfield Review Press, 2000) will be available for purchase in the Museum’s retail store.
