Do you have access to any Indian Boarding School records? If not could you point me in the right dir

Sarah_Emily_Jordan

I'm specifically looking for records of children who were in the Chemawa Boarding School as well as children who are from the Turtle Mountain Reservation. I've tried to contact the reservation itself but met dead ends.

Amber Marstella Rothamer

@Sarah Emily Jordan​ Have you contacted the school directly since it seems you may have hit a small wall with the reservation? I found their current website here: https://chemawa.bie.edu/ Chemawa Indian School is the oldest continuously operating Native American boarding school in the United States. Named after the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley, it opened on February 25, 1880 as an elementary school but over the years the grade levels it serves has changed.

 

Today, most Kalapuya people are enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon; in addition, some are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz. In both cases descendants have often intermarried with people of other tribes in the confederated tribes, and are counted in overall tribal numbers, rather than separately. Most of the Kalapuya descendants live at the Grand Ronde reservation, located in Yamhill and Polk counties.

 

Is there a specific age group you are looking for records on, or timeframe between 1880 and now? That might also help us get in contact with the right people. Obviously recent records will not be available to the public unless you are a parent or guardian of a student. For sure I can find pictures of the old school building in Salem at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/search/?in=&q=Chemawa+Indian+School&new=true

 

I also found this on the FamilySearch Wiki: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Chemawa_Indian_School_(Oregon). It says that many of the records of Chemawa Boarding School are at the Pacific Alaska Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Seattle. The records housed there include registers of students, 1880-1920, individual student case files, 1894-1975, graduated student case files, 1900-1975, attendance reports, descriptive statements about students, student health records, teacher and employment cards, and other administrative files.

Records Available Through the Family History Library

Chemawa Indian School. Vital statistics and student reocrds, 1883-1947. FHL Film: 1028472-1028473, 1028496-1028497

 

 

banixon

You might try booking a research consultation with the Family History Library: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Virtual_Research_Strategy_Sessions

 

Some other resources below in case you haven't already looked at them.

 

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/126720?availability=Family%20History%20Library

FamilySearch has 4 digitized films for Chemawa which can be accessed with the link above.

 

It also looks like the NARA Seattle office has records: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Chemawa_Indian_School_(Oregon) .

 

NARA links for chemawa with email address for seattle archive: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5020030

 

https://www.ndstudies.gov/search/node/turtle%20mountain

 

"Records of many of the Indians who have lived on the Turtle Mountain Reservation are among the records of the Turtle Mountain Agency records, some of which are available at the Central Plains Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Kansas City.[1].

The 1900 federal census included population schedules for the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. The census includes the non-Indian employees of the Turtle Mountain Agency, as well as many pages of Indian Population Schedules for the native population of the Reservation. They are recorded as District 262, Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, in Rolette County, North Dakota.

1900 Federal Census and index of the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, Rolette County, North Dakota by Mary Ann Quirring, Lily B. Zwolle. FHL book 970.1 Q48n 1900 WorldCat

Turtle Mountain Chippewa, Roulette, North Dakota 1900 Census by Gail Morin FHL book 970.3 Oj3n"

Amber Marstella Rothamer

@Sarah Emily Jordan​ Regarding the Turtle Mountain Reservation...

 

It is home to the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa and is a Native American tribe comprised of Ojibwa and Métis peoples. The reservation is located in northern North Dakota. It was first established in 1882. Here is a link to there tribe's website: https://tmchippewa.com/. Do you know which community within the reservation you are wanting to focus your research?

 

The main reservation is located in Rolette County, North Dakota. The size of the reservation is six by twelve miles (9.7 km × 19.3 km), and has one of the highest population densities of any reservation in the United States. It has a land area of 67.583 square miles (175.04 km2) and a 2016 estimated population of 6,369 persons. It also has extensive off-reservation trust lands, which make the reservation's lands the most widely dispersed of all reservations in the nation. These lands are spread across 22 counties in three states: North Dakota, Montana, and South Dakota. Including these lands, the reservation's land area is a total of 233.036 square miles (603.56 km2).

 

Several Chippewa settlements are located on and around the small reservation. East Dunseith is located on the plateau, surrounded by forest and many lakes. Shell Valley is located in the extreme southwestern part of the reservation. Like East Dunseith, Shell Valley is located on off-reservation trust land. Belcourt is situated on the southeastern edge of the plateau, with forest to the east, north and west of the CDP. Many lakes are also located around Belcourt.

 

Dunseith is not on the reservation but is also predominantly Indian, even moreso than St. John. Just east of Belcourt is an area formerly known as Turtleville that had over 100 housing units in 1997, though most if not all of these were eventually torn down. More than 70 housing units were subsequently rebuilt as Kent's Addition, named after Senator Kent Conrad, who helped gain funding for the housing project.

 

Directly south of Kent's Addition is another area where a large number of housing units are located called Green Acres Housing. The area has around 33 housing units.[citation needed]

East Dunseith Housing (not to be confused with East Dunseith) may have up to 80 housing units. East Dunseith Housing is just under a mile east of Dunseith. The population of East Dunseith may be between 240 and 320.

 

Again, I must also ask what timeframe is your research is being done in? That will also help us narrow down our findings.

User1592581333719415295

Check with the National Archives, particularly Kansas and Denver. Also contact the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition <https://boardingschoolhealing.org/&gt;