In September, Bluestem Prairie posted Video: Return of Our Sisseton-Wahpeton Children, about the efforts of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate to bring home two oyate ancestors who perished at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the late nineteenth century.
Those efforts are moving forward.
In a story picked up statewide, Elisa Sands of the Aberdeen News reports in Tribal leaders one step closer to bringing home remains of boys who died at Carlisle Indian School:
Moving home the remains of ancestors of notable tribal leaders of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate will move one step closer on Saturday.
Descendants of Amos LaFramboise and Edward Upwright will gather with tribal leaders at the Dakota Magic Casino Convention Center just across the state line in Hankinson, N.D., to sign the necessary affidavits. That will allow the remains of the two young boys to be removed from the Carlisle Indian School cemetery in Pennsylvania and moved to the Dakotas.
Amos LaFramboise was the son of Joseph LaFramboise. He and his sister, Emily, arrived at the school in 1879, but his stay was extremely short. He died Nov. 26, 20 days after his arrival in Pennsylvania, according to history collected by Tamara St. John, tribal historian and District 1 state representative.
Joseph LaFromboise was a founding father who helped set up the Lake Traverse Reservation government after the Sisseton Wahpeton treaty was signed in 1867.
As he was one of the first to die, LaFramboise was first buried at the county cemetery, but was later moved to a cemetery on the school grounds when county residents objected to having a Native American buried in their cemetery. He was later moved again when the school cemetery was relocated in 1927.
Upwright, who died in March 1881 from the measles, is the son of Waanatan II, an early tribal chief.
St. John previously said that bringing Upwright home would be comparable to bringing home the son of Sitting Bull.
While there are many boarding school cemeteries, this one is on property owned by the U.S. military, which sent notices in 2016 giving tribes the opportunity to claim the remains of the 188 Native American children buried in the cemetery. Part of that process includes gathering signed affidavits from living relatives of those buried in the cemetery.
Here's a poster for Saturday's signing ceremony at the Dakota Magic Casino, tweeted by SWO tribal archivist Tamara St. John, who has worked unceasingly to bring the children home. She also serves as a Republican state representative in the South Dakota legislature.
Saturday February 19th. It’s been years of work and the support of our Rosebud relatives has been key. There were days when it felt like no one was listening and I made promises to a boy who couldn’t have even imagined me. Amos and now Edward, -you are not forgotten. #carlisle pic.twitter.com/qKBVlX3Okf
— StJohn_Tamara (@tamarajstjohn) February 16, 2022
Photo: The first Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate children to arrive at the Carlisle Indian School in 1879 were Nancy Renville, Emily Justine LaFramboise, Edward Upright, John Renville and George Walker. Amos LaFramboise is not pictured. Young John Renville died of typhus the next year, and his father, tribal chief Gabriel Renville, journeyed to Pennsylvania to retrieve the body of his dead son and the person of his living daughter. Photo and links via the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
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