From Maureen
By CHET BROKAW
Associated Press Writer
July 11, 2003, 1:45 PM EDT
ROSEBUD, S.D. -- Sonny One Star says he learned not to
cry or scream when he was beaten and sexually
assaulted at his Roman Catholic boarding school on the
Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation.
Four decades later, he says it is time for a different
approach.
"Today, I'm ready for retaliation," said One Star, a
leader on the reservation.
He and five other Sioux are suing the federal
government for $25 billion on behalf of perhaps
thousands of students allegedly abused at Indian
boarding schools around the country. They hope to have
the case certified as a class-action.
"The nuns and the priests -- the ones who are still
living -- I just want to let them know I'm coming
after them," said One Star, 46, who attended the St.
Francis Mission school, one of the three Catholic
schools named in the lawsuit. "It was fun for them
back then, but I want to get justice. I want to get
even."
Gary Frischer, a Los Angeles consultant working on the
case, said preparation for the legal action started
last year amid news accounts that Catholic dioceses
across the nation were settling lawsuits alleging
abuse by priests. Little was being said about abuse in
Indian schools.
Over the past century, hundreds of thousands of
Indians attended boarding schools under a federal
effort to get Indians to assimilate into white
society.
Tribal leaders often asked religious organizations to
start boarding schools on reservations so that their
tribes' children would not be sent far away. Most of
the schools were Catholic; most were closed or
transferred to tribal control by the 1970s.
The lawsuit, filed in April in the U.S. Court of
Federal Claims in Washington, accuses the government
of failing to live up to treaties dating to the 1800s
requiring it to protect tribes from, as the treaties
put it, "bad men among the whites."
The lawsuit also argues that the government set up the
boarding school system in the late 1800s to try to
wipe out Indian culture, tradition and language.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said federal
officials will comment on the allegations only in
court. The department's answer to the lawsuit is
expected in August.
Sherwyn Zephier said he and other students were beaten
with boards and leather straps at St. Paul's in Marty,
the headquarters of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Students
also were forced to hold heavy books with their
outstretched arms or kneel with their knees placed on
broomsticks, he said.
"They did it in the name of God," said Zephier, now a
teacher at the tribal school that replaced St. Paul's.
"All that pertained to our culture was evil. They were
trying to torture it out of us."
One Star said when he was a first-grader, a nun would
keep him inside during recess to punish him for
speaking English poorly. He said she took him into a
closet, make him drop his pants, raised her dress and
hummed church hymns while sexually abusing him.
One Star said he later was beaten regularly with a
wooden paddle and sexually assaulted by priests who
grabbed boys out of bed in the dormitories.
"You could hear a pin drop when they came after you
because everybody was listening. Then they'd turn the
music up loud so you wouldn't hear the cries, you
know," One Star said.
Besides St. Paul's and St. Francis, the lawsuit names
Holy Rosary on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,
which also educated Sioux children in South Dakota.
Lead attorney Jeff Herman of Hollywood, Fla., said
more lawsuits will be filed in other states, naming
other schools and adding Catholic organizations as
defendants.
Herman said that while the government might argue that
the statute of limitations for raising such claims has
run out, such a defense could be overcome by arguing
that the defendants concealed the children's claims
and that the abused youngsters were unable to take any
action at the time.
Abbott Thomas Hillenbrand of Blue Cloud Abbey in
northeastern South Dakota, which provided Benedictine
priests to St. Paul's for nearly 100 years, said that
he does not know whether the allegations are true. But
he added: "If people were hurt in any way, it's our
responsibility to try to heal that."
Officials of the Wisconsin Province of the Society of
Jesus, which ran the St. Francis and Holy Rosary
schools, also said they are investigating and want to
provide pastoral care to anyone who might have been
abused.
Not all former students back up the allegations.
"It didn't happen to me, and I never heard of it
happening to anybody while I was at school," said
67-year-old Patrick Lee, an administrator at Oglala
Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He
attended Holy Rosary from 1942 to 1953.
Floyd Hand, an Oglala Sioux spiritual leader who
attended Holy Rosary, blames many students' later
troubles, such as alcoholism, on the alleged abuse. He
hopes any monetary award could pay for a healing
center, to stop abuse from spreading to future
generations.
Hand recalled one priest ridiculing his grandmother
because she spoke only Lakota, the Sioux language.
Hand says he may be a medicine man and a spiritual
leader, but he's ready to give the priest an
old-fashioned beating if he ever sees him again.
"I'm waiting for him," Hand said.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
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