B07 Native Boarding Schools & Michigan History

A Common History: Native American Boarding Schools & Their Foundational Place in Michigan Episcopal History.
The last war with the British. Unstable Tribal alliances. A pitched effort for spiritual predominance over Indigenous homelands on both sides of the new border. The weaponization of Tribal treaties A century of enacting religious conversation and assimilation. This is the origin story of the Episcopal Church in Michigan (and other denominations), including the earliest campaigns to convert, "educate," and assimilate Native peoples across this most strategic region. This panel gathers Michigan diocesan historians and the Truth, Justice & Healing Commission on Native Boarding Schools for the Episcopal Church. By answering the Episcopal Church's call for truth-telling and healing about Episcopal "Indian schools," these researchers offer a robust history of how Episcopal Indian missions and schools, and adjoining parishes, were bound up in an extractive political economy from the Revolutionary War through 1834. From the seeds of truth-telling, can Tribal right relationship and healing grow?
 
Presenters
Veronica Pasfield  
Leora Tadgerson, Director of Reparations and Justice, Northern Michigan
Nurya Love Parish, Director for Mission and Community Engagement, Episcopal Diocese of the Great Lakes