In this May 6, 2016, photo, Russell Eagle Bear, the historic preservation officer for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, looks at photos and maps in his office in Rosebud, S.D., of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Eagle Bear led a meeting between leaders of several tribes, including the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and representatives from the U.S. Army to address the possibility of repatriating the remains of at least 10 Native American children who died away from their homes while being forced to attend the school more than a century ago.
In this May 6, 2016, photo, Russell Eagle Bear, the historic preservation officer for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, looks at photos and maps in his office in Rosebud, S.D., of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Eagle Bear led a meeting between leaders of several tribes, including the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and representatives from the U.S. Army to address the possibility of repatriating the remains of at least 10 Native American children who died away from their homes while being forced to attend the school more than a century ago.
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Airdate: Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Carlisle Barracks was more than one hundred years old by the time the U.S. Army relinquished the central Pennsylvania Army post to the Department of the Interior in 1879.
At the Claremont Road entrance to present day Carlisle Barracks sits the small cemetery that is the final resting place to 186 children who died while at the school. The U.S. Army has taken the mission to repatriate the remains of children who have been positively identified and whose families have requested their return.
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Carlisle, PA, USA – June 26, 2016: Graves of Native American youths that attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle.
It is a painstaking process that the Army has completed three other times and will repeat again in June at the request of two Indian nations: the Rosebud Sioux Nation and the Alaskan Aleut Nation. In total, the Army will exhume the remains of ten students.
The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections.