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It’s a little-known chapter in New York history: For decades, the state oversaw a boarding school where native children were systematically stripped of their culture and language and subjected to abuse.
Originally called the Thomas Asylum for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children and later shortened to the Thomas Indian School, the institution was on the Cattaraugus Territory of the Seneca Nation of Indians, about an hour south of Buffalo.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul thrust the school into the spotlight when she issued a formal apology for the atrocities — including forced family separations, physical and sexual abuse and hard labor — that occurred there. Ms. Hochul didn’t mince words. She called the school, in operation from 1855 to 1957, a “place of nightmares” and “a site of sanctioned ethnic cleansing.”
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According to the tribe, the event marked the first time a sitting New York governor has made an official visit to the traditional Seneca territories. During her visit Ms. Hochul met with over a dozen Seneca Nation members who attended the school. One of them, Elliott Tallchief, 85, recalled having his mouth washed out with soap for speaking his native language at the school in the 1940s.
Some applauded Ms. Hochul for the apology. Dianna Beaver, whose grandmother attended Thomas Indian School, said “it’s about time that someone acknowledged the harm” it caused.
But Tim Cooper, 62, a retired carpenter whose father attended the school, said Ms. Hochul’s apology means nothing to him and many other tribal members who experienced, either directly or indirectly, the trauma inflicted by New York State.
“The wounds and scars and all the things that go with that are still there,” Mr. Cooper said.
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Girls working in the laundry room circa 1890.
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Members of the Thomas Indian School faculty on the campus grounds. A caption on the back of the photograph read, “Teachers on reservation being entertained at Thomas Indian School,” June 14, 1910.
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Stewart Hall, the administration building and dining hall on the campus circa 1910.
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Six schoolboys in a woodworking class circa 1923.
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Three girls give a classmate a sponge bath in the infirmary circa 1930.
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Girls stand near their cots in their dormitory in 1938.
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A group of students tilling soil and planting crops in an open field while an overseer looked on from the tractor circa 1940. Field work and tending crops was a daily requirement for students at the school at the time.
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Students in a first-grade classroom circa 1940.
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Boy Scouts camping around a fire circa 1940.
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Young schoolchildren performing onstage circa 1950.
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Seneca Nation dancers performed traditional dances and songs before the formal apology.
Jay Root is an investigative reporter based in Albany, N.Y., covering the people and events influencing — and influenced by — state and local government.
