Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

Pember, Mary Annette

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralNative American History

Publisher Price: $29.00

ISBN10: 0553387316
ISBN13: 9780553387315
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: Apr 22 2025
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.24
Height: 1.24 Width: 6.38 Depth: 9.48
Language: English
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life

FINALIST FOR THE PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, TIME, Smithsonian, The History Channel

With a government that is rewriting history in real time, Medicine River stands as a testament to the truth.--The New York Times

Powerful. . . . An important work.--Los Angeles Times

Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book.--Javier Zamora, author of Solito

From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to save the Indian by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools--sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation--were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.

Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.

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