Three children returned to Fort Belknap 135 years after dying in Pennsylvania

Three Gros Ventre, or Aaniiih, children have returned to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation nearly 135 years after they were sent to one of the first Native American boarding schools in the country, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Alameda Heavy Hair, Bishop Shields and John Bull — all of those names are Americanized versions given at the boarding school — were recovered two weeks ago by a group from the Fort Belknap Indian Community, brought back to Montana and given a wake last Thursday, funeral and burial Friday on Fort Belknap.

“They have come back to familiar ground and familiar scenery,” Fort Belknap Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Officers Mike Black Wolf. “It feels good. … It’s a historic event, really.”

Black Wolf said the U.S. Office of Army Cemeteries contacted the Fort Belknap Indian Community last year about the children, who were among large numbers of Native American children from Montana and other states who were sent to the military boarding school in Carlisle, arriving in 1890.

All three apparently died of tuberculosis within a few years, Alameda at age 16, John Bull at 15 and Bishop Shields at 15.

The group worked with the Office of Army Cemeteries, primarily, to excavate and confirm the identities of the three children then drove back with their remains.

Black Wolf said the two boys were buried last Friday after the wake and funeral in the Gros Ventre traditional burial grounds between Hays and Lodge Pole and Alameda Heavy Hair, who was a niece of Lame Bull, was buried in the Lame Bull Family Cemetery in Hays.

Watch for more in upcoming editions of the Havre Weekly Chronicle.