Monday, January 14, 2013

Small Handcuffs on Slate.com

Small Handcuffs article on Slate.com
Slate has a feature called "The Vault," which shows historical artifacts. This one shows a tiny, kid-sized pair of handcuffs which were used during the forced relocation of Native American children to the "Indian schools" across the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If anyone doubted that Native children were taken away from their families by force during that time, these things put that doubt to rest.
I give the Slate article here because it contains a link to the original article about the artifact, which was published on the "Indian Country Today Media Network" site (at: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/mobile/article/tiny-horrors-chilling-reminder-how-cruel-assimilation-was%E2%80%94and-146664), and a link to a follow-up article on the same site (see: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/01/10/indian-assimilation-mystery-tiny-handcuffs-solved-146863), in which the donor of the handcuffs came forward after several years of anonymity. (He tells the rather incomplete story of of how he came to have them.) Slate also has a picture of the handcuffs, which are rather hard to look at. The original article has some details about the struggle at the museum at Haskell Indian Nations University over how to treat the object, which naturally people feel has some nasty spiritual baggage.

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