SALT LAKE CITY — At 5 years old, Mark Maryboy left his home on the Navajo Nation Reservation to attend a boarding school about 150 miles away.
He would attend a total of three boarding schools over the next few years. He described the dormitory in which he lived as ripe with sexual and physical abuse, harassment and bullying — something his principle did nothing to stop after Maryboy alerted him to what was happening. At one school, Maryboy remembers seeing another student drown after an instructional aide told students to cross a river, despite the fact that some students did not know how to swim.
“It was the damnedest thing I ever did in my life,” Maryboy said, adding that he often wonders how his life would have turned out without that trauma. “Going through that experience has a huge impact on you. It’s a lifetime sickness that goes into your mind.”
Maryboy was one of four tribal elders who shared life experiences during a panel discussion on Native American boarding schools on Saturday. The event was hosted by Utah Diné Bikéyah at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City.
The U.S. Department of Interior, which is currently investigating Native boarding schools, has identified seven schools in Utah that operated between 1819 and 1969 with federal support:
- Aneth Boarding and Day School, in Montezuma Creek.
- Intermountain Indian School (later changed to Intermountain Inter-Tribal School), in Brigham City.
- Navajo Faith Mission, in Aneth.
- Ouray Indian School, in Randlett.
- Panguitch Boarding School, in Panguitch.
- St. George Southern Utah Boarding School, in St. George.
- Uintah Boarding and Day School, in Whiterocks.
Read the full story here: KSL News.
Written by SYDNEE GONZALES, KSL.com.
Copyright KSL.com.