The Fort Mojave Indian School
by Kim Garrison Means
Courtesy of NRM, Ron Ross Collection.
“My grandfather told us a lot of the parents would take their kids and hide them at Grapevine Canyon. One day the government men caught my grandfather and forced him back to the school only for him to run away again like a lot of the others did. They caught him and they took him into school but he ran off and he got caught again, then took off again. A good place to hide was at Grapevine Canyon, and his family took him over there. There's that little forest way back in there, and in those days, it didn't look like this. It was all trees. It was just trees, trees, trees. He got wandering around and came out playing around and the officials saw him and they took him back and of course he took off again. Many of the runaways were never caught because they knew where to hide and could easily live off the land way back in the mountains or near the river.” — PAUL JACKSON JR.
From November 2024 to February 2025, the Pipa Aha Macav Culture Society, in collaboration with volunteers from Friends of Avi Kwa Ame, held private sessions with Fort Mojave Tribe members to gather stories about the Fort Mojave Indian School. These testimonies, given mainly by descendants, were recorded in a digital archive for future use by the Culture Society, and also used to inform this article. Our shared goal with this project was to reach out to neighbors and listen with humility to acknowledge the pain and suffering the policies of this era caused to families and multiple local communities. Out of respect for Mojave cultural ways surrounding this sensitive topic, we are not sharing names or photographs of deceased persons. The accompanying illustrations use figural silhouettes in historical photos to demonstrate the erasure of culture and family structures during this difficult era. (This story may be triggering for some. The resources at the end of this article include ways to find support).
“They did not attend. They were forced. They didn't ask to go to these schools. My Aunt said, when they took the kids, they came and they just grabbed them. And when the parents tried to fight for them, they would beat them and say that this was for their doing.” — DAVID OECHSNER
From 1890 to 1931, there was a U.S. funded boarding school on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, south of Bullhead and north of Needles, on land which is now part of the Fort Mojave reservation. This school was in reality an internment camp for Native American children, who were taken forcibly from their homes, families and communities. The children were forced to adopt a foreign language, religion and customs, and punished if they spoke their language or practiced their own culture. This school was one of more than 500 US schools that abducted over 100,000 children in order to “kill the Indian, save the man,” as quoted by Capt. Richard H. Pratt, who established the primary model of all early American Indian schools.
It was really impactful on my grandmother. Her family would hear the horses coming and so they would all run and hide. In fact, she went to the river at one point and dug a hole and put my mother and my aunt in there because she didn't want them taken. — CHARLOTTE KNOX
By the 1880s, the U.S. reservation system was in full swing, and the Mojave, like people in tribal communities all over the country, had been held as prisoners, used as slave labor, and forced off of large portions of their lands. They were prevented from practicing their traditional ways of farming and hunting, but also excluded from the American economy, having to become dependent on government food rations and supplies from the Fort Mohave military installation. Then in 1883, Congress banned all ceremonies, dances, songs, and the practices of medicine persons, and gave authority to use force, imprison or withhold rations to stop Native American cultural practices, in an attempt to eradicate all aspects of native culture.
“They didn’t have enough to eat, or they would get oatmeal but it would be burnt, and that's all they had. If they found orange peelings or any kind of peelings they would all save those and soak them in water and eat them. All the kids tried to scrounge around and find whatever food they could. It wasn't a good experience for any of them.” — MARY HOWE
By 1890, the Fort Mohave military installation was disbanded and the buildings used to house a new tool for subjugating the people of the area: the Fort Mohave Industrial School. Under a number of different names, this school operated until 1931, forty-one years later, and all Fort Mojave boys and girls between the ages of six and eighteen (some as young as four) were compelled to live at this school, or if the school was full to capacity at 250 students, to attend one of the other Indian boarding schools, far removed from their homelands.
“I believe most or all of our elders who attended the school are all gone now to the spirit world. However, our parents and grandparents that went to the school would often talk about how life was living there. As for myself, I had uncles and aunts who were forced to go there. My mother was supposed to be there also but the school was already filled up so the government sent her and others to a Catholic School in Tuson, AZ, while others were sent to other places all over the United States. There were other tribes that went to the school also, like the Southern Moapa Paiutes, the Walapais, some Hopis and Navajos. That is just a very small part of the history of the school -- not to mention many, many kids died there. To this day we do not let anyone know where their graveyard is located due to vandalism and grave robbers.” — PAUL JACKSON JR.
While the official focus was on education, life in the Fort Mojave Indian School was similar to a prison labor camp. Conditions were harsh and food was scarce, sometimes rotten or infested with bugs. The children cleaned the facilities, worked in the laundry, helped in the kitchens, dug ditches, and maintained fields of crops.
“She said that they marched him in lines, and that a lot of the older ones would take care of the younger ones, protect them. She said they slept in the upstairs of the dormitory, and she said it was cold. She said they really didn't have enough blankets. The conditions overall were somewhat harsh.” — DIANE MONTOYA
Besides the basic instruction of reading, writing, and arithmetic (all entirely in English to children who knew only their native languages, after a US law passed in 1887), the schools focused on teaching manual labor trades. Girls learned house cleaning, laundry, cooking, baking, sewing, and serving, while boys practiced carpentry, agriculture and other hard labor activities. Parents were largely prevented from visiting their children during the school year, and students were stopped from returning home in the summer, when special “trade programs” would transport them to places like Southern California, New York and Chicago to work as domestic servants or farm laborers, with the money made going back to the school.
“My late grandma was there and then they sent her to Los Angeles, because I guess they did that for the girls to go get training in housekeeping and things like that. So that's where she went, to Los Angeles and I guess then they relocated them over there.” — ANGIE ALVARADO
Courtesy of NRM, Ron Ross Collection.
Children were required to wear militaristic uniforms and adopt new English-language names and surnames. They were punished if they used their clan names or Mojave nicknames. Their new names were chosen at random from a list of surnames that included those of their teachers and school officials, the military personnel of the former fort, and US presidents and generals. Some names, like the surname Jackson, were named for political leaders who inflicted some of the worst atrocities on native communities in US history.
“And then when they adjusted and they learned the English, -- then they still were treated bad. They had to do all the work. They were the ones that were cleaning up in the yard. And they're the ones that cleaned up the buildings. They were like slaves.” — WANDA JENKINS
Children who couldn’t speak English were punished if they spoke the only language they knew, and they were forbidden to touch or hug each other, even siblings. Students were severely punished or tortured if caught violating any of the cultural rules, and these punishments included beatings, hair-cutting, being tied up, being locked in cupboards or basements, additional hard labor, and going without food. In some cases, at the Fort Mojave school and elsewhere, severe punishments and physical, mental and sexual abuses of power on the part of those in charge resulted in children being murdered. Children also died from malnutrition and neglect, injuries, and infectious diseases. They were buried on the school grounds or hidden in graves in the nearby mountains, never to be returned to their families for a traditional funeral. In some cases, families were not even informed that their child had died. Mojave tribal members practice traditional cremation ceremonies to ensure the proper travel of the deceased to the afterlife, and these children being buried without consultation or ceremony remains painful to the community to this day. Children from other tribes were also prevented from returning home for proper funerals with their communities.
“My grandmother went when she was six years old, taken from her aunt and her uncle and they were told if the children learned and were educated that we would get our land back. So that's what they were told. We heard her talk about the mistreatment of the children and how there was corporal punishment and sexual abuse and physical abuse and emotional abuse. And they really couldn't do anything because they were so young, they were children. Some of the older ones tried to help them the best they could.” — MARY HOWE
One of the most hated practices of all was the cutting of the children’s hair. Upon arrival, children were scrubbed, their heads doused with kerosene and hair cut short. While this also minimized the spread of lice, the main goal of this exercise was to erase the traditional custom of long hair and braids. To the Mojave and many other tribes, women’s and men’s hair was always kept long, and only cut as an act of mourning. To cut another’s hair without permission is an especially egregious act.
“We interviewed several elders, me and a friend, in college, and I remember the former chairman and his sister-in-law, they attended the school, and I remember him saying that his grandparents hid him, they didn't want him to go to the school, so they hid him, but one day, he had to go. His sister-in-law said she remembered how they were very strict, and she said, I'll never forget (and by this time she was in her late 70s) but she said, they would say, ‘I'll shake you till your teeth rattle down your throat’.” — CHRISTINA OTERO
The abuses of power and the confusion that ensued from it during the Fort Mojave Indian School period has had deep and lasting effects on the Mojave community. While attending the school, children, their siblings and their parents were often assigned different surnames from one another. Community members no longer grew up knowing their clan names or who their relatives were, and it was not until the second half of the 20th century, when the Pipa Aha Culture Society was formed, that the Fort Mojave community was able to start piecing together the history of their kinship relationships again, with the help of a forgotten school ledger.
“I'm proud that we Mojave have a unique culture, and that I'm able to pass it on to those that are younger than me, like those who taught me. It makes me proud that I'm still continuing what we thought was once lost, and still finding new things that I can bring out to the new generations.” — BIANCA OTERO
Today’s Mojave youth now come to the Pipa Aha Macav Cultural Center, newly opened in 2021, to learn about their clans, their family histories and their traditional stories. They also come to learn more about the Mojave language, which was almost lost forever, but is now also being taught to kids in Fort Mojave schools. Much more work still needs to be done in the coming years to continue to protect and honor the language and culture of the Mojave people.
“I do believe children should know about this. I think they need to know about the whole continuum from the creation point to now. And to understand who we are and appreciate our home. We're very fortunate that at least we're still within the range of our original homelands--you know, that's pretty significant. A lot aren't. And that's what we're working on now through our cultural and tribal values and language and way of life .” — DIANE MONTOYA
The Fort Mojave Indian School was closed in 1931, along with a number of other Native American schools, after the US changed its policies. Native American boarding schools continue to be an educational option, but families now have the right to choose whether to send their children away from their communities or keep them at home. This fundamental right did not come about until 1978 when Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act. The second half of the 20th century also saw other long-overdue rights. The Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act of 1975 enabled tribal nations to establish their own community schools and take over the management of education programs. This meant that not only were communities given more choices of how to educate their children, but also their children’s education could include learning their traditional language, culture, and history. In the late 1970s, the right of native communities to openly practice their religious ceremonies, dances, and songs was also finally restored, as well as the right to speak their own languages.
“All kids should know about this and what really happened because they have to know the truth. They have to know the truth of what all Native Americans went through because we don't have the only boarding school here. There are others every place else and they need to know that. You can't just keep it hidden--they have to know.” — ANGIE ALVARADO
In the five decades since these more favorable laws, the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and native communities across the country have been working hard to repair the damage done from the Indian boarding school era. Just a few months ago, in October 2024, President Biden visited the Gila River Indian Reservation, outside of Phoenix, Arizona, to deliver an address to all Native Americans: "I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did," Biden said. "It's long overdue." “The federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history.” The president’s apology, along with the work that his Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland led to officially document the damage, is shedding some light on this dark period of history that has been largely swept under the rug until now. With that light, in Fort Mojave, up and down the Colorado River, in sovereign tribal nations, and all across America, may there be more healing for families in the years to come.
“One of the terms that we have is “Mojave Strong”. And we are, you know, because of what we went through. I'm really, really proud of our people to have that strength to continue on. That's what we try to bring to our children when we get together, like at our Mojave Days festival, when we bring all our culture together -- our singing, our dancing, our beadwork, all the things that we enjoy doing. That's a part of us that was not taken away. And it’s wonderful to just to be together, to love one another, and to continue growing together, to keep that strength within us. We are still going, still going strong.” — WANDA JENKINS
Illustration by Kyle Larson.