Canadian Pacific - A surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railroad must fight fur trappers who oppose the building of the railroad by stirring up Indian rebellion.
š āBountyā shows daily at the Old State House and can be viewed online
at the Upstander Projectās website, which also features a timeline and a
teacherās guide to the film and the issues it deals with.
New film at Old State House highlights Cambridgeās ties to colonial āscalp bountiesā
āBounty,ā the newly installed film at Bostonās Old State House, is
only nine minutes long, but its powerful and disturbing message looms
much larger for audiences. Whether tourists or locals, visitors to the
Old State House usually expect to tour the 1713 building to glimpse the
legislative history of Massachusetts, particularly the events and public
debates surrounding the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre and other
aspects of Revolutionary history. Now part of Revolutionary Spaces,
which also oversees the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House is
sharing the history of brutal attacks on New Englandās Indigenous
peoples as part of Massachusetts colonial policy ā a legacy that is
surprising and unnerving to those used to a purely celebratory telling
of the colonyās story.
The exhibit, housed in the Old State Houseās council chamber, tells
the story of so-called āscalp bountiesā ā one that has a direct
connection to Cambridge as a whole and, in particular, to History
Cambridgeās headquarters at 159 Brattle St. The adopted son of Sir
William Phips, the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay,
Spencer Phips entered politics in his own right in 1721 when elected to
the provincial assembly. His family connections had set Phips up for
political and economic prominence and, several years after his
graduation from Harvard in 1703, he bought a large tract that
encompassed much of what is now East Cambridge and settled there with
his family.
Phips was appointed to the governorās council in 1721, and from
1732-1757 was the lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts
Bay, which included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony,
the Province of Maine, Marthaās Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. During two periods (1749-53 and 1756-57) Phips served as
acting governor while William Shirley was abroad.
As a prominent landowner and politician, Phips had set his children
up to marry well; in the 1730s Phipsā daughter Rebecca married the
up-and-coming merchant and land speculator Joseph Lee and settled into
159 Brattle St., known commonly as the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House. While
we do not have direct evidence that this house, which serves as the
headquarters of History Cambridge, was occupied by enslaved people on a
permanent basis, we know that Joseph Lee and Rebecca Phips enslaved two
men, Caesar and Mark Lee/Lewis, on other Massachusetts properties that
they owned, and it is likely that one or both stayed with the Lees when
they were at their Brattle Street property. Spencer Phips, too, was an
enslaver, holding five people in bondage, so his children would have
grown up expecting to be waited on by enslaved servants.
In addition to his land in Cambridge, Phips was part-owner of a large
tract on what is now the central coast of Maine (then part of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay). In 1719, the owners began to develop the
land for white settlement to the objection of the local Abenaki People,
who argued that their leaders had made land grants to the colonists
without authorization from the tribe. Conflicts increased in the 1720s,
leading to what is known as Dummerās War from 1723-1727. For the next
several decades, tensions flared between the Abenaki and the colonists,
leading Shirley to declare war on the Abenaki in 1754.
In its declaration of war, Massachusetts made an exception for one
group of Abenaki: the Penobscot People, whom the colonial government
claimed were exempt from their attacks. In reality, the position of the
Penobscot made them vulnerable to the same brutality at the hands of
colonists as other Abenaki. In the ongoing colonial battles between the
English and the French, Indigenous peoples were pressured to take sides;
although the Penobscot desired to remain neutral, their geographic
location meant that they could not escape colonial politics. Seen as
pro-British by the French and pro-French by the Maine colonists, the
Penobscot found themselves pushed increasingly toward French alliance
because of incidents such as a 1755 attack by New England militiamen on a
Penobscot fishing party.
In 1755, while Shirley was away from the colony, Phips issued a
declaration of war against the Penobscot, offering cash rewards for each
scalp of a Penobscot person turned into the colonial government. Phipsā
proclamation put a value of 50 pounds for males over age 12, while
women and male children under 12 were deemed to be worth 25 pounds and
female children were worth 20 pounds. The next year, the colonial
assembly voted to allow scalp bounties of up to 300 pounds ā by far the
largest sum ever offered in a wartime declaration. In 1759,
Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Pownall seized control of the Penobscot River
and the homelands of the Penobscot people by force.
Phips signed the declaration of war and the scalp bounty proclamation in the council chamber of the Old State House; in 2021, Upstander Project
created a short film featuring several current-day Penobscot families
reading the text of the proclamation aloud in the chamber. Penobscot
Nation tribal ambassador Maulian Bryant emphasized the importance of not
only telling the story of the Phips Proclamation, but doing so in the
physical space where these and other decisions were made that so greatly
affected the Penobscot and other Indigenous peoples:
It conveys this empowering sense of resilience and that Penobscot
people, Indigenous people all over this country were not supposed to
still be here. That there were very systematic attempts to exterminate
our people in order to have our land taken. So the fact that we are
still living here in our home, and we will grapple with this trauma and
we will reflect on it and honor our ancestors, but we need to do that by
being strong, proud Penobscot people. And this project was a way to
reclaim some of that space.
History
Cambridge is proud to partner with the Upstander Project to work toward
the amplification of Indigenous voices and a broader understanding of
local Indigenous histories during this Native American Heritage Month
and well beyond.
The first National Day of Mourning event was held on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1970 on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. James delivered an amended speech[1] beside a statue of Ousamequin, including
"We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of
the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees.
What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a
more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once
again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and
brotherhood prevail.
You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will
help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning
of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning
of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian." - Frank "Wamsutta" James, first National Day of Mourning, November 26, 1970[2][4]
The event was attended by close to 500 Native Americans from throughout the United States[1]
and has been held annually on the fourth Thursday in November every
year since. James' speech was one of the first public criticisms of the
Thanksgiving story from Native American groups.[2]
"I felt so much pain that I had been carrying melt away."
TODAY Illustration / Courtesy Yvette McKinley
By Yvette McKinley, as told to Rachel Paula Abrahamson
When
I was a toddler, I was stolen from my home in the middle of the night.
Child welfare authorities banged on the door and said, āWeāre here for
Yvette,ā and my parents had no choice but to hand me over.
Iām
one of more than 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada who were ripped
from their families during what is known as the Sixties Scoop. The
Canadian goverment believed that Indigenous people were not fit to raise
children. In the words of former prime minister Hector Langevin, āTo
educate the children properly we must separate them from their families.
Some people may say that is hard but if we want to civilize them we
must do that."
My
siblings ā Iām the youngest of 14 ā were sent to federally operated,
Catholic boarding schools where they were given English names and
forbidden from speaking their aboriginal language. In these programs of
forced assimilation, many experienced horrific physical, sexual and
emotional abuse.
I was more fortunate.
In
1974, I was adopted by a white Christian couple in Oregon. They were
told by the adoption agency that my biological parents didnāt want to
raise me. For decades, I believed that story, too.
My adoptive parents were kind, but I always had a sense of being different.Courtesy Yvette McKinley
It
was quite easy for a white couple to adopt an Indigenous child at the
time. My adoptive parents started the paperwork in January, flew up in
March to meet me for the first time, and the very next day they took me
back to their home in Oregon.
Growing up, I was aware
that I was Indigenous, but itās not something that I embraced. At
school, my classmates called me an Indian. Redskin was another one I
heard a lot. My mom says I always asked her to buy me white tights so my
legs would look white like the other girls. I didnāt want brown skin. I
didnāt want to be different.
It
wasnāt until my 20s that I started to get more curious about my
history. My brother, who is half Japanese, had started looking for his
biological family, so I decided I would, too. I knew my birth parents
had the same name, Acoby, so I started by writing to every Acoby I could
find in the Canadian providence of Manitoba.
The first
person I heard back from was my sister Lorraine, who shared that we are
members of Swan Lake First Nation. She said our parents had never
stopped looking for me. When I read those words, I felt so much pain
that I had been carrying melt away. I had spent my life believing that
they didn't want me.
From Lorraine I learned about how
our sister Charlotte was taken at a doctor's appointment when she was 5
months old. My mom handed Charlotte over to a nurse, not realizing she
would never hold her baby again. My mom went back to that doctor's
office every single day for months begging for them to let her see
Charlotte, but she was gone.
My sister Charlotte (left) and me: I've discovered a whole family I never knew I had.Courtesy Yvette McKinley
At
the age of 24, I reunited with my mother. My dad, a former chief of
Swan Lake, had died a few years earlier. My sisters were there to
translate for our mom who spoke only Ojibwe. She was relieved to learn I
was raised by kind parents. For all those years she had wondered if I
was OK, and Iām glad she was able to have some closure.
Itās
so hard to put into words what it was like to be surrounded by people
who look like me. Thereās this feeling of acceptance. But at the same
time, I feel so Caucasian when Iām around my biological family. Sometimes I feel like I donāt belong anywhere, which is not uncommon for
survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
Since reconnecting with
my birth family, I travel to Swan Lake reserve every summer. I feel at
peace there. Itās just prairie land and itās a part of me that I didnāt
know I had been missing.
Now I have sisters that I text
and call. We do big family dinners. When weāre together there is this
overwhelming sense of calm.
I love sitting around with
the council people and learning about where I came from. At my first
powwow, I met family members I never knew existed ā aunts, uncles,
cousins. Unfortunately, the tribe canāt recognize me as a family member
because the Canadian government erased my birth certificate. But I do
have my Ojibwe name, which means Morning Sky in English. My kids now
want to get their spiritual names.
I'm working to get my real birth certificate. The one I have now lists my adoptive parents as my parents.
I
received a $25,000 apology check from the Canadian government. And
thatās what my life is worth in their eyes. Itās like, "We destroyed
your entire family. We took you from your home, from your family. Hereās
a check for $25,000.ā That hurts a lot.
There are so
many people that donāt know anything about what happened to my people
during the Sixties Scoop. One summer, I stopped at a burger stand just a
few miles from Swan Lake and the woman working behind the counter had
never heard of the Scoop.
I want the government to
acknowledge what they did and honor those children who never made it out
alive from their schools. Letās call it what it is: The Sixties Scoop,
like the Holocaust, was a genocide.
At least 4,120
children are known to have died in the residential schools in Canada. In
the U.S., a federal investigation found that at least 973 children died
in residential schools ā and the actual number is probably much higher,
since many were buried in unmarked graves.
My siblings
were sent to those schools. They say their hair was cut off. They were
beaten for speaking our language and singing our songs. They were forced
to study the Bible. My sister Yvonne can only talk about it in little
tiny segments because it was so traumatic.
We are healing together.
I will never forget how Swan Lake First Nation chief Jason Daniels welcomed me back.
"You're home," he said. "This will always be your home."
GREENFIELD, MA (2017) Tragic, true, heartbreaking, astonishing... those words have been used
to describe the anthology Two Worlds, the first book to expose in
first-person detail the adoption practices that have been going on for
years under the guise of caring for destitute Indigenous children in North America.
What
really happened and where are these Native children now?
The new updated Second
Edition of TWO WORLDS (Vol. 1), with narratives from Native American
and First Nations adoptees, covers the history of Indian child removals
in North America, the adoption projects, their impact on Indian Country,
the 60s Scoop in Canada and how it impacts the adoptee and their
families.
"This book changed history," say editor Trace Hentz. "There is no doubt in my mind the adoption projects were buried and hidden... we adoptees are the living proof."
The Lost Children Book Series includes: Two Worlds, Called
Home: The Roadmap, Stolen Generations, In The Veins: Poetry and ALMOST DEAD INDIANS (2024). The
book series is an important contribution to American Indian history.
Trace Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) located other Native adult survivors of
adoption and asked them to write a narrative for the first anthology. These adoptees share their
unique experience of living in Two Worlds, surviving assimilation via
adoption, opening sealed adoption records, and in most cases, a reunion
with their tribal relatives. Indigenous identity and historical trauma
takes on a whole new meaning in this adoption book series.
As
Hentz writes in the Preface, "The only way we change history is to write
it ourselves." This book is a must read for all that want the truth,
since very little is known or published on this history.
"I was asked to update this book by one adoptee contributor and I added a new narrative by Levi Eagle Feather, and more information on the 60s Scoop. Please tell your friends and other adoptees," Trace Hentz says. "One day in America, we Lost Children will have our day in court."
Marquette
University history professor Bryan Rindfleish put it best when he said
thereās a sacredness to the ground we walk on in Wisconsin when you
realize that everywhere you step holds thousands of years of Native
American history underneath.
He
said Increase Lapham, the prominent civil engineer who helped transform
Milwaukee from a small village into a booming city, realized that, as
well. In the mid-1800s, as developers flattened hundreds of ancient
Indigenous mounds all over the city, Lapham saved at least two mounds
with his design of Forest Home Cemetery, researchers recently learned.
But,
as Rindfleish points out, that didnāt stop Lapham or the cemetery
owners at the time from burying people along the edges of the mounds.
About
20,000 mounds, effigy and conical, were built in Wisconsin. Only about
4,000 remain today, partly because of development over the last 200
years. They also were destroyed by amateur archeologists and ordinary
Wisconsin residents.
It
was not uncommon for Wisconsin families to have Sunday picnics on top
of these mounds and then spend the rest of the afternoon digging for
artifacts and even human remains to keep in their private collections,
or to sell to museums or universities.
Early
non-Native settlers in Wisconsin had theorized in the 1800s that the
mounds were built by some ālost raceā or even the Vikings because they
couldnāt accept that Native Americans, whom they were removing from
their lands at the time, would be capable of creating such massive and
impressive earthworks.
Later
researchers determined that the effigy mound systems closely resemble
the clan systems and spirit animals still used by many local Indigenous
tribes today, such as the Thunderbird and Water Panther.
Conical
burial mounds started being built in Wisconsin around 500 B.C. Effigy
mounds depicting people, animals or spirits were built from about 700
A.D. to around 1100.
There is still some debate about which tribe, exactly, built the mounds, especially those in southeast Wisconsin.
The
Ho-Chunk Nation has taken the lead today in protecting remaining mounds
from development, and its historians and elders claim their ancestors
built the mounds, especially in central and southwestern Wisconsin.
The
Potawatomi claim southeast Wisconsin as their ancestral homeland, but
Menominee tribal historians claim their tribeās ancestral territory
included all of what is now known as Wisconsin, as well as parts of
Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. Menominee historians say the Menominee
were here before any other tribe and any other people dating back at
least 10,000 years.
This
debate between tribal historians tends to heat up when thereās any push
or movement for a new casino in Kenosha and whether it will be owned
and operated by the Menominee Nation, currently among the most
impoverished of tribes.
If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at
fvaisvilas@gannett.com.
More than 2,800 Minnesota adoptees
have already requested copies of their original birth records. Very few
are finding contact preferences from their birth parents.
MINNETONKA, Minn. ā From the moment a law change
gave Minnesota adoptees the right to access their original birth
records, Lisa Belknap knew she'd be applying the first chance she got.
She just never imagined it would arrive in her mailbox on her birthday.
"I'm shaking," said Belknap, who invited KARE11 to be there as she
opened her birth record. "I thought... just how remarkable that is, to
get your birth certificate on your birthday, for the first time. The
real one."
Like many Minnesotans who were involved in closed adoptions, Belknap
spent most of her life with very little information about her birth
parents. Limited information about their medical history, along with a
few baby photos from her six weeks in foster care, were her only clues
to her past.
But while she always wondered where she came from, she wants to make
it clear that she never wondered who her family is. She was quickly
adopted by loving parents, and an older brother.
"Do they feel uncomfortable about the fact that I might find my birth
family? Absolutely not. No," Belknap said. "I think the main thing my
parents have always been concerned about is what I might find."
Birth Parent Contact Preference
Because any Minnesota adoptee who is 18 or older can now request
their birth record and attempt to find their birth parents, the state
spent a year trying to publicize the changes and give birth parents a
chance to offer their contact preferences.
"We asked them to fill out a Birth Parent Contact Preference form,"
said State Registrar, Molly Mulcahy Crawford. "There's a space where
they can share anything they want. Maybe their address, maybe how to get
ahold of me if they want contact, maybe to explain why I don't want
contact."
Despite those efforts, and a potential pool of 175,000 Minnesota
adoptions, fewer than .5% of birth parents have returned that form in
the last year.
Mulcahy Crawford: "In total, we've received 377 birth parent contact preference forms."
Erdahl: "Do you know how many said? Yes, I can be contacted versus I prefer not to?"
Mulcahy Crawford: "It's about 50/50, but regardless of that
preference, if an adopted person makes a request under the new law,
they're going to get a copy."
Erdahl: "In other words, noboby can stop them from still contacting them."
Mulcahy Crawford: "Right."
Please Respect My Request
Despite the minuscule odds of encountering one of those forms, Belknap found one tucked behind her birth certificate.
"She marked that she prefer not to be contacted at this time," she
said, with tears in her eyes. "And she wrote, 'Just please respect my
request of no contact.'"
As a mother herself, it's a request she can't fathom.
"One of the probably most profound moments of my life was when my
daughter was born and I just remember looking at her and that was the
first person in my entire life that I had a biological connection with,"
Belknap said. "It's disappointing to know that there's that much
forethought into not wanting to know me."
Searching for Clues
Knowing her birth mother's preference didn't stop Belknap from trying to find her online.
"It's not her choice anymore," she said. "She made her choice for me
when I was a baby and I didn't have a say in that. As an adult now it's,
it's my decision on how I wanna handle this."
Within just a few minutes of searching Facebook, Belknap and her
husband were very confident that they had found her birth mother.
"She seems to be a really proud grandma," Balknap said, looking
through several photos publicly available on Facebook. "I can relate
because my mom is really proud of my kids too."
That realization is a major reason why her search stopped there.
"I don't think I would be true to myself if I disrespected her
wishes," Belknap said. "As much as I want to, my parents didn't raise me
to be that way."
Still a Gift
Despite her disappointment in her birth mother's reply, Belknap says she's still grateful for her records.
"Any information to connect me to my past is a gift," she said. "What
I would want birth parents to know is - at least for me as an adoptee
and other adoptees that I've spoken to - is we're not trying to get
something from someone. I think most people just want to know their
origin story."
For more information on the state law change, and how to request birth records, click here.
I am a direct descendant
of family members that were forced as children to attend either a U.S.
government-operated or church-run Indian boarding school. They include
my mother, all four of my grandparents and the majority of my
great-grandparents.
On
Oct. 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to formally
apologize for the policy of sending Native American children to Indian
boarding schools, called it one of the most āhorrific chaptersā in U.S. history and āa mark of shame.ā But he did not call it a genocide.
Yet,
over the past 10 years, many historians and Indigenous scholars have
said that what happened at the Indian boarding schools āmeets the definition of genocide.ā
From
the 19th to 20th century, children were physically removed from their
homes and separated from their families and communities, often without
the consent of their parents. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Indigenous names, languages, religions and cultural practices.
As an Indigenous scholar
who studies Indigenous history and the descendant of Indian boarding
school survivors, I know about the āhorrificā history of Indian boarding
schools from both survivors and scholars who contend they were places
of genocide.
Was it genocide?
The United Nations defines āgenocideā
as the āintent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,
racial or religious group.ā Scholars have researched different cases of
genocide of Indigenous peoples in the United States.
Historian Jeffery Ostler, in his 2019 book āSurviving Genocide,ā
argues that the unlawful annexation of Indigenous lands, the
deportation of Indigenous peoples and the numerous deaths of children
and adults that occurred as they walked hundreds of miles from their
homelands in the 19th century constitute genocide.
The mass killings of Indigenous peoples after gold was found in the 19th century in what is now California also constitutes genocide, writes historian Benjamin Madley in his 2017 book āAn American Genocide.ā
At the time, a large migration of new settlers to California to mine
gold brought with it the killing and displacement of Indigenous peoples.
Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children at Indian boarding schools. Sociologist Andrew Woolford
argues that scholars need to start calling what happened at Indian
boarding schools in the 19th and 20th century āgenocideā because of the
āsheer destructiveness of these institutions.ā
Woolford, a former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, explains in his 2015 book āThis Benevolent Experimentā
that the goal of Indian boarding schools was the āforcible
transformation of multiple Indigenous peoples so that they would no
longer exist as an obstacle (real or perceived) to settler colonial
domination on the continent.ā
First-
and second-grade students sit in a classroom at the former Genoa Indian
Industrial School in Genoa, Neb. Researchers are now trying to locate
the bodies of more than 80 Native American children buried near the
school. National Archives/AP
Indigenous writers have explained how this transformation
at Indian boarding schools occurred. āFederal agents beat Native
children in such schools for speaking Native languages, held them in
unsanitary conditions, and forced them into manual and dangerous forms
of labor,ā writes Indigenous law professor Maggie Blackhawk.
What my grandmother witnessed
Secretary of the Interior Debra Anne Haaland has stated that every Native American family has been impacted by the ātrauma and terrorā of Indian boarding schools. And my family is no different.
One
of the more horrific stories that my maternal grandmother shared with
her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student.
They were both under the age of 10. The student died of poisoning after
lye soap was put in her mouth as a punishment for speaking her
Indigenous language.
Read High Country Newsā past coverage about Indian boarding schools:
We know that similar punishments happened and children died at Indian boarding schools. The Department of Interior reported in 2024 that 973 children died at Indian boarding schools.
The U.S. government is beginning to encourage survivors to tell their stories
of their Indian boarding school experiences. The Department of the
Interior is in the process of recording and documenting their stories on
digital video, and they will be placed in a government repository.
At
84 years old, my mother is the only living Indian boarding school
survivor in our family. She shared her story with the Department of the
Interior this past summer, as did dozens of other survivors.
āFor
too long, this nation sought to silence the voices of generations of
Native children,ā Biden added at the apology ceremony, ābut now your voices are being heard.ā
As
a descendant of Indian boarding school survivors, I appreciate
President Bidenās apology and his effort to break the silence. But, I am
also convinced that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors
experienced was genocide.
Attendees of
the meeting in Holyrood included The Sunday Postās Chief Reporter,
Marion Scott, second right. Attendees gathered to discuss the lack of
action following then First Minister Nicola Sturgeonās high-profile
apology for the forced adoption scandal, which was issued last year
prior to her leaving the role.
The
Scottish Government must compensate the victims of the forced adoption
scandal, now that it has accepted responsibility, a leading lawyer has
said.
Experts say the injustice of taking babies from their mothers simply
because they were not married compares with the harm caused by both the
infected blood and in-care abuse scandals.
Solicitor Advocate Patrick McGuire, who heads negligence firm Thompsons Solicitors,
told a round table inquiry in the Scottish parliament last week: āWhen
Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered the forced adoption
apology last year on behalf of the state, she accepted responsibility
for what happened.
āAccepting that responsibility comes with the unanswerable
requirement to create a redress scheme to help victims recover from the
trauma and harm they suffered.ā
Forced adoption scandal
Calling on victims to ditch the guilt cruelly imposed upon them for
over 50 years, McGuire said: āThe forced adoption scandal saw vulnerable
women shamed into silence for decades, an unjust shame which remains a
factor today over why so many still have not felt able to come forward
to seek justice.ā
McGuire, whose expert team has been investigating the injustice and human rights abuses inflicted upon Forced Adoption victims until the practice was halted in the late ā70s, said all those involved suffered lifelong harm.
Bullied, threatened with jail if they tried to find their children,
and lied to over their legal rights, he warned the psychological damage
inflicted upon 60,000 mothers, their children and families is still
causing trauma today.
Forced adoption victims and experts meet MSPs in Holyrood.
On behalf of the Scottish Government, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivered an unreserved apology in March 2023.
She said: āUltimately, it is the state which is morally responsible for
setting standards and protecting people. As modern representatives of
the state, I believe we ā among others ā have a special responsibility
to the people affected. We have a responsibility to do whatever we can
to support them, in dealing with the legacy of what happened.ā
She added: āThe issuing of a formal apology is an action governments
reserve for the worst injustices in our history. Without doubt, the
adoption practices which prevailed in this country for decades fit that
description.ā
McGuire said: āForced adoption shares hallmarks with the infected
blood scandal and the thousands of children in care who suffered
appalling sexual and physical abuse decades ago in residential school
and homes.
āIndividuals were treated inhumanely decades ago, in circumstances that were ultimately the responsibility of government.
āThe government recognised their responsibility in the formal apologies which followed, just as they did for forced adoption.
āForced adoption victims have been shamed into silence for decades,
and that unjust shame remains a factor today over why so many victims
still have not felt able to come forward to seek justice.ā
āNo excuseā
McGuire, who has championed victims harmed by exposure to deadly
asbestos, mesh-injured patients and bereaved families in the hospital
inquiry, told MSPs there is āno excuseā for the Scottish Government to
delay delivering redress to forced adoption victims.
He said: āAs they did in both the infected blood and in-care abuse
scandals, Westminster and Holyrood decided, purely on the basis of a
moral case, to create compensation schemes after recognising their
responsibility for what happened. The Scottish Government already have
the blueprint for redress schemes. They must proceed without delay.
āWithout The Sunday Post exposing this dark, hidden episode in
Scotlandās history, the victims of forced adoption would have continued
suffering some of the worst examples of injustice Iāve ever encountered.
āItās deeply upsetting so many mothers who had their babies taken from them have passed away without getting justice.
āThat is why it is incumbent upon the government to do the right
thing as a matter or urgency. The scandal becomes ever more shameful as
time passes and more victims are denied justice for something which
never should have happened.ā
The campaign
Supported by MSPs Monica Lennon and Miles Briggs, campaign group
Forced Adoption Scotland, who secured the apology, is calling on victims
to put aside the shame unjustly forced upon them to come forward and
seek redress.
Campaigner Marion McMillan,
74, said: āWeāve been silenced for over 50 years. Our legal and human
rights were taken from us at the same time our babies were torn from our
arms and given to married couples as we wept.
āTimes have changed so radically; we recognise how difficult it must
be for people today to fully understand what was done to us. We were
terrified of authority, threatened with being thrown in jail if we tried
to find our babies. We were told we were worthless, not fit to be
mothers simply because we fell in love outside of marriage.
āNobody at Forced Adoption Scotland made a lifestyle choice to give
their baby up. If what was done to us was attempted today, those
responsible would be behind bars. The Scottish Government did the right
thing by delivering a formal apology. But since then, theyāve failed to
engage with Forced Adoption Scotland and failed to keep the promises
they made to our mothers, adoptees and families who have suffered
unbearably.
āBecause of those failures, we believe the only way forward now is
for a redress scheme. We need funds to pay for the specialist support
and counselling to repair the damage done to us.ā
Forced Adoption Scotland adoptee Marjorie White, 73, said: āAfter
recognising the harm done to us, the Scottish Government then tried to
do things on the cheap by funding counselling services from
inexperienced groups with no experience of dealing with the kind of the
trauma we suffered.
āAt the same time, experienced trusted organisations like Birthlink
have not been given adequate government funding to provide the support
and services we need, and they are best at delivering.
āWhen Nicola Sturgeon delivered the formal apology, we were full of
hope that after decades of silence and pain, at last our suffering would
end and the wrongs of the past would finally be recognised.
āShe promised all victims would get the help and support we needed to
recover from the harm we suffered, the trauma of having our identities
taken from us and the years of searching and never getting answers
because the adoption system prevented us.
āBut after she stepped down as First Minister, those who were
supposed to keep the promises she made failed us dismally. In fact, the
blundering attempts they made to provide support which was entirely
unsuitable have caused even further damage. That is unforgivable.
āGovernment ministers and officials have made little or no attempt to
work alongside Forced Adoption Scotland despite our decades long fight
for the formal apology and our success achieving it.
āOur group contains members from every side of the adoption scandal,
but there has been no consultation with us. Adoptees in particular have
been left out of discussions. We all matter. We all suffered lifelong
harm and distress.
āI have spent much of my adult life receiving counselling for what
was done to me, and I have trained as a counsellor so in effect I could
try and heal myself. When I compare the quality of the services the
government are offering, I have more experience than those being paid
public money to supposedly help us. Itās unacceptable.ā
The Scottish Government said: āOur deepest sympathies are with the
mothers, adoptees and families who have endured immense pain and
suffering as a result of these unjust practices.
āWe recently held sessions with mothers and adoptees. We are taking
forward actions based on these discussions, and we continue to fund the
charity Health in Mind to offer specialist support to those affected by
historic adoption.ā
If youāre a victim, you can contact Forced Adoption Scotland
on Facebook and Thompsons Solicitors Scotland on 0800 0891 331 or on
WhatsApp. The Sunday Postās chief reporter is Marion Scott ā mascott@sundaypost.com
Ā© Andrew Cawley
Ā© Andrew Cawley
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