AGWA:IWA’HASDE’, ÖGWAYA’DAGÖHSOTA’
(WE ARE RESILIENT; WE REMAIN)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
5:30 PM
SENECA NIAGARA RESORT & CASINO
Step Off begins at 6 PM at the Seneca Square entrance.
Under the American Civilization Fund Act of 1819, more than 100,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes, families, and communities and placed in abusive, often deadly residential boarding schools, where they were systematically stripped of their names, language, and cultural identity. The Canadian government implemented similar policies, targeting Indigenous youth from 1863 to 1998.
In recent years, hundreds of Indigenous children’s unmarked graves were discovered across the United States near the sites of these brutal institutions, with that number growing by the hundreds annually. In Canada, the number of unmarked graves has already reached into the thousands.
This walk honors the memory of these children and demonstrates our commitment to sharing this history, and supporting efforts to heal within the Native community.