Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life

From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools--sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation--were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.

Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.

Author: Mary Annette Pember
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Published: 04/22/2025
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 9.48h x 6.38w x 1.24d
ISBN: 9780553387315


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/30/2025 pg. 14
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2025
Publishers Weekly 02/24/2025
Booklist 03/01/2025 pg. 37
BookPage 05/01/2025

About the Author
Mary Annette Pember is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe. She is currently national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today. She has also worked as an independent journalist focusing on Native American issues since 2000. Pember is the recipient of the Clarion Award, several Associated Press awards, and the Medill Milestone Achievement Award as well as Type Investigations' Ida B. Wells Fellowship, a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, and the USC Annenberg National Health Journalism Fellowship. Her work has appeared in Reveal News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Guardian, among other publications. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Cincinnati. Medicine River is her first book.