Canada's Unmarked Graves; Sharswood | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

tonight on 60 Minutes presents revisiting the past I grew up a very very mean woman because of all what happened to me you learned that here you think yeah she is not the only one more than 150 000 children were sent to residential schools which Canada's first prime minister supported to in his words sever children from the tribe and civilized them my name was number 65 for all those years just a number just a number yep 65 pick that up stupid or 65 why'd you do that idiot ERS are a large family that enjoy getting together they purchased this historic house in Southern Virginia near where they grew up to have a place for family celebrations this is an original room from the 1800s but no one could have imagined how the history of the home and its grounds would change everything they thought they knew about their family's history it's like a full circle like it was meant to happen to me like was meant to happen this is God this is this is where we're supposed to be good evening I'm Leslie Stahl welcome to 60 Minutes presents tonight revisiting the past we'll look at stories from history that carry lessons for the present we begin with our story of Canada's unmarked Graves in May 2021 when archaeologists detected what they believed to be 200 unmarked Graves at an old school in Canada it brought new attention to one of the most shameful chapters of that nation's history starting in the 1880s and much of the 20th century more than a hundred fifty thousand children from hundreds of indigenous communities across Canada were forcibly taken from their parents by the government and sent to what were called residential schools funded by the state and run by Churches they were designed to assimilate and christianize Indigenous children by ripping them from their parents their culture and their community the children were often referred to as Savages and forbidden from speaking their languages or practicing their traditions as Anderson Cooper first reported last year many were physically and sexually abused and thousands of children never made it home the last of Canada's 139 residential schools for indigenous children closed in 1998 most have been torn down but the muskalgon residential school in Saskatchewan still stands its Windows boarded up its rooms gutted a reminder to a nation that would rather forget a three-story Tombstone for generations of children who died here sometimes I wish it would be gone for all what happened here you wish this had been torn down yeah they could hear everything in here what was done it lingers Leona Wolfe who comes from the muskalgon reserve was five years old and she says she was taken from her home in 1960. school officials and police would often show up unannounced in indigenous communities and Round Up children some as young as three parents could be jailed if they refused to hand their children over when kids arrived at their schools their traditional long hair was shaved off if they tried to speak their language they were often punished they put me in a dark room like that they'd shut the door and then they take off the light all I had to look through was this much light like I was in jail she says the abuse many kids at muskawigan suffered from the Catholic priests and nuns wasn't just physical the girls here a priest's father Joella was fondling girl yeah this used to be sick Bay this they used to have Adventure and he would take girls into the boat yeah my cousin it took your cousin how old was she she was only eight I grew up a very very mean woman because of all what happened to me you learned that here you think yeah she is not the only one more than 150 000 children were sent to residential schools which Canada's first prime minister supported to in his words sever children from the tribe and civilized them for much of the 20th century the Canadian government supported that mission this report aired in 1955. they learned not only games and traditions such as the celebration of Saint Valentine's Day but the Mastery of words with the idea for the schools came in part from the United States in 1879 the Carlisle Indian industrial school opened in Pennsylvania where this photo was taken of Native American children when they first arrived this is them four months later the school's motto was killed the Indian save the man consequently ours was To Kill The Indian in the child Kill The Indian in the child that was the guiding principle here in Canada Chief Wilton little child whose Cree was six years old when he was taken to this residential school in Alberta then he says he was given a new name my name was number 65 for all those years just a number just a number yep 65 pick that up stupid or 65 why'd you do that idiot what does that feel like at six years old to be called a number well I think that's sort of the trauma begins not just the physical abuse psychological abuse spiritual abuse and worst of all sexual abuse you were sexually abused yes I think that's where my uh anger uh began as a young boy Chief little child says he was able to take some of that anger out on the school's hockey rink he won a scholarship to University and graduated eventually going on to a distinguished career in law but his story is the exception they didn't kill my spirit so I'm still creep I'm still who I am I'm not 65 my name is so that didn't kill my spirit in 2008 after thousands of school survivors file lawsuits the Canadian government formally apologized for its policies it also set up a 1.9 billion dollar compensation fund and established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Chief little child helped lead for six years the commission heard testimony from survivors across the country and you put me under water slapping me and hitting me slapping men hitting me and punching me and punching me and holding me under water pulling my hair and I thought God she's going to kill me I'm going to die first day of school we as little boys little girls we lost our innocence in 2015 the commission concluded what happened was cultural genocide it identified more than three thousand children who die from disease due to overcrowding malnutrition and poor sanitation or died after being abused or trying to run away a government study in 1909 found the death rate in some schools was as high as 20 times the national average most schools had their own cemeteries and sometimes when children died their parents were never informed it's really traumatic for those families who don't know what happened to their child or relative in the schools why weren't kids who died at the schools why weren't they sent home to save money archaeologists detected what they said could be 200 unmarked Graves at this former School in Kamloops British Columbia in May 2021. Weeks Later a further 751 unmarked Graves were detected across from the former Maryville residential school on the calluses Reserve in Saskatchewan there was once a Catholic Cemetery here but the headstones were bulldozed in the 1960s by a priest after a dispute with a former Chief and what were these lists for so it will tell a small team of researchers has been trying to discover the names of those children buried here but for decades the government and the church have been reluctant to share their records Chief Cadmus DeLorme is trying to get answers do you know that they're all children we can't verify how much our children but based on the research we're doing a lot of them were children that were forced to go to the Maryville residential school and died in the Maryville residential school the discoveries of the graves open deep wounds more than a dozen churches have been vandalized or destroyed and thousands have marched demanding the pope apologize and the church's open archives to help identify any missing children indigenous communities across the country have begun conducting their own searches using ground penetrating radar we've laid out a number of grids throughout this landscape archaeologist Keisha supernant and Terry Clark say 35 unmarked Graves have been discovered at the muskogan school there's something going on there that's not natural when we were there in October 2021 they found what appear to be another according to Survivor accounts children sometimes had to dig their classmates Graves the priests or the school officials would force the kids to dig other children's Graves yep can you imagine being 10 or 11 and digging a grave for your classmate Tisha supernann says the search for unmarked graves will continue for years this is very it's very devastating work it's heartbreaking for everyone who's involved you feel that too I do our communities still feel the impacts of these institutions in our everyday lives we're way over represented in in child welfare and adoptions and foster care we're way over represented in the prisons you can draw a direct line with that to these places and the pain of that that has been passed on from generation to generation I started school here in 1958 at bitternews who's Cree understands that pain he was eight years old when he was taken to the Muskegon School his parents lived within sight of the school and when he tried to run away he says the priest forced him to kneel on a broom handle for three days that's where my house was I would sit here and wonder why I I couldn't be home that must have been devastating yeah it wasn't only adults he feared some students themselves victims of abuse preyed on other children were you abused here oh yeah actually in this room here by one of the one of the one of the boys in this very room this very area here later he says he was also sexually molested by a nun when he left school he was rudderless and violent and turned to alcohol when he got married he says he didn't know how to show affection you didn't know what love was no no because it never felt it here I didn't start saying I loved her until we were married about 40 years and then I was very careful how I said it you didn't say to your wife for 40 years that you loved her yeah he says his life changed when he began rediscovering his Cree Culture raising Buffalo and sharing traditional knowledge with children brought healing and finally an understanding of the word love you can say that now I can say that now and it feels good and we I still joke with my wife about that uh don't say that too loud so you can say you just don't want to say it too loud yes okay you know what it's better than nothing yes that's what she says as for Leona wolf her life in the lives of her children and grandchildren have been plagued by violence and substance abuse intergenerational trauma she says that began the day her own mother was sent to school at muskogan did you see the impact of this place on your mom yeah how drinking a lot being mean to me and it impact us I mean my brother and my siblings what had was done to her she passed on to you and what was done to you and others here I just passed on to my children this is why sometimes I go into my rage of anchor and I Cry because it all it was all done to us all of us but it's gonna stop now you know it is you believe that I am good I'm breaking the cycle with my great-grandchildren Leona Wolfe has returned to her Traditions as well Walking The Halls of muskauken she began to sing Hail Mary a prayer she was forced to learn here long ago [Applause] [Music] now she sings it her own way [Applause] [Music] that's not how you sang it here when you were in school though was it no you made peace with the Virgin Mary yes I made that song peace with myself since our story first aired Pope Francis traveled to Canada for what he called a penitential pilgrimage he apologized and begged for forgiveness for the deplorable abuses indigenous peoples suffered in residential schools just off the side of the road sat a grand White House called sharswood silently holding Secrets From the Past waiting for a new owner to uncover them sounds like the opening line of a southern gothic novel but as we first reported in May of last year this story is about a real family and a real house this country's history and a man who found himself at the center of far more than he had bargained for the man is Fred Miller a 57 year old Air Force veteran who was looking to buy property in his Virginia Hometown for his large extended families frequent get-togethers he had never heard the name shars wood and yet This Old House would lead him on a journey of Discovery with surprises and Revelations that seem both impossible and inevitable all at once these are the gentle Hills of Pennsylvania County Virginia quiet rural Farm country near the North Carolina border that once produced more tobacco than any county in the state hey we're going to gather up in uh here mainly Fred Miller grew up here in a close family that likes getting together regularly for birthdays fish fries and as his cousin Adam Miller told us just about anything we play games and you do like a lot of blue competitions and I hear the food is mainly cake yes French cousin Tanya Miller Pope and his sister Deborah Coles told us it's a big family Fred's mother Betty and his Aunt Brenda were two of eleven how many cousins so no wonder Fred needed to find it exactly Fred lives in California where he works as a civil engineer for the Air Force but he visits the family in Virginia often one day under blue my sister called me told me about a big house up the road for sale this sister right here yeah Karen Dixon rexroth Fred's baby sister had spotted it me and my mom was riding past the house and I saw the first sale sign I said oh my goodness we have to get this house I called Fred Fred this house is for sale he's like what house I see you know the house the the scary house I call it the scary house was less than a mile up the road from their moms they'd passed it every day as kids on their way to school what did you know about shars wood absolutely nothing nothing I just knew it was a house a big house he was debating should we put in a bid for it I said yes absolutely let's do it did she twist your arm that's all the twisting she could do that I didn't want to buy it thinking his bid would be rejected anyway he made an offer of just above the two hundred twenty thousand dollar asking price why did you think they weren't going to accept the offer well I mean I'm not and this isn't me I thought because I was black today whenever surely they would never sell this house with someone is back so for us to be around this thing I thought it would never happen in a million years so guess what happened a million years a million years ago yes yes absolutely we used to always see this house out here so in May of 2020 Fred Miller purchased the fully furnished house plus 10 and a half acres of land from a family called The Thompsons who had owned it since 1917. first time I drove up to the place all I could do is stop at the edge of the road there and just look up and an amazement like wow this is this is my this is an original room from the 1800s Karen says she got obsessed with the house spending nights and weekends online researching its Secrets hiding spot oh they say it was from the Civil War so they would hide the valuables she discovered the house had been built around 1850 in the Gothic Revival Style by a well-known New York architect and she learned and told her family that its name had been charswood every day she was calling me with new information I'm like my goodness okay relax are you exaggerating but then Karen turned up something that stunned her in the 1800s shars wood had been the seat of a major 1300 acre Plantation one of the larger ones in the county what did you think of you owning a plantation that was a little bit a little shocked by I would say because I just wanted somewhere to have family gathering when I found out that it was a plantation and then I'm like okay Fred just bought a plantation a feeling of power it was just a powerful feeling it is powerful but of course Plantation implies slavery and before the Civil War Pennsylvania County held more than 14 000 enslaved people the state of Virginia just under 500 000. I said do you realize what this is they didn't have a clue Dexter Miller one of Fred and Karen's many second cousins knew something about Charles wood because years ago he'd been co-workers with Bill Thompson whose family then owned it Bill joined us for a conversation on what used to be his childhood porch you grew up in this house I did this is my home he inherited much of the farmland and still lives up the road his sister inherited the house and sold it to Fred you know when Fred was buying the house he did not think that the house would be sold to a black person why would you think that for you because you know it's we are in rural Virginia right well this is true for years Dexter and another second cousin Sonia Womack Miranda had been trying to piece together the Miller family's Origins a notoriously difficult task for African Americans because records are hard to come by especially before 1865. it really was a hobby it was addictive it was addicted it really was Private Eyes yes and the land records they've been able to trace the whole Miller Clan back to one woman it's Dexter's great grandmother it's my great great grandmother Sarah Sarah Miller yes they had found a picture of Sarah Miller this is Sarah right here and they got in hold of her death certificate which showed that she'd been born in Pennsylvania county in 1868 just three years after the end of the Civil War and they found an even better resource one of their oldest living relatives a beloved former school teacher named Marion keys Miss Keys as everyone here calls her recently turned 90. Sarah Miller is the matriarch of the fish yes she was did you know her yes I did well tell us about her she would always be out there with a broom in her hand and she would be waiting for us Marion Keys remembers her great-grandmother Sarah as a force to be reckoned with what she wanted you to know you were going to know it was she Persnickety is that yeah it was difficult Stern very very she didn't she didn't play she didn't play but we loved her but that's where Miss Key's knowledge of Miller family history ended she didn't know anything about the generations before emancipation when you were growing up what did you learn or hear from your parents about slavery nothing nothing nothing they did not talk about it I don't know whether they were afraid whether it was too miserable or painful or they wanted to forget it I don't know but they did not talk to us about it at all and we didn't ask them questions about it why not I'm afraid to we heard that again and again from members of the Miller family slave it wasn't mentioned at all was there almost a code we don't talk about slavery so nobody did it was something that every black person knew you didn't talk about the parents would tell you not to discuss grown people business that's what they'll tell you the person on slavery was discussed was uh I guess in the 781 Roots came the movie Roots came about that's the first time when Roots was on television did you read about it in school not much his family also remembers Roots as pivotal yes but even after Roots you didn't go and say what about our family no what held you back I just didn't think they wanted to talk about it but didn't you want to know I would love to have known I would love to have known Fred's purchase of shars wood was about to give him a crash course in his hometown slavery Roots it started with a call from two archaeologists who wanted to come do research work historic preservationists and so you know we start from the idea that these places matter Dennis Pogue once worked at Mount Vernon Doug Sanford at Monticello they asked if they could come explore charleswood but they weren't interested in the ornate house designed by that famous architect what they cared about was the dilapidated building with the tin roof past the Big Oak Tree behind it they suspected it had once been slave quarters there were once hundreds of thousands of these buildings these were one of the most common types of architecture in Virginia let me give you the running Dimensions but now these buildings are rare with fewer than 1500 believed to be still standing and Hogan Sanford started a project to search for them so one two three four Fred and Karen invited them to come investigate they examined measured and searched for Clues you can see the sighting is they showed us some of what they found these are the kind of nails that we expect to see on buildings before 1800 handmade Rod Nails handmade you can actually see the hammer Strokes on the head is this the original siding these are remnants of the original siding absolutely okay they worked from noon to dusk and finally gave Karen and Fred their conclusion it's got a complex history but we think part of that history a big part of that history was it was a quarter for enslaved folks and then create they say it's one of the best preserved they've seen they believe it was originally built in the late 1700s as a house for a white family that's where the original door was and was later divided into two separate single room slave dwellings two families yeah one household here another enslaved household over there it just sold there was two different worlds this front big beautiful world here in lavish and you go right behind the house and it was a whole different story it's kind of crazy for me just even walking around out there do you just Lifehouse too I want to say your boss I do that's mine Fred Miller's purchase continues to surprise his family and Intrigue historians when we come back when Fred Miller unwittingly purchased what he now knows to be the charswood plantation house with slave quarters just behind it he knew virtually nothing about his own family history he'd always assumed his ancestors had been enslaved but it fell to him like an unknowable part of a distant past learning about his great-grandmother Sarah Miller whom his mother had known as a child piqued his interest so when he found out her house was still standing just a few miles away from charswood he asked his mother Betty Dixon to go there with him all right we're gonna walk down through here Betty's grandmother Sarah had been the first of their ancestors to be born into Freedom shortly after the Civil War the muscles cabinet had no life no electricity Betty remembers visiting and spending the night here with her grandmother and cousins whoa what is the one room Sarah's house didn't look much bigger than the slave dwelling just a single room with a smaller one above it and no indoor plumbing come a long ways huh sure did glad I didn't have to live in here well you had to make it work you want to place this wallpaper to take with you yeah I hope the landlord don't say nothing oh Lord there you go Sarah Miller is buried in the cemetery of the church the Miller family still attends I'm glad now I can actually come in yeah but unbeknownst to this Miller family just five miles up the road in a different Church Cemetery was a tombstone that also read Miller a far older one with names Fred and his family had never heard of but we're about to in Karen's search for information about Charles wood she found a document that mentioned them it gave the names of the original owners who was Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller and also Charles Edwin Miller Miller yes Miller any light bulbs any wires connect no not at that point not at that point it did not others had suspected a connection between the two sets of Millers because I was telling Dexter back in 88. Bill Thompson says he had mentioned the thought to Dexter 30 years ago what we had been taught in high school was that when they freed the slaves they just took the last name of the person that was there which was Miller I just said told that Dexter it's a good chance that your ancestors came off of this phone he did he said that so you knew that this was a plantation I did well Fred you said you didn't know I had no idea Dexter you didn't tell Fred I did not tell Fred I did not tell anyone Dexter says he'd kept it to himself because he hadn't found any way to prove it and that's where this becomes a detective story with the Miller cousins now on a mission to figure out whether it could be possible that their own ancestors might have been enslaved on the very property Fred now owned the first step was figuring out who their last enslaved ancestors were and Sarah Miller's death certificate held the answer the names of her parents David and violet Miller who would have been adults at the time of emancipation did you know anything about them not at all not at all I didn't know anything about them we didn't even Marion Keys who knew Sarah Miller had never heard their names nothing wow wow sure didn't I just I want everybody to know enter karise luck Brimmer a local historian and genealogist Karen reached out to her to see if she could help one of the special challenges looking for the ancestors of African Americans Americans were not listed by name until the 1870 census so before that they were just a number I mean if they were enslaved they yes weren't listed at all so really you're just looking for any type of tips and clues that you can she started by looking at 1860 records for shars Woods then owner NC for Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller there he is and you know it right there okay he had 58 slaves here but with only age and gender listed you have enslaved people 69 44 34 and not a single name there was no way of knowing whether Violet and David were among them so karise looked up David and violet Miller in the 1870 census the first one after the Civil War where they finally appeared by name it showed they were Farm hands that they couldn't read or write and it listed their children including as Curry showed us a very young Sarah Miller there Sarah she's one year old one years old and this looks like Emily yes she's three and here's Samuel yeah he's five to karise that meant Samuel Sarah's older brother was born before emancipation so karise searched for him in another historical record called the Virginia Slave birth index where slave owners had to list births on their property this document and there under N.C Miller's name NC right and there's Samuel was Samuel and look at that oh my less Violet as his mother it was the genealogy equivalent of a Smoking Gun so this is proof that Violet Sarah's mother was enslaved by N.C Miller yes and this is absolute proof this is absolute definite proof and you were able to tell Karen that her ancestors David and violet were enslaved at sharswood that was tough so did you call Fred I did I don't think he believed me in the beginning so the connection suddenly is made to your family slavery right in this house in this house and you own it once I realized that it was actually my blood that was here took on a holy meaningful it really sends me sometime when I you know and I'm up a lot of times I'm up wee hours of the night now just thinking about what happened here as news spread through the family there was sadness but that's not all there was I almost felt like I was losing my breath for a moment it was almost like a feeling of being found yes this is where I started and as black people we don't always know where we started so here we are sitting in this house I can't believe it that I'm in the plantation house of the plantation that my family was enslaved you're laughing as if this cannot be true that's right but it is I felt I Feel Complete I'm not half of a human being anymore they make me whole even if I don't know them I felt a connection to them at shars wood I touched a tree I hugged the tree and I said oh my God you was here where my ancestor was here I wonder which ancestor Minds touched the tree I didn't know what to say or do I just hugged the tree and felt like I'm home he shared the news with Bill Thompson who had had that hunch all those years ago I look at it that I've been a servant to this Farm in this house my whole life and for the Miller family to come back home to my home our home our home absolutely it's great it's a celebration of of coming home this is God this is this is where we're supposed to be it's like a full circle like it was meant to happen to me like what's meant to happen the Millers also see the hand of their ancestors in all of this I think they had to be because I did everything I did everything in my power to make the smell did not make it happen yeah I tried to mess it up at every angle but those ancestors had one more surprise in store with all the revelations there was one question that continued to not at Dexter where were his enslaved ancestors buried so last winter he asked bill that's the bill is one question that's been bothering me where is the slave Cemetery he said actually uh it's right over there I said right over the world he said you see those trees over there so did you just go right up there they went right up there the trees Bill Thompson pointed to just beyond Fred's property sure didn't look like a cemetery that is until you start to look closely is that one of those that's one that's one of them right there oh my God as you can see this is the um indention right there um the headphone there maybe this is the foot Zone on the other hand yeah there's always seemed like to be there's one yeah absolutely poking up through the leaves all around us were pointed rocks some small some medium-sized no names no engraving just plain Anonymous markers of Many Many Lives wow wow this is astonishing it's kind of overwhelming isn't it it is it really is I mean we all live in the same area we come past this place and we would not know that our ancestors were right there beside us the entire time Fred if you hadn't bought that house right you're right I had nothing else we never know never never so how has all of this affected you it's uh it's changed me it's definitely changed me you ever angry I get a little bit upset sometimes um when I find out things that I should have known already um angry at yourself at myself and at the system because I think that we should have known more what about the school system should have no more family should have known more absolutely you want the story of slavery told I want the story of slavery told it's important so this is converted from a door to a window yeah yeah so Fred wants to do whatever's necessary to preserve the slave house you know this has been exposed for you know 200 years he's in the process of setting up a non-profit to make that possible that's important to me too because I know a whole lot of emphasis on it on that Big White House there oh exactly but this right here is really near and this is the story this is the story absolutely one two three four five six seven eight there's eight right here and he's been thinking about the cemetery too I can imagine this being someone Young we have to do something about this yeah have to and I will I'm gonna fix it do you think you might allow historians to come and absolutely and absolutely this place will be open to anyone who wants to learn anyone anyone who come here but for now charswood is serving the purpose Fred bought it for in the first place Gathering the Miller family together in celebration Happy Birthday Happy Birthday [Music] [Applause] what do you think Violet and David would think they could see that you own this place I'm hoping they will be proud of us and I think they would be they endured a lot I mean I can't even imagine what they went through looking down on us now [Music] they must be smiling us [Applause] since our story first aired Fred Miller took a new job in Virginia to be closer to his family he has set up a non-profit sharswood Foundation to maintain the slave quarters and Cemetery and has begun offering tours of the house watch The Millers visit the charswood slave Cemetery for the first time several of them are here now at 60 minutes overtime.com now the last minute of 60 minutes tonight's stories invited us on a journey to revisit the past as is true of so many history lessons our looks at both charswood and Canada's residential schools resurrected painful and shameful eras but other parts of those stories pointed ways to progress and healing the late David McCullough who chronicled so much of our history wrote history is who we are and why we are the way we are we hope tonight's broadcast has helped illuminate some of each I'm Leslie Stahl we'll be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 39,494

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Canadas residential schools, former plantation, Sharswood

Id: z4XE6-I1onw

Length: 42min 59sec (2579 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023