For Edward Hensley, the prognosis seemed favorable only days before his fatal turn for the worse.
The Winnebago boy died on Jan. 29, 1899, while he was enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
“He was not able to pull through this his third or fourth attack of pneumonia,” the Indian Helper, a student publication, reported on Feb. 3. “His heart becoming involved there was little hope.”
Like other Native American youths who died at the boarding school, Hensley was buried in a cemetery at Carlisle Barracks. A student for about four years, he was remembered as a band member and tinsmith by trade, “a most excellent young man, beloved by all,” the Helper article reads.
On Jan. 17, the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska sued the U.S. Army in federal court seeking repatriation of not only the remains of Hensley, but those of another boy named Samuel Gilbert who died of pneumonia on Oct. 24, 1895, just 47 days after his arrival in Carlisle.
Both boys are believed to be buried in the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery along Claremont Road. Their bodies may have been moved in 1927 from the original Indian School cemetery that was located in the vicinity of present-day Root Hall.
The lawsuit focuses on the Army’s alleged refusal to follow the federal Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 to end the robbery, desecration and exploitation of Native American burial sites by the Army and other federal agencies, according to a…
