Interest Level: 9 - 12
Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9781620916254
The Lost Ones
Kidnapping. Adoption. Carlyle BoardingSchool
Despite her father's warnings that their tribe is always in danger, Casita, a ten-year-old Lipan Apache girl, has led a relatively peaceful life with her tribe in Mexico, doing her daily chores and practicing for her upcoming Changing Woman ceremony, in which she will officially become a woman of the tribe. But the peace is shattered when the U.S. Cavalry invades and brutally slaughters her people. Casita and her younger brother survive the attack, but are taken captive and sent to the Carlisle Indian School, a Pennsylvania boarding school that specializes in assimilating Native Americans into white American culture. Casita grieves for her lost family as she struggles to find a way to maintain her identity as a Lipan Apache and survive at the school.
Casita and her family thought their village of Lipan Apache, in Mexico, would be safe from U.S. Cavalry raids. But one fateful day in 1877 proves how wrong they are. Casita witnesses the brutal murder of her mother and the destruction of their village before she is forcibly relocated to Fort Clark in Texas with her younger brother and other survivors. While most survivors are exiled to reservations, Casita and her brother, Jack, are looked after by a kindhearted military family until they are wrenched away again, this time to the Carlisle Industrial Indian School in Pennsylvania. Haunted by the past yet still looking for a future, spirited, sensitive Casita navigates the confusing white world while still holding to her Apache identity. Readers will cheer her determined spirit in the face of shattering loss. Highly engaging historical fiction and based on actual people, MacColl’s Hidden Histories series tale is powerful storytelling and an excellent prompt for classroom discussion of Indian policy.
Booklist
Watch the Documentary
This documentary about Casita and Jack, and their family’s search for them, was produced by students at Carlyle College.
Excerpt:
Suddenly a bugle sounded across the valley. A gunshot cracked the air.
A second shot and then a third. Casita threw herself flat on the ground and crawled to the edge to see.
At the crest of the rising hill across the river, a row of soldiers appeared, the sun at their backs. Hundreds of them, wearing the blue woolen uniform of the US Cavalry. To the sound of a merry bugle, the soldiers charged straight for her home.
Crouched on the ledge Casita couldn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes away. Although the soldiers were across the river, their noise was deafening. They were shouting and wildly shooting their guns into the air. She heard yells from the village; they knew danger was coming.
Juanita crawled out to look. She cried out when she saw the soldiers. “The Americans cannot cross the great river!” Juanita cried.
“They did!” Casita answered.
“We have to tell the village!” Juanita stood up to warn them.
Casita pulled Juanita to the ground. “Stay down! They know!”
—The Lost Ones