-
They Called Me Number One
- Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School
- Narrated by: Bev Sellars
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Americas
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $20.06
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Five Little Indians
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Good
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention. Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them.
-
-
Read it yourself.
- By Angela Nelson-Heesch on 07-20-21
By: Michelle Good
-
A Knock on the Door
- The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Edited and Abridged (Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation, Book 1)
- By: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Phil Fontaine - foreword, Aimée Craft - afterword
- Narrated by: Michelle St. John
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).
By: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and others
-
Navajos Wear Nikes
- A Reservation Life
- By: Jim Kristofic
- Narrated by: Jim Kristofic
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before starting second grade, Jim Kristofic moved from Pittsburgh across the country to Ganado, Arizona, when his mother took a job at a hospital on the Navajo Reservation. Navajos Wear Nikes reveals the complexity of modern life on the Navajo Reservation, a world where Anglo and Navajo coexisted in a tenuous truce. After the births of his Navajo half-siblings, Jim and his family moved off the Reservation to an Arizona border town where they struggled to readapt to an Anglo world that no longer felt like home.
-
-
Entertaining and Educational
- By Savanna A Harvey on 07-13-15
By: Jim Kristofic
-
Call Me Indian
- From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player
- By: Fred Sasakamoose, Bryan Trottier - foreword
- Narrated by: Wilton Littlechild
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL. After twelve games, he returned home. When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this man's journey to reclaim pride in a heritage that had been used against him.
-
-
Reviewing “Call Me Indian” as an Indian
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-21
By: Fred Sasakamoose, and others
-
Seven Fallen Feathers
- By: Tanya Talaga
- Narrated by: Michaela Washburn
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.
-
-
Important book…
- By Jo C. on 11-08-21
By: Tanya Talaga
-
Indian Horse
- A Novel
- By: Richard Wagamese
- Narrated by: Jason Ryll
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saul Indian Horse is in critical condition. Sitting feeble in an alcoholism treatment facility, he is told that sharing his story will help relieve his agony. Though skeptical, he embarks on a heartbreaking journey from the present - and into the woods of Northern Ontario, where his life began in a snowy Ojibway camp. The tale that follows is one of great pain and great determination from Richard Wagamese, an author who "never seems to waste a shot" ( New York Times).
-
-
Important Read
- By ruthemily on 10-07-19
By: Richard Wagamese
-
Five Little Indians
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Good
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention. Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them.
-
-
Read it yourself.
- By Angela Nelson-Heesch on 07-20-21
By: Michelle Good
-
A Knock on the Door
- The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Edited and Abridged (Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation, Book 1)
- By: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Phil Fontaine - foreword, Aimée Craft - afterword
- Narrated by: Michelle St. John
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).
By: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and others
-
Navajos Wear Nikes
- A Reservation Life
- By: Jim Kristofic
- Narrated by: Jim Kristofic
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just before starting second grade, Jim Kristofic moved from Pittsburgh across the country to Ganado, Arizona, when his mother took a job at a hospital on the Navajo Reservation. Navajos Wear Nikes reveals the complexity of modern life on the Navajo Reservation, a world where Anglo and Navajo coexisted in a tenuous truce. After the births of his Navajo half-siblings, Jim and his family moved off the Reservation to an Arizona border town where they struggled to readapt to an Anglo world that no longer felt like home.
-
-
Entertaining and Educational
- By Savanna A Harvey on 07-13-15
By: Jim Kristofic
-
Call Me Indian
- From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player
- By: Fred Sasakamoose, Bryan Trottier - foreword
- Narrated by: Wilton Littlechild
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL. After twelve games, he returned home. When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this man's journey to reclaim pride in a heritage that had been used against him.
-
-
Reviewing “Call Me Indian” as an Indian
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-21
By: Fred Sasakamoose, and others
-
Seven Fallen Feathers
- By: Tanya Talaga
- Narrated by: Michaela Washburn
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.
-
-
Important book…
- By Jo C. on 11-08-21
By: Tanya Talaga
-
Indian Horse
- A Novel
- By: Richard Wagamese
- Narrated by: Jason Ryll
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saul Indian Horse is in critical condition. Sitting feeble in an alcoholism treatment facility, he is told that sharing his story will help relieve his agony. Though skeptical, he embarks on a heartbreaking journey from the present - and into the woods of Northern Ontario, where his life began in a snowy Ojibway camp. The tale that follows is one of great pain and great determination from Richard Wagamese, an author who "never seems to waste a shot" ( New York Times).
-
-
Important Read
- By ruthemily on 10-07-19
By: Richard Wagamese
-
Crazy Brave
- A Memoir
- By: Joy Harjo
- Narrated by: Joy Harjo
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice.
-
-
Poetic Prose
- By Hazel Bergtholdt on 03-08-19
By: Joy Harjo
-
Highway of Tears
- By: Jessica McDiarmid
- Narrated by: Emily Nixon
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in Northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected.
-
-
Poignant and disturbing
- By Buretto on 11-24-19
-
Yellow Bird
- Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country
- By: Sierra Crane Murdoch
- Narrated by: Sierra Crane Murdoch
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction.
-
-
Interesting story, dull narration
- By Sophia Loch on 08-16-20
-
Between the World and Me
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race”, a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of Black women and men - bodies exploited through slavery and segregation and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a Black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.
-
-
A Heartfelt Self-aware Literary Masterpiece
- By T Spencer on 07-30-15
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
-
How the Word Is Passed
- A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
- By: Clint Smith
- Narrated by: Clint Smith
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This compelling #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America—and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
-
-
Sincerely grateful read
- By Kelvin Dixon on 06-08-21
By: Clint Smith
-
Assata
- By: Assata Shakur, Angela Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Sirena Riley
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2013 Assata Shakur, founding member of the Black Liberation Army, former Black Panther and godmother of Tupac Shakur, became the first ever woman to make the FBI's most wanted list. Assata Shakur's trial and conviction for the murder of a white State Trooper in the spring of 1973 divided America. Her case quickly became emblematic of race relations and police brutality in the USA. While Assata's detractors continue to label her a ruthless killer, her defenders cite her as the victim of a systematic, racist campaign.
-
-
Knowledge is power
- By Ashleigh Terry on 08-20-17
By: Assata Shakur, and others
-
Custer Died for Your Sins
- An Indian Manifesto
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Standing Rock Sioux activist, professor, and attorney Vine Deloria, Jr., shares his thoughts about US race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists in a collection of 11 eye-opening essays infused with humor. This "manifesto" provides valuable insights on American Indian history, Native American culture, and context for minority protest movements mobilizing across the country throughout the 60s and 70s. Originally published in 1969, this book remains a timeless classic and is one of the most significant nonfiction works written by a Native American.
-
-
The best place to start to understand the US
- By rain circle on 05-31-20
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
-
-
WOW! Thank you....
- By bryan on 05-21-13
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
The Inconvenient Indian
- A Curious Account of Native People in North America
- By: Thomas King
- Narrated by: Lorne Cardinal
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history - in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be “Indian” in North America. Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other.
-
-
amazing
- By Adam Silver on 01-15-19
By: Thomas King
-
In My Own Moccasins
- A Memoir of Resilience
- By: Helen Knott
- Narrated by: Helen Knott
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Knott, a highly accomplished Indigenous woman, seems to have it all. But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.
By: Helen Knott
-
Stolen
- A Memoir
- By: Elizabeth Gilpin
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilpin
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 15, Elizabeth Gilpin was an honor student, a state-ranked swimmer, and a rising soccer star, but behind closed doors, her undiagnosed depression was wreaking havoc on her life. Growing angrier by the day, she began skipping practices and drinking to excess. At a loss, her parents turned to an educational consultant who suggested Elizabeth be enrolled in a behavioral modification program. That recommendation would change her life forever.
-
-
Insightful, heartbreaking look into abuse of the TTI
- By Queen City Mom on 08-02-21
By: Elizabeth Gilpin
-
Lakota Woman
- By: Mary Crow Dog, Richard Erdoes
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she joined the new movement of tribal pride sweeping Native American communities in the '60s and '70s.
-
-
One Native Woman’s Perspective
- By Lynn on 07-28-20
By: Mary Crow Dog, and others
Publisher's Summary
Like thousands of Aboriginal children in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the colonized world, Xatsu'll chief Bev Sellars spent part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school. These institutions endeavored to "civilize" Native children through Christian teachings; forced separation from family, language, and culture; and strict discipline. Perhaps the most symbolically potent strategy used to alienate residential school children was addressing them by assigned numbers only - not by the names with which they knew and understood themselves.
In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her family - from substance abuse to suicide attempts - and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. They Called Me Number One comes at a time of recognition - by governments and society at large - that only through knowing the truth about these past injustices can we begin to redress them.
Bev Sellars is chief of the Xatsu'll (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia. She holds a degree in history from the University of Victoria and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. She has served as an advisor to the British Columbia Treaty Commission.
What listeners say about They Called Me Number One
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melissa
- 12-30-19
True story
Many of the stories Bev shares in this book are similar to the stories elders that have shared with us regarding boarding school life.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Susie
- 08-22-17
Shame on Church and State
"Few people know anything about the collaboration of church and state to destroy races of people and cultures, genocide in the name of god."
Bev Sellars' often brutal testimony, gives insight into the cycle of poverty of indigenous peoples in Canada and (as she says) the United states, and even into Australia. She shows how dehumanization and cultural obliteration are passed down through generations.
She asks, "Is it possible to make others feel what I once felt?" The answer is yes. Her grandmotherly storyteller voice made me feel like I was hearing personal family history that I needed for my own survival.
Kindnesses shine like stars, but the bleakness is shameful and will be among the list of books that bolster my fight against systematic oppression.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christina
- 02-07-20
A truth that must be told.
This should be required reading for all schools. I was lucky, my grandmother saved me from the 60’s sweep. And I escaped the res, school experience, but my mother let slip some of her horrid experiences.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Denise Stacey
- 03-20-20
They call me number One
This book was excellent. The explanations of life in the residential schools was so well described. The author brought you into the world of the Indians and their struggles, physically, mentally and generationally.
I learned so much and have a better understanding of the reservations and the residential schools.
Bev Sellars tells a story that reaches one’s soul! She is an amazing author!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erin Sheldon
- 07-31-21
Every Canadian should read this
This was a powerful, heartbreaking, and heartwarming story. Bev tells her story with clarity and determination. She goes to pains to name the people who were kind as much as she names the abusers. She doesn’t flinch when describing tragedy caused by colonization, but she also tells ordinary stories of family love that will be familiar to every person who listens. I feel like her grandmother and mine had much in common, and I’ve never admired anyone more than my grandmother. This is ultimately a story of personal victory, and a call for meaningful collective action. I am so grateful to have listened to Bev’s story. It is the most important book I have purchased from Audible.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sharon
- 02-01-22
A reading of short anecdotes
There wasn’t a story line. It didn’t hold my attention because it didn’t flow.
It’s a lesson for sure but if this is how it’s taught, I don’t think it will be learned.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Y. R.
- 12-14-21
So grateful for this book
The author tells a raw story that is informative and moving. It paints a picture of historical trauma that puts you square in the middle of a family’s home. Bev is as wonderful a narrator as she is a writer. I am so grateful to her and so grateful to know about gram. Gram seemed like a hero to her family. A thread in the wind that refused to let go. She embodied the culture and strength of her community and she passed those traits onto Bev. I would recommend this book to anyone.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kim
- 09-26-21
Exceptional
I don't normally write full reviews for books that I listen to, but I believe it is important for you to know that this book will always be in the back of my mind. It has completely changed my worldview on residential schools, challenges that indigenous people in Canada face, the social ills that surround them, and the pre-judgements on both the white side and the First Nation side. The author speaks with such clarity, wisdom, knowledge, and frankness that it is impossible to ignore the truth of what she's telling you.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tía
- 07-14-21
Good Listen
loved it, couldn't stop listening. residential school era is what should be in the history books.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amoryn Smith
- 04-29-21
Important Sorry Beautifully Told
I have heard stories about residential schools in the US from Indigenous people here but the stories are usually a short recall that isn’t very personal. I’m sure they are not easy memories to share. Bev somehow manages to tell her personal stories, along with generational stories, with dignity & laughter & directness. The laughter she shares is beautiful & reminds the reader that people are more then what they suffered & more then their ongoing struggle. Thank you to Bev for being willing to share. I hope many many people are able to listen to her story & make connections between the past and present. It sure helped me to see more clearly.