How boarding schools devastated Indian tribes

Author: MATHEW BROWN

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Joe Biden apologized on behalf of the U.S. government on Friday in light of the 150-year-old campaign to dismantle Native American culture, language and identity by coercing children into violence Indian boarding schools.

Above 900 children died in government-funded schools, the last of which closed or converted to another institution several decades ago. Their dark legacy continues to be felt in indigenous communities, where survivors grapple with the generational trauma of… torture, sexual abuse and hatred they endured.

Biden formally acknowledged and apologized for the federal government’s role during an appearance at the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix.

A closer look at the federal residential school system:

150 years of forced assimilation

Congress created the framework for a nationwide Native American boarding school system in 1819 under the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, under legislation known as the Indian Civilization Act. This was allegedly intended to stop “the final extinction of Indian tribes” and “introduce among them customs and arts of civilization.”

Central to this effort was the dissolution of Native families and the severing of generational ties that kept their cultures alive despite being forced onto reservations.

Over the next 150 years, taxpayer-supported government and religious institutions operated at least 417 schools in 37 states. School staff worked to deprive Native children of their traditions and heritage. Teachers and administrators cut their hair, forbade them from speaking their own language, and forced them to do manual labor.

In the 1920s, most Native school-age children – at one point there were about 60,000 of them – attended boarding schools run by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healition Coalition .

The largest concentrations of schools were in states with the largest Native populations: Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota and the Dakotas. However, schools were located in every region of the United States, and students – some as young as 4 – were often sent to schools far from their homes.

The last of the schools opened in 1969, the same year a Senate report declared the residential school system a national tragedy. It found they were grossly underfunded, had academic deficiencies and placed a “heavy emphasis” on discipline and punishment.

The policy of forced assimilation was finally and officially rejected with the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. However, despite this policy change, the government never fully investigated the residential school system until the Biden administration.

Victims talk about molestation

AND nationwide re-examination system was launched in 2021 by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and the first Native American cabinet secretary in the country.

She and other Home Affairs officials were held listening sessions for two years on and off reservations across the United States to allow school survivors and their relatives to tell their stories.

Former students recounted the harmful and often degrading treatment they experienced from teachers and administrators while separated from their families. Their descendants told of trauma that was passed down from generation to generation and manifested itself in broken relationships, substance abuse and other social problems that plague the reservations today.

Among them were Haaland’s grandparents – taken from the community when they were 8 and forced to live in a Catholic boarding school until they were 13.

“Make no mistake: this was a coordinated attempt to eradicate the quote-unquote ‘Indian problem’ – with the goal of either assimilating or completely destroying the indigenous population,” Haaland said in July findings of the Agency’s investigation they were fired. The agency’s most important recommendation was a formal apology from the government.

Unmarked graves and repatriations

At least 973 Native American children died in the boarding system. They included approximately 187 Native American and Alaskan children who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in southeastern Pennsylvania. It is currently the headquarters of the US Army War College. Its officials are continuing repatriation efforts — just last month, the remains of three children who died at school were exhumed and moved to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana.

A Department of Home Affairs investigation discovered marked and unmarked graves at 65 boarding schools. The causes of death were disease and abuse. Officials say more children may have died off campuses after they became ill at school and were sent home.

Officials found that schools, similar institutions and related assimilation programs were funded by a total of $23.3 billion in inflation-adjusted federal spending. Religious and private institutions that operated many schools received federal funding as partners in the campaign to “civilize” Native students.

More than 200 government-supported schools had a religious affiliation. The boarding school coalition identified over 100 additional schools it is not on a government list maintained by churches and has no evidence of federal support.

Catholic bishops in the US apologized in June The role of the Church in trauma children experienced.

Originally published: October 25, 2024 at 14:42