The federal government today expanded the number of children known to have died in the repressive boarding school system that, for more than a century, pulled Native American children from their homes and communities. The Interior Department also called for billions in federal funding to begin a “healing” process.
The report concludes a three-year investigation that saw, for the first time, the federal government accepting responsibility for its role in creating the system, which included more than 400 schools across 37 states.
“The federal government – facilitated by the Department I lead – took deliberate and strategic actions through federal Indian boarding school policies to isolate children from their families, deny them their identities, and steal from them the languages, cultures and connections that are foundational to Native people,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
The report calculates that the federal government spent the equivalent of $23 billion in today’s dollars on the boarding school system from 1871 to 1969, and calls for spending an equivalent amount toward rebuilding families and communities.
Among the proposed initiatives are a national memorial to “acknowledge and commemorate” the experiences of tribes, and a plan to return the land on which the boarding schools were located to government or tribal ownership.
A bigger system than imagined
The new report expands upon the previously acknowledged size and scope of the system, adding more schools and burial grounds to the administration’s final portrait of the gruesome system, and including oral histories that detailed decades of abuse and maltreatment.
For the past two years, Haaland and staff from the Interior Department have visited tribal communities around the country, hearing from survivors and their families.
“As we have learned over the past three years, these institutions are not just part of our past," said Bryan Newland, assistant secretary of Indian affairs. “Their legacy reaches us today, and is reflected in the wounds people continue to experience in communities across the United States.”
At the same time, the department continued its investigation, headed by Newland, of government records to compile an accurate record of the toll from the schools’ practices. The final report increased the number of boarding schools in the U.S. from 408 to 417, across 37 states or then-territories. The number includes 22 schools in Alaska and seven in Hawaii.
And the report confirms that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending schools in the system. The Department acknowledges that the actual number of children who died while attending Indian boarding schools is likely greater.
“This report further proves what Indigenous peoples across the country have known for generations: That federal policies were set out to break us, obtain our territories, and destroy our cultures and our lifeways,” Newland, a member of the Bay Mills Indian Community, said in a statement,
The investigation also confirms that there are at least 74 marked or unmarked burial sites at 65 of the schools. One initiative proposed in the report is to identify and repatriate the remains of children who never returned home from the schools.
Moving communities forward
In the opening letter of the report, Newland says: “The most important thing is that our work to tell the truth about the Federal Indian boarding school system be paired with action.”
The final report seeks to put a price on that action, arguing that the government could begin to remedy the trauma inflicted in over a century of forced assimilation by investing “on a scale, that is, at a minimum, commensurate with the investments made in the Federal Indian boarding school system between 1871 and 1969.”
In other words, investing $23.3 billion back to the tribes, spread out over a long period of time. The report advocates spending on programs such as family reunification, language revitalization, and Indian education – programs intended to address the ways in which the boarding school system wreaked havoc on tribal communities.
A national memorial to acknowledge the harm to tribes and individuals is one part of the proposed plans. It would serve not only tribal members, the report says, but would also help educate the broader population about the dark time in the country’s history.
Apart from these investments, the report calls on the U.S. government to issue a formal apology, and to continue the work of chronicling this period of history.
“The Road to Healing,” Haaland said, “does not end with this report – it is just beginning.”
Transcript
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Department of the Interior released its final report today on the history of federal Indian boarding schools - this after a yearslong campaign by Secretary Deb Haaland to examine the federal government's role in the system. For more than a century, it pulled Native children from their homes and sought to erase their languages and culture. NPR's Sequoia Carrillo has been following the story. Hey, there.
SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: What are the key findings?
CARRILLO: Yes. Well, for one thing, this three-year investigation, in many ways, finally delivered upon the administration's promise to take ownership of the boarding school system. It's saying, yes, the U.S. did this. The U.S. government did this and footed the bill for a system that we can now see hurt communities and hurt children. This report confirms the number of children who died while at these schools - 973 - but it says the total is likely higher than that. And when talking about loss of that scale over generations, it's hard to think of a way to make that right, and the report acknowledges that.
KELLY: Well, and speak for a moment, Sequoia, about those generations of children. This whole boarding school system was left out of American history for so long. Just remind people how it affected Native children.
CARRILLO: Absolutely. So the federal boarding school system operated from the early 1800s until 1969. During this time, in many areas of the country, it was standard practice to remove children from their families - sometimes as early as 4 years old - and send them to boarding schools to forcibly assimilate to the United States.
What that looked like in practice was often a school funded by the U.S. government but run by a religious organization and sometimes patrolled by military forces. The schools were known to cut students' hair upon arrival and wash their mouths out with soap if they spoke their Native languages. There are many documented reports of verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
To create a system of this size - it was over 400 schools in 37 different states - it took money. And this report puts that figure - adjusted for inflation - at 23 billion in today's dollars, invested to create and maintain the system. So now the report is recommending an investment of at least that amount to try to walk back some of the harm done.
KELLY: At least 23 billion - so a lot of money...
CARRILLO: Yes.
KELLY: ...That it's calling for to try to rebuild families and communities - how exactly would it work?
CARRILLO: The report doesn't just ask for one lump sum. It's encouraging spending on multiple programs, like family reunification, language revitalization and, of course, Indian education - programs intended to address the ways that the boarding school system just wreaked havoc on tribal communities for so long. There's a proposal for a national memorial to acknowledge the harm to tribes and individuals and lots about educating the public, whether that's through the memorial or the oral histories that they've been gathering.
KELLY: And I saw this report also calls for a formal apology from the U.S. government. Is that likely to happen?
CARRILLO: Someone asked this today, actually, on the press call that Secretary Haaland held, and she apologized right there on the spot. The Secretary is a member of the Laguna Pueblo, and this has been very deeply personal work. She kind of teared up talking about it. Of course, that's different than a presidential apology, but she didn't make it feel that far out of the question. She said she has the full support of the president on this work. But with an election coming up this November, we'll see what can come of it.
KELLY: NPR's Sequoia Carrillo, thank you.
CARRILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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