The Interior Department probe will identify Indigenous children who died at schools the U.S. government forced them into for assimilation into white culture.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that she is launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the “devastating history” of the U.S. government’s policy of forcing Native American children into boarding schools for assimilation into white culture.
“At no time in history have the records or documentation of this policy been compiled or analyzed to determine the full scope of its reaches and effects,” Haaland said in remarks at a National Congress of American Indians conference. “We must uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools.”
Under the new initiative, the Interior Department will investigate past boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible burial sites near school facilities, and the identities and tribal affiliations of children who were taken there. The effort also serves as a starting point for improving public awareness of the former policy, which most Americans never learned about in school.
The point of the boarding schools, which the U.S. government funded from 1869 into the 1960s, was cultural genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken away from their families and forced into faraway boarding schools to be assimilated into white culture. They weren’t allowed to speak their native languages. Their hair was cut off. They were dressed in clothes considered acceptable in white culture.
They also endured horrific levels of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Many died. Their parents were banned from speaking to them, and if they didn’t comply, they faced reductions in food rations and sometimes incarceration.
By 1926, the U.S. government had removed nearly 83% of Native children from their families and enrolled them in one of 367 boarding schools across 30 states.
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It's about time that this American atrocity is investigated and reported.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that she is launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of the “devastating history” of the U.S. government’s policy of forcing Native American children into boarding schools for assimilation into white culture.
“At no time in history have the records or documentation of this policy been compiled or analyzed to determine the full scope of its reaches and effects,” Haaland said in remarks at a National Congress of American Indians conference. “We must uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of these schools.”
Under the new initiative, the Interior Department will investigate past boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible burial sites near school facilities, and the identities and tribal affiliations of children who were taken there. The effort also serves as a starting point for improving public awareness of the former policy, which most Americans never learned about in school.
The point of the boarding schools, which the U.S. government funded from 1869 into the 1960s, was cultural genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken away from their families and forced into faraway boarding schools to be assimilated into white culture. They weren’t allowed to speak their native languages. Their hair was cut off. They were dressed in clothes considered acceptable in white culture.
They also endured horrific levels of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Many died. Their parents were banned from speaking to them, and if they didn’t comply, they faced reductions in food rations and sometimes incarceration.
By 1926, the U.S. government had removed nearly 83% of Native children from their families and enrolled them in one of 367 boarding schools across 30 states.
Deb Haaland Launches Review of 'Devastating' Native American Boarding Schools
The Interior Department probe will identify Indigenous children who died at schools the U.S. government forced them into for assimilation into white culture.
It's about time that this American atrocity is investigated and reported.
