The
exact number of children who were forced into boarding schools in the
U.S. for over 150 years is unknown, due to poor record keeping, but
nearly 19,000 have been confirmed. Physical, sexual and psychological
abuse was rampant at the schools often run by religious institutions.
Some children were referred to only as numbers, pre-teen girls were raped and sent home pregnant. Thousands never returned home.
Addressing
the public on the Gila River Reservation outside of Phoenix, Arizona on
October 25, President Joe Biden fulfilled a long-delayed promise to
visit Indian country and called the boarding school system a “sin on our
soul,” adding there was “no excuse” for how long-overdue the
acknowledgement was and that “no apology can or will make up for what
was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy. But
today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.”
The timing of the visit has also been noted as a tactic in the swing state to woo Native voters to cast votes for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. But many Native Americans are frustrated by government inaction to adequately protect lands, provide access to quality education and healthcare, and enact an arms embargo against Israel.
Survivors and descendants both acknowledge how meaningful Biden’s speech was after centuries of fighting for recognition from the federal government, and call on the administration to act swiftly on the apology.
“In his last two weeks in office, we demand that President Biden also pass S.1723/H.R.7227: The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act,” said the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a nonprofit that has worked with survivors and Tribal leaders for over a decade to educate about the system and facilitate repatriations.
The legislation would provide a path for investing in language and culture revitalization efforts, educating the American public on the system via museums or curricula, and establishing trauma-informed mental health resources.
It would also enable subpoenas to be used to investigate the scale of the system: Catholic entities have been able to hold onto private records for decades, some of which contain the only known photographs or remnants of survivors’ ancestors. Reintroduced in both the Senate and House last year, the bill has yet to reach a vote.
The mental and physical health concerns of survivors and lack of widespread reconciliation reached national spotlight earlier this year when the Interior Department released its final investigative report on the system, which revealed at least 1,000 Indigenous children died or were killed. The schools operated using over $23 billion federal dollars, adjusted for inflation.
Left:
Portrait of Justin Shedee (Apache) from 1889 (Cumberland County
Historical Society) Right: Letter from Justin Shedee expressing his wish
to leave Carlisle (National Archives and Records Administration via
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center)Thousands were subject to child labor to operate facilities and be “outed,” working without wage for white families near the schools.
Angelique Albert, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and chief executive of the nation’s largest direct scholarship provider for Native students, Native Forward, referred to the boarding schools not as places of education but as places of “extermination.”
Just as slavery was used as the tool to harm Black people across the Americas, “education was the tool to harm us, to assimilate us. That’s the tool where we lost our children,” Albert said, adding that the apology is a testament to the work done by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation’s first Native American cabinet member and former recipient of their scholarships, to unearth survivor testimony and investigate the system.
“She’s in the very position that implemented the boarding schools. Do you understand? It gives me chills,” Albert said, emphasizing how critical it is for the federal government to maintain close relationships with Tribal nations and put more funding behind college access for Native youth so their voices can be heard in positions they’ve been historically excluded from.
While the apology, however late, is a “critical first step in the truth and reconciliation process for Native and Indigenous communities,” Albert stressed, “Indian boarding school policies are not a horror of the past — these institutions operated through 1969, and many Native people who were subjected to these cruel policies are still living today.”
The boarding school system, while the focus of President Biden’s remarks, was not the only widespread, forced removal of Native children. Throughout the 60s and 70s, over a third were removed from their families and overwhelmingly placed in non-Indian homes after discriminatory welfare investigations.
In Washington, Native children were placed in foster care and adopted at rates 19 times greater than their peers. The practice was widespread until 1978’s Indian Child Welfare Act was passed by Congress, who stated “wholesale separation of Indian children from their families is perhaps the most tragic and destructive aspect of American Indian life today.”
Native populations now face disproportionately poor health outcomes, including the highest rates of substance abuse, suicidal ideation and chronic illnesses, which researchers have linked to centuries of genocide, disinvestment and generational trauma.
Following Biden’s address, an Indigenous collective gathered to pray, mourn, sing and push for more action in South Dakota, on the lands of what will soon be the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy, a “culture-based school” for Lakota, Dakota and Nakota children.
“Tonight, we took to the land and reminded the world that we are the children of survivors … We will honor our ancestors by holding this country accountable for what it has done to our people,” NDN Collective president Nick Tilsen said in a release. “The U.S. government tried to exterminate and erase us. We will continue to remind them they have failed at doing so, and the warrior spirit of our ancestors lives in all of us.”
SOURCE: https://www.yahoo.com/news/native-american-leaders-call-again-163000761.html
One word not found in President Biden’s apology is "domination"
But instead of acknowledging the U.S. government’s ongoing claim of a right of domination over Native nations, Biden’s remarks made it seem as if all of that ended a long time ago. It’s called “A Lie of Omission” by leaving it unmentioned and out of focus. (How funny that the word “mission” is embedded in the word “omission”).
OP-ED: https://stevennewcomb.substack.com/p/on-bidens-recent-apology-for-the
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