On Friday, President Biden officially apologized to Native American communities for the horrible things that happened to Indigenous children and their families during the 150 years that they were sent to federal Indian boarding schools against their will.
The president chose to speak at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, even though he told all tribal nations he was sorry for the pain they had been through for generations.
“After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program,” he said. “But until today, the federal government has never, ever officially said sorry for what happened.”
As president of the United States of America, I want to officially say sorry for what we did. I am officially sorry. That was due a long time ago.
From 1819 to the 1970s, the federal government and religious groups set up boarding schools across the country to remove Alaska Native, American Indian, and Native Hawaiian children from their families, communities, and religions in order to integrate them into White American culture.
This was “one of the most horrific chapters in American history” and a “sin on our soul,” and the president held a moment of silence for the people who died.
“Generations of Native children stolen, taken away to places they did not know, with people they would never met, who spoke a language they had never heard,” he said. “Native communities were shut down.
There was no longer any laughter and play from their kids. Kids who would get to school with their clothes taken off and their hair cut off because it was holy. Their names were erased and replaced with a number or an English name.
A lot of the kids who went to these boarding schools were abused sexually, physically, and emotionally, and hundreds of them died.
And Mr. Biden said that those who did go home were hurt in body and spirit. The terrible things kept happening even after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
“I say this with all sincerity — this, to me, is one of the most consequential things I have ever had the opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States,” Mr. Biden said about his apology.
“It is an honor, a genuine honor, to be in this special place on this special day.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary in the United States. She knows a lot about history.
When her maternal grandparents were 8, they were taken from their homes and put in a Catholic boarding school until they were 13. Her great-grandfather was also taken from his home and put in an Indian boarding school.
“Tens of thousands of Indigenous children as young as 4 years old were taken from their families and communities and forced into boarding schools run by the U.S. government and religious institutions,” Haaland said in Arizona last week.
All of the Native people I know have been affected by these federal Indian boarding schools. Some are survivors and some are their descendants.
But these policies and places caused a lot of trauma that we all carry with us.
This is the first time in U.S. history that a Cabinet secretary has talked about the terrible things that happened in the past, and I am aware that the agency I now lead caused these terrible things to happen.
Haaland led the first federal investigation into the time of federal Indian boarding schools.
The investigation found that more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died at 19 of the federal Indian boarding schools. It also found 53 marked and unmarked burial sites at school sites across the country.
A report from the Interior Department said that kids who did not follow the rules or did not meet the standards were physically punished by “solitary confinement; flogging; withholding food; whipping; slapping; and cuffing.”
When kids were younger, they were often made to punish their older classmates.
In order to help Native American children become more like White Americans, the federal government often hired Presbyterian, Catholic, and Episcopal churches to run the schools.
To cheers, Haaland said, “But as we stand here together, my friends and family, we know that the federal government failed.” “It failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways, it failed to destroy us, because we persevered.”
As Haaland talked to reporters on Air Force One on the way to Arizona, his voice broke.
“This terrible part of history was left out for decades,” Haaland said Thursday. “But now, our administration’s work will ensure that no one will ever forget.”
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