The Biden administration is launching an investigation into the federal government’s past role in overseeing boarding schools for indigenous children aimed at forced assimilation, Deb Haaland, Secretary of the US Department of Interior, announced recently.

Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo tribe and the first Native American to hold a White House cabinet position, made the announcement at a conference of the National Congress of American Indians. 

Her announcement comes amid renewed interest in the legacy of the boarding schools in Canada and the US, after more than 200 bodies of Indigenous children were found in a mass grave last month on the site of what was once the largest Indigenous boarding school in Canada last.

The federal investigation will include reviewing records to identify old boarding schools, locate burials sites for children forced into the schools and determine the names and tribal affiliations of students. The goal is to “uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences” of anti-Indigenous policies, Haaland said. 

A final report on the investigation is due from agency staff by April 1, 2022.

Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, according to NBC News, the US established and supported boarding schools across the country to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children. The children were taken from their homes and families and sent to the schools where they were forbidden from speaking their native languages, forced to wear European clothing, and punished, including with physical violence, for practicing any aspect of their tribal culture. 

The schools operated for more than 100 years, and Indigenous peoples have long considered them tools of cultural genocide. Survivors of these schools and descendants of survivors have reported physical and emotional abuse at the schools, violence and neglect inflicted on the children.

Haaland penned an op-ed for the Washington Post on June 11 in which she recounted the history of indigenous boarding schools — including the experience of her maternal grandparents, who were forced into a school in Pennsylvania from ages 8 to 13. Some studies indicate that nearly 83% of all Indigenous school-age children were in boarding schools by 1926, according to Haaland’s op-ed.

“My family’s story is not unlike that of many other Native American families in this country,” she wrote. “We have a generation of lost or injured children who are now the lost or injured aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents of those who live today.”

“Many of the boarding schools were maintained by the Interior Department, which I now lead. I believe that I — and the Biden-Harris administration — have an important responsibility to bring this trauma to light,” she continued.

Navajo Nation president Nez [no last name] told NBC News he supports the initiative. “From my perspective as a Navajo person, there are so many atrocities and injustices that have been inflicted upon Native Americans dating back hundreds of years to the present day that also require national attention, so that the American society in general is more knowledgeable and capable of understanding the challenges that we face today.”

Christy Price

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