After years of investigations and a nationwide listening tour, the Department of the Interior today released the second and final volume of a report into federal Indian boarding schools, providing an account of a brutal network of institutions, alongside heartbreaking testimony from survivors.
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was launched in 2021 by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, as a way for the government to recognize the painful legacy of boarding schools. The first volume was released in 2022. She announced the new report in a press conference.
"I've made it a top priority to help tell the story of this terrible era in our country's history in its entirety," said Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna.
From the early 1800s until at least 1969, the United States attempted to culturally assimilate Native children by forcibly removing them to hundreds of federally-run boarding schools.
The new report was led by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe). It documents 973 children who died in the schools, where neglect and abuse were rampant.
But as the report also identifies at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 different school sites, it says more children died than those identified in official records. About 40 schools identified were in New Mexico.
"This trauma is not new to Indigenous people, but it is to many Americans," said Haaland.
Haaland also spoke about a 12-stop tour around the country last year, in which survivors of the boarding schools spoke about experiences as recently as the 1960s. Stops included the Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation.
The report includes excerpts from the harrowing testimony of people taken from their families as small children and subjected to violence and sexual abuse while forbidden to practice their traditions or speak their languages.
One person in Michigan testified: “I think the worst part of it was at night, listening to all the other children crying themselves to sleep, crying for their parents, and just wanting to go home."
Haaland said, "We are here because our ancestors persevered, and it is our duty to share their stories," her voice breaking.
Her department is working to create a permanent oral history from the recordings. The report also lists dozens of religious institutions which received government funding to run schools, including the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.
It includes recommendations for the government to help communities still struggling with the aftermath of the trauma of the schools, including cycles of addiction and violence.
Those include a formal apology and investment in remedies to the historic harms, such as violence prevention and supporting Indigenous languages.
While Secretary Haaland said she was sure President Biden would read the report, she did not elaborate on plans for Interior or other departments to execute the recommendations. In response to a question from a reporter as to why she did not, as cabinet secretary, apologize, she said, "I am sorry for anyone and everyone who is living with this intergenerational trauma."
But she added, "I can say I'm sorry. I am one person, right? And I believe very strongly that I am not all of the federal government."
