WASHINGTON D.C. – On July 30, United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the release of the final report by the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. The initiative was designed as “a comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies with the goal of addressing their intergenerational impact and to shed light on the traumas of the past.” In other words it was an effort by the U.S. government, which initially began in 2021, to investigate the actions taken by their predecessors against Native tribes. Three years later the final volume of their investigative report was released to the public.
According to the report, there were reportedly 417 different schools and institutions across 37 separate states and territories that were used for the purpose of the assimilation of Native children. Across these 417 locations, at least 973 Native children died while attending school. The report goes on to show the location of burial sites at around 65 different schools, and explains how the U.S. government spent the modern equivalent of $23.3 billion on these Native boarding schools, similar locations and assimilation policies in between 1871 and 1969.
In a press release, the U.S. Department of the Interior explained that the investigation portion of its mission is over, now they will begin a path to healing and reconciliation. The steps for this path include the following, according to the press release:
“1. Issuing a formal acknowledgment and apology from the U.S. government regarding its role in adopting and implementing national federal Indian boarding school policies; 2. Investing in remedies to the present-day impacts of the federal Indian boarding school system; 3. The building of a national memorial to acknowledge and commemorate the experiences of Indian Tribes, individuals, and families affected by the federal Indian boarding school system; 4. Identification and repatriation of remains of children and funerary objects who never returned from federal Indian boarding schools; 5. Returning former federal Indian Boarding school sites to Tribes; 6. Telling the story of federal Indian boarding schools to the American people and global community; 7. Investing in further research regarding the present-day health and economic impacts of the federal Indian boarding school system; and 8. Advancing international relationships in other countries with similar but their own unique histories of boarding schools or other assimilationist policies.”
When asked for comment, Muscogee (Creek) Nation Principal Chief David Hill had this to say in a statement posted on Facebook. “Thankful for the work of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative in finalizing and releasing this report. And relieved by the U.S. Government taking accountability for an era of forced assimilation, murder and erasure. Hopefully, we can use this as a mechanism of healing and we can all together move forward stronger than ever. Our presence and survival today is living proof of our unbreakable spirit.”
The full report can be viewed on the official Bureau of Indian Affairs website, bia.gov.
