The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was created in June 2021 by Deb Haaland, the United States Secretary of the Interior, to investigate defunct residential boarding schools established under the Civilization Fund Act and that housed Native American children. [1] [2] It is an effort to document known schools and burial grounds, including those with unmarked graves. There will be an attempt to identify and repatriate children's remains to their families or nations.
Haaland announced the creation of the initiative at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 2021 Mid Year Conference. She initiated this in response to an announcement in May 2021 of the discovery of 215 unidentified remains found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, which had a large program of boarding schools similar to those in the United States for assimilation of native children. [3] [4]
The initiative will involve an investigation of boarding schools in the United States and former territories in an effort to document all known schools, assess their effects, and identify missing children. Haaland said that teams would find and review records, and speak with members of local tribes and survivors. Effects of the schools are to be documented, in addition to recording accounts of missing children. [5] Plans are underway to have investigations of unmarked graves at some of the larger schools.
Initially projected for release in April 2022, the first report was released May 11, 2022. In addition to documenting hundreds of schools and their programs, it includes next steps in the federal initiative, including a search for children's remains. [6] [7]
It is estimated that there were over 350 American Indian boarding schools in operation across the United States at one time. There are still Native American boarding schools in operation through the Department of the Interior, [8] [9] but these schools are now under day-to-day management by the Bureau of Indian Education. [10]
The investigation includes a series of Road to Healing events to bring together survivors and their stories. [11]
This initiative was applauded by Native tribes and organizations, including the National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Child Welfare Association, Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. [12] [13] [14] [15] National Congress of American Indians President, Fawn Sharp, of the Quinault Indian Nation [16] released the following statement on the initiative:
"“The National Congress of American Indians commends the Department of Interior for taking the essential first step of providing an official account of the atrocities that Native children experienced during the boarding school era. By documenting who, what, when and where these egregious abuses occurred, Native families may not be able to fully heal, but they may be able to begin to reconcile with the past. Many mothers, fathers, siblings, and children of boarding school victims and survivors have walked on without ever knowing the full extent of what happened to their loved ones. But knowledge is power. By learning the truth, we can finally begin reconciling the past and healing for the future.”." [17]
Upon hearing of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, Canadian Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations, Carolyn Bennett offered records to the United States, if needed, that had been collected by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation since 2016. [18] Numerous tribes and First Nations have territories that span the historic border between Canada and the US, and their children may have been in schools on either side.
On May 11, 2022, Volume 1 of the report was released. In addition to summarizing the investigation, it identified further steps that would need to be taken. A second volume is anticipated. As information for Volume 1 was being collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, many federal offices were closed, which hindered investigation efforts. [19]
Volume 1, officially named the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report [20] identifies 408 boarding schools and at least 53 burial sites that operated across the mainland United States, Alaska, and Hawaii over a 150-year period. The 106-page report explains the laws and policies that aided in creation of the schools, the role of religious organizations in running the schools, and some of the adverse practices and conditions that prevailed in treatment of native children to force assimilation. [21] [22]
Volume 2, officially named the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report Vol. II, discovered that sixty-five federal boarding schools contained gravesites for Native American children, and found that "at least" 973 children died in the federal school system. [23] [24]
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural resources, leading such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Park Service. The secretary also serves on and appoints the private citizens on the National Park Foundation Board. The secretary is a member of the United States Cabinet and reports to the president of the United States. The function of the U.S. Department of the Interior is different from that of the interior minister designated in many other countries.
The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources. It also administers programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, territorial affairs, and insular areas of the United States, as well as programs related to historic preservation. About 75% of federal public land is managed by the department, with most of the remainder managed by the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service. The department was created on March 3, 1849. It is headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to Native Americans and Alaska Natives, and administering and managing over 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km2) of reservations held in trust by the U.S. federal government for indigenous tribes. It renders services to roughly 2 million indigenous Americans across 574 federally recognized tribes. The BIA is governed by a director and overseen by the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, who answers to the Secretary of the Interior.
The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various Christian churches. The school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. Over the course of the system's more than hundred-year existence, around 150,000 children were placed in residential schools nationally. By the 1930s, about 30 percent of Indigenous children were attending residential schools. The number of school-related deaths remains unknown due to incomplete records. Estimates range from 3,200 to over 30,000, mostly from disease.
Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) is a tribal boarding secondary school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is affiliated with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).
Chemawa Indian School is a Native American boarding school in Salem, Oregon, United States. Named after the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley, it opened on February 25, 1880 as an elementary school. Grades were added and dropped, and it became a fully accredited high school in 1927, when lower grades were dropped.
Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc, abbreviated TteS and previously known as the Kamloops Indian Band, is a First Nations government within the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, which represents ten of the seventeen Secwepemc band governments, all in the southern Central Interior region, spanning the Thompson and Shuswap districts. It is one of the largest of the 17 groups into which the Secwepemc (Shuswap) nation was divided when the Colony of British Columbia established an Indian reserve system in the 1860s.
The Kamloops Indian Residential School was part of the Canadian Indian residential school system. Located in Kamloops, British Columbia, it was once the largest residential school in Canada, with its enrolment peaking at 500 in the 1950s. The school was established in 1890 and operated until 1969, when it was taken over from the Catholic Church by the federal government to be used as a day school residence. It closed in 1978. The school building still stands today, and is located on the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist U.S. federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilation of their people. These were in contradiction of their treaty rights and status as sovereign entities. The organization continues to be an association of federally recognized and state-recognized Indian tribes.
American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and youth into Anglo-American culture. In the process, these schools denigrated Native American culture and made children give up their languages and religion. At the same time the schools provided a basic Western education. These boarding schools were first established by Christian missionaries of various denominations. The missionaries were often approved by the federal government to start both missions and schools on reservations, especially in the lightly populated areas of the West. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries especially, the government paid Church denominations to provide basic education to Native American children on reservations, and later established its own schools on reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also founded additional off-reservation boarding schools. Similarly to schools that taught speakers of immigrant languages, the curriculum was rooted in linguistic imperialism, the English only movement, and forced assimilation enforced by corporal punishment. These sometimes drew children from a variety of tribes. In addition, religious orders established off-reservation schools.
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, originally and still colloquially known as Orange Shirt Day, is a Canadian holiday to recognize the legacy of the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Debra Anne Haaland is an American politician serving as the 54th United States Secretary of the Interior. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the U.S. representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021 and as chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017. Haaland, a Native American, is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe.
Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255 (2023), was a Supreme Court of the United States case brought by the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, and individual plaintiffs, that sought to declare the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) unconstitutional. In addition to Haaland v. Brackeen, three additional cases were consolidated to be heard at the same time: Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen, Texas v. Haaland, and Brackeen v. Haaland.
The Kuper Island Indian Residential School, also known as Kuper Island Indian Industrial School, was a Canadian Indian residential school located on Kuper Island, near Chemainus, British Columbia, that operated from 1889 to 1975. The school was operated by the Roman Catholic Church, with funding from the Department of Indian Affairs.
The Marieval Indian Residential School was part of the Canadian Indian residential school system. Located on the Cowessess 73 reserve in Marieval, Saskatchewan, it operated from 1898 to 1997. It was located in Qu'Appelle Valley, east of Crooked Lake and 24 km (15 mi) north of Broadview.
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is a nonprofit created in June 2012. It is composed of more than eighty organizations that are dedicated to healing Native American communities affected by Indian Boarding Schools in the United States.
The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous children directed and funded by the Department of Indian Affairs. "A genocidal policy, operated jointly by the federal government of Canada and the Catholic, Anglican, United, and Presbyterian Churches... rife with disease, malnutrition, poor ventilation, poor heating, neglect, and death," the goal of the residential school systen between 1828 and 1997 was "assimilating First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children into white settler society". Over 4,000 students died while attending Canadian residential school. Students' bodies were often buried in school cemeteries to keep costs as low as possible. Comparatively few cemeteries associated with residential schools are explicitly referenced in surviving documents, but the age and duration of the schools suggests that most had a cemetery associated with them. Many cemeteries were unregistered, and as such the locations of many burial sites and names of residential school children have been lost.
Sarah Eagle Heart is a Native American producer, writer, and activist. She serves as CEO of Return to the Heart Foundation, a grantmaking group founded in 2020 first to get out the vote.
Habeas petitions in Alaska often originate from families whose children were sent to boarding schools set up for Native Alaskans. These petitions allowed some families to reclaim custody of their children. These boarding schools were set up by Christian missionaries to assimilate the Native Alaskans into Euro-American culture.
On 30 July 2024, a federal government investigation commissioned by United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland revealed that it had found gravesites at sixty-five of over 417 United States federal boarding schools used for forceful assimilation of Native American children into White American culture and society. As a result of the federal boarding school system, "at least" 973 Native American children were found to have died, many of whom were buried in unmarked or marked graves.
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