Last week, President Joe Biden apologized for the horrific abuses suffered by Indigenous children at boarding schools across the U.S. that were supported by the federal government.
“The Federal Indian Boarding School policy and the pain it has caused will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history,” Biden said Friday during a ceremony at the Gila Crossing Elementary School in Laveen Village, Arizona. “For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools.”
For more than 150 years American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children were taken from their homes and their parents and sent to hundreds of boarding schools throughout the country. They were literally stripped of their clothes, their hair was cut, their names were changed, they were beaten for speaking their native languages. Their culture, their history, their religion, their identity was taken from them as they were brutally assimilated into white culture. Many were physically and sexually abused. Nearly 1,000 children are known to have died at the schools, which were often run by churches. Some of the schools operated until 1969.
This history was not known to most Americans.
“I formally apologize as president of the United States of America, for what we did,” Biden said.
“I know no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the Federal Boarding School policy,” the president said. “But today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.”
Biden’s apology on behalf of the U.S. government, which is overdue as he acknowledged, is a significant step. Yet, it is just the beginning of a new recognition of the history, mistreatment, rights and aspirations of Indigenous Americans.
Bill Hall, 71, of Seattle, was 9 years old when he was taken from his Tlingit community in Alaska and forced to attend a boarding school, where he endured years of physical and sexual abuse that lead to many more years of shame, the Associated Press reported. When he first heard that Biden was going to apologize, he said wasn’t sure he would be able to accept it.
“But, as I was watching, tears began to flow from my eyes,” Hall told the AP on Friday. “Yes, I accept his apology. Now, what can we do next?”
Biden’s apology follows an investigation commissioned in 2021 by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. A member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, Haaland is the country’s first Indigenous cabinet secretary. The investigation detailed the horrors of the residential schools and their abuses. This followed similar findings about residential schools in Canada.
A report from the investigation offered several recommendations, including the revitalization of Indigenous languages, mental health services for survivors and the return of the remains of children who were buried at the schools, which have long been shuttered. It also called for a fuller accounting of the schools and their atrocities, and a federal memorial to recognize and remember those who were forced to attend these schools.
These and other steps, especially those identified and supported by Indigenous communities, can be important moves toward accountability, understanding and healing. Biden’s historic apology is the beginning of this work, not an end.
