For more than a century, from the early 1800s to the 1960s, Native children were removed from their tribes — sometimes forcibly — to attend government assimilation boarding schools. On Friday afternoon, President Joe Biden will deliver a formal U.S. government apology to affected communities.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position, said her grandparents and mother were among those sent to these schools: “I understand that history,” she said. -she told host Brad Mielke on Friday’s episode of “Start Here.” ABC News’ flagship daily news podcast.
Elementary school class of Indian students with botanical specimens at the United States Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1901. (Boarding school for Native American students, founded in 1879 under U.S. government authority).
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“Children would come to these boarding schools. They would be stripped naked. Their hair would be cut. They would be forbidden to speak their native language and they would be beaten if they did,” Haaland said.
Haaland went on a listening tour to reservations to hear from tribal elders and descendants of people who attended these schools as part of a federal investigation into government boarding school programs and reported physical and emotional abuse as well as the deaths that have occurred.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 22, 2024 in Chicago.
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She also investigated those who never returned home and discovered that hundreds of children had been buried in unmarked sites far from their homes.
As part of his investigation, Haaland has drawn up a list of recommendations, the first of which is to issue a formal acknowledgment and apology from the U.S. government.
Debate class, Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1901. A young woman standing in front of a group of seated students. A partially visible board reads “Debate. Resolved: that the United States Senate »
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The White Rose Singers, made up of students from Sherman Indian High School, an off-reservation boarding school for Native Americans in Riverside, sing indigenous songs on the Morongo Indian Reservation near Banning, California, April 11, 2015.
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President Biden told White House reporters Thursday that he would travel to Arizona “to do something that should have been done a long time ago.”
“To offer a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we have treated their children for so many years,” he said. “That’s why I’m going.” That’s why I’m heading west.
Haaland told “Start Here” that an apology is the first step toward healing the trauma and pain.
“Frankly, Native American history is American history, so it’s important that survivors and descendants, I believe, feel seen.”
Justin Gomez of ABC News contributed to this report.
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