President Joe Biden will issue a formal apology on Friday for the government-run boarding school system that has forcibly separated generations of Native American children from their families.
“I’m going to do something that’s long overdue: make a formal apology to the people of India for the way we’ve treated their children for so many years,” Biden told reporters Thursday. “That’s why I’m going. That’s why I’m going to the West.”
Biden will speak at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo party, the first Native American to serve as cabinet secretary, and Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, will join Biden on his visit. Phoenix.
During a White House briefing Thursday, Haaland said members of his own family were forced into the boarding school system, and he called Biden “the best president for Indian country in my lifetime.”
“For decades, this horrific chapter has been hidden from our history books, but now our administration will make sure no one forgets,” Haaland said.
Cherokee Nation CEO Chuck Hoskin Jr statement On Thursday, he said the apology was “long overdue” and “must be followed up with sustained action”, including efforts to protect native languages and repatriate ancestors and cultural objects.
“President Biden’s apology is a profound moment for Indigenous people across this country,” Hoskin said. “I applaud the president for acknowledging the pain and suffering inflicted on tribal and boarding school survivors.”
Beginning in 1819 and continuing until at least 1969, the United States adopted a policy of establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools that sought the forced assimilation of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children. according to Department of Internal Affairs. Many students in the schools were abused and some died.
In June 2021, Haaland launched an initiative to investigate the federal Indian boarding school system and shed light on its traumas. Preliminary report on the system Published in 2022 It found that hundreds of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children had died while attending Indian boarding schools run or supported by the US government. This year, the second volume of the report was released.
The more recent report He found that the boarding school system stemming from Haaland’s initiative consisted of 417 institutions in 37 states or then-territories, and at least 973 deaths children enrolled in schools. The report also documented at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 school sites.
The 2024 report called on the federal government to establish a national memorial to both acknowledge the experiences of those in boarding schools and apologize to those harmed by the policy.