Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died at Boarding Schools, Interior Dept. Finds

An investigative report, which also documents widespread sexual and physical abuse in a program of forced assimilation, calls on the federal government to apologize and “chart a road to healing.”

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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo citizen and the first Native American cabinet secretary, has led the effort in accounting for Native American children who attended federal boarding schools.

Nearly 1,000 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending boarding schools that were set up by the U.S. government for the purpose of erasing their tribal ties and cultural practices, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Interior Department.

“For the first time in the history of the country, the U.S. government is accounting for its role in operating Indian boarding schools to forcibly assimilate Indian children, and working to set us on a path to heal from the wounds inflicted by those schools,” Bryan Newland, the department’s assistant secretary for Indian affairs, wrote this month in a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland that was included in the report.

The report calls on the federal government to apologize and “chart a road to healing.” Its recommendations include creating a national memorial to commemorate the children’s deaths and educate the public; investing in research and helping Native communities heal from intergenerational stress and trauma; and revitalizing Native languages.

From the early 1800s to the late 1960s, the U.S. government removed Native children from their families and homes and sent them to boarding schools, where they were forcibly assimilated.

It spent nearly $25 billion in today’s dollars on the comprehensive effort, according to the investigative report released on Tuesday, including operating 417 schools across 37 states and territories where children were physically and sexually abused. They were also forcibly converted to Christianity and punished for speaking their Native languages.

The report identified by name almost 19,000 children who attended a federal school between 1819 and 1969, though the Interior Department acknowledges there were more.

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