On Friday, Joe Biden formally apologized for the United States government’s role in running at least 523 Indian boarding schools. His remarks were given at the Gila Crossing community school outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and marked his first visit to Indian country as president.
“After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program,” Biden said. “But the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened – until today. I formally apologize, as president of the United States of America, for what we did. I formally apologize. That’s long overdue.”
“Federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history,” he said. “For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention.”
Indian boarding schools were run with the express goal to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man”, a phrase coined by the army officer Richard Henry Pratt, who founded Carlisle Indian boarding school, the first federally run Indian boarding school. From 1819 to 1969, in what Biden called “one of the most horrific chapters in American history”, the US government directly managed or funded Indian boarding schools in nearly 40 states. The schools, at which formal education was limited, forcibly and systematically stripped Indigenous children of their culture by removing them from their families and communities, forbidding them from speaking their languages and, typically violently, punishing them if they resisted.
A US Department of the Interior report released earlier this year found that at least nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died in the schools. Sexual violence was commonplace. Dr Denise K Lajimodiere, an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and one of the founders of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, wrote that the “boarding school era represented a deliberate policy of ethnocide and cultural genocide and human rights abuses”.
“Some of our elders who are boarding school survivors have been waiting all of their lives for this moment,” said Stephen Roe Lewis, the Gila River Indian community governor. “If only for a moment on Friday, this will rise to the top, and the most powerful person in the world, our president, is shining a light on this dark history that’s been hidden.”
No president has ever apologized for the abuses that tens of thousands of Indigenous children faced in the schools.
Deb Haaland, the interior secretary and the first Indigenous person to hold the position, whose grandparents and great-grandfather were forced to attend the schools, traveled with Biden for the historic apology. As interior secretary, Haaland launched the first US government investigation into the boarding schools.
“For much of this country, boarding schools are places where affluent families send their children for an exclusive education,” Haaland said at the address. “For Indigenous peoples, they served as places of trauma and terror for more than 100 years.”
Haaland went further to acknowledge that the federal government was not successful in its goal of cultural assimilation.
“It failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways. It failed to destroy us because we persevered,” she said.
Two years ago, Dr Ramona Klein, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, testified before the House subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States about her experience, and described multiple abuses at the hands of officials at Fort Totten Indian boarding school in Fort Totten, North Dakota. She asked Congress to “help heal the deep wounds of the generations of Indigenous people who have been impacted by the United States’s boarding school policies and the treatment of Indigenous children”.
“I want resources to teach all Americans how boarding schools impacted and destroyed lives,” she said. “I want resources to teach all Americans how we see evidence of that destruction today in people who suffer from and commit domestic violence, who suffer and commit sexual abuse, who suffer from addiction because they’re trying to stop the pain and nightmares, who experience extreme poverty, and even in underperforming schools.”
The final boarding school report provided eight recommendations from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the federal government – beginning with calling for an official apology.
Chuck Hoskin Jr, the Cherokee Nation principal chief, said that the apology was “a profound moment for Native people across this country”. While he praised the Biden administration for the apology, he noted that “true healing goes beyond words – it requires action, resources and commitment”.
“We are grateful to President Biden and Vice-President Harris, and largely Secretary Haaland for her role in ensuring these truths were exposed and for leading the efforts in the boarding school Road to Healing initiative,” he said. “The significance of this public apology by the president on behalf of this nation is amplified and an important step, which must be followed by continued action.”
Cyrus Ben, the tribal chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, said that the apology was a “vital first step”, while acknowledging the long-term damage of the schools.
“Even today, Native students face challenges related to their identity,” he said, “whether it’s the significance of their long hair, the importance of speaking their languages, or the pride in wearing traditional attire and beadwork during significant milestones like graduation.
“This apology marks a vital first step toward a broader dialogue about Native Americans and a recognition that we are still here, thriving despite the historical injustices. I’m hopeful that these conversations will pave the way for meaningful change and deeper appreciation of Native peoples and their invaluable contributions to our society.”
