A new Interior Department report says over 500 Indigenous children died at the boarding schools, but the department expects that number to rise into the thousands as its probe continues.
The U.S. is acknowledging the large-scale and violent treatment of Indigenous students at more than 400 Indian boarding schools run by the federal government between 1819 and 1969, according to a report released by the Department of Interior on Wednesday. Over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children’s deaths occurred at 19 of the federal Indian boarding schools, according to the report. In total, 53 marked and unmarked burial sites were identified at these school facilities nationwide. The investigation is ongoing, and the department said it expects “the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Beginning in the early 19th century in the U.S., Indigenous children were “selected” from reservation schools and moved away from their families to attend the government-chartered schools, which were often subcontracted to Presbyterian, Catholic and Episcopalian religious organizations to operate, the report said. The Indian boarding schools, which were often located at active or decommissioned military sites, separated children from their families and forced them to abandon their native language and culture through what the report termed “systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies.”
The children had their hair cut and were given English names. They were forced to adhere to strict schedules that included lessons in English, obedience, cleanliness and Christianity. According to the report, each day was so strictly systemized that there was “little opportunity to exercise any power of choice.”
When children failed to meet school standards or broke rules, they were “subject to corporal punishment, including solitary confinement; flogging; withholding food; whipping; slapping; and cuffing.
