Sexual and psychological abuse, child labor in government-run schools, finds Department of Interior’s final report.
Nearly 1,000 Native American children died or were killed while forced to attend U.S. government-affiliated boarding schools, according to a report by the Interior Department.
The children are buried in 74 unmarked and marked graves, as tribes assess repatriation of remains and protection options more than five decades after U.S. policy shifted away from the practice. Nearly 19,000 children were estimated to be kidnapped from their families, often at gunpoint, and enrolled in government schools with the aim of assimilation, decimating tribal cultures, and reducing land possession.
While the department acknowledged the figures are underestimated, the data provide the fullest picture of the system’s scale, marking the end of a three-year initiative to unearth the toll and legacies of the nearly two-century long U.S. policy. Research was obscured by inconsistent public record keeping and that many records are held by private religious institutions.
The remains of 973 children were found at 65 schools and their surrounding communities, but the Department is withholding their locations “in order to protect against well-documented grave-robbing, vandalism, and other disturbances to Indian burial sites.”
The final report, released last week, also documented how the boarding school system negatively impacted genetics and health outcomes for Native families, who for generations have had the nation’s highest rates of substance abuse, suicidal ideation and chronic illnesses, such diabetes, arthritis, and cancer.
“As we have learned over the past three years, these institutions are not just part of our past,” Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bryan Newland wrote in the report’s opening letter. “Their legacy reaches us today, and is reflected in the wounds people continue to experience in communities across the United States.”