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The Horror of Native American Boarding Schools and Biden’s Inadequate Apology

December 28, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

A photograph archived at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque shows a group of Indigenous students who attended the Ramona Industrial School in Santa Fe.
A photograph archived at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque shows a group of Indigenous students who attended the Ramona Industrial School in Santa Fe. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

By Rosalyn R. LaPier

I am a direct descendant of family members that were forced as children to attend either a U.S. government-operated or church-run Indian boarding school. They include my mother, all four of my grandparents and the majority of my great-grandparents.

On Oct. 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Native American children to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the most “horrific chapters” in U.S. history and “a mark of shame.” But he did not call it a genocide.




Yet, over the past 10 years, many historians and Indigenous scholars have said that what happened at the Indian boarding schools “meets the definition of genocide.”

From the 19th to 20th century, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without the consent of their parents. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Indigenous names, languages, religions and cultural practices.

The U.S. government operated the boarding schools directly or paid Christian churches to run them. Historians and scholars have written about the history of Indian boarding schools for decades. But, as Biden noted, “most Americans don’t know about this history.”




As an Indigenous scholar who studies Indigenous history and the descendant of Indian boarding school survivors, I know about the “horrific” history of Indian boarding schools from both survivors and scholars who contend they were places of genocide.

Was it genocide?

The United Nations defines “genocide” as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Scholars have researched different cases of genocide of Indigenous peoples in the United States.

Historian Jeffery Ostler, in his 2019 book “Surviving Genocide,” argues that the unlawful annexation of Indigenous lands, the deportation of Indigenous peoples and the numerous deaths of children and adults that occurred as they walked hundreds of miles from their homelands in the 19th century constitute genocide.

The mass killings of Indigenous peoples after gold was found in the 19th century in what is now California also constitutes genocide, writes historian Benjamin Madley in his 2017 book “An American Genocide.” At the time, a large migration of new settlers to California to mine gold brought with it the killing and displacement of Indigenous peoples.

Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children at Indian boarding schools. Sociologist Andrew Woolford argues that scholars need to start calling what happened at Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th century “genocide” because of the “sheer destructiveness of these institutions.”

Woolford, a former president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, explains in his 2015 book “This Benevolent Experiment” that the goal of Indian boarding schools was the “forcible transformation of multiple Indigenous peoples so that they would no longer exist as an obstacle (real or perceived) to settler colonial domination on the continent.”

A black and white photo shows students seated in rows in a classroom, while the instructor is standing in front.
First- and second-grade students sit in a classroom at the former Genoa Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Neb. Researchers are now trying to locate the bodies of more than 80 Native American children buried near the school.
National Archives/AP

Indigenous writers have explained how this transformation at Indian boarding schools occurred. “Federal agents beat Native children in such schools for speaking Native languages, held them in unsanitary conditions, and forced them into manual and dangerous forms of labor,” writes Indigenous law professor Maggie Blackhawk.

What my grandmother witnessed

Secretary of the Interior Debra Anne Haaland has stated that every Native American family has been impacted by the “trauma and terror” of Indian boarding schools. And my family is no different.




One of the more horrific stories that my maternal grandmother shared with her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student. They were both under the age of 10. The student died of poisoning after lye soap was put in her mouth as a punishment for speaking her Indigenous language.

We know that similar punishments happened and children died at Indian boarding schools. The Department of Interior reported in 2024 that 973 children died at Indian boarding schools.

Tribes are increasingly seeking the return of the remains of children who died and are buried at Indian boarding schools.

A man seems to look intently as he digs with a shovel.
A worker digs for the suspected remains of children who once attended the Genoa Indian Industrial School, on July 11, 2023, in Genoa, Neb.
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

Lasting legacy

The U.S. government is beginning to encourage survivors to tell their stories of their Indian boarding school experiences. The Department of the Interior is in the process of recording and documenting their stories on digital video, and they will be placed in a government repository.




At 84 years old, my mother is the only living Indian boarding school survivor in our family. She shared her story with the Department of the Interior this past summer, as did dozens of other survivors.

Haaland stated these “first person narratives” can be used in the future to learn about the history of Indian boarding schools, and to “ensure that no one will ever forget.”

“For too long, this nation sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children,” Biden added at the apology ceremony, “but now your voices are being heard.”

As a descendant of Indian boarding school survivors, I appreciate President Biden’s apology and his effort to break the silence. But, I am also convinced that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors experienced was genocide.

Rosalyn R. LaPier is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Atwp says

    December 29, 2024 at 4:26 am

    Sad part of history. As an elderly African Man I wonder about the denials and lynching of my people. Have not read about Indians being lynched. My people were lynched. Not that this is good, but at least they were sent to boarding schools, at one time it was illegal for my people to attend school, we were not allowed to learn how to read. Am pretty sure Indian Males were raped, haven’t read about that but history says our our men were raped and murdered. Haven’t read where white women lied on Indian Men, but history say they lied on our Black Men, as a result many were murdered, and the killers got no punishment. AscI see it the Indians were treated better than the African Americans. I thank God death does not discriminate, I thank God the white murdering males die too. They killed millions of people yet they can’t escape their own deaths.

    1
  2. Deborah Coffey says

    December 29, 2024 at 7:59 am

    “The U.S. government operated the boarding schools directly or paid Christian churches to run them.”
    Not unlike many “Christians” today that cheer on Trump and his coming concentration camps for immigrants.

    1
  3. Pogo says

    December 29, 2024 at 9:23 am

    @Rosalyn R. LaPier (and FlaglerLive)

    No doubt, trump will make things right.

    SMH

  4. Jim says

    December 29, 2024 at 11:31 am

    I do understand the writer’s issue with the term genocide as it applies in this case.
    However, I don’t understand the need to criticize Joe Biden for failing to include the term in his apology for what happened. He did apologize. While it might now have been all the writer and other descendants would like to hear, it appears to have been an honest attempt to admit to a horrible episode of our past and acknowledge that it was wrong. I’m sorry that didn’t satisfy the writer.
    I might suggest that you contact Donald J. Trump and his administration and solicit a proper apology. I’m sure he has true concerns for your cause and will do a much better job than Biden.
    In all fairness, though, I won’t hold my breath waiting….

    1
  5. A. Noad says

    December 29, 2024 at 12:38 pm

    I would like to add that Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” spinoff, “Yellowstone: 1923” covers this subject as part of the tapestry of the old west in unsparing reality. It’s streaming on the Spectrum’s Paramount cable network on Sunday evening.

    3
  6. Endless dark money says

    December 30, 2024 at 1:52 pm

    No apology makes up for the atrocities the whites committed against the natives. hopefully people learn but we didn’t. Now we’re going to do the same to anyone a bunch of racist deem noncitizen or whatever even though that can be changed with the swing of a gavel. Hope those Christian’s are praying for the suffering they are gonna cause to all those people. They voted for hate and ignorance and they gonna get some. Enjoy watching the dumpster fire burn!

    0
  7. Engin says

    January 2, 2025 at 6:16 am

    This was a dark part of US history. We should be ashamed of our actions. But Being critical of Biden because he did not apologize well enough for this author is ridiculous. He apologized. Should he cut off a hand to prove his sincerity.

    1

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