The U.S. Department of the Interior released the first volume of its Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report on last week, highlighting 150 years of mistreatment in federal American Indian boarding schools.
The 106-page report underlines a century and a half of Native American children’s forced removal and relocation to 408 federal boarding schools in the U.S.
The boarding schools were built in response to the Civilization Fund Act of 1819, which was created to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly moving them away from their families and suppressing their cultural beliefs, according to the report.
The report found that American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children were subject to identity-alteration methodologies. Some of the methods included changing their names to English names, cutting their hair, preventing them from being able to use their native language, engaging in various cultural practices and observing their religion.
Six of these boarding schools existed in Idaho and 15 in Washington. Oklahoma housed the most boarding schools in the country with 79.
Washington
• Chehalis Boarding and Day School — Oakville
• Colville Mission School — Kettle Falls
• Cushman Indian School — Tacoma
• Fort Simcoe Indian Boarding School — White Swan
• Fort Spoke Boarding School — Davenport
• Neah Bay Boarding and Day School — Neah Bay
• Puyallup Indian School — Squaxin Island
• Quinaielt Boarding and Day School — Taholah
• S’Kokemish Boarding and Day School — Olympia
• St. George Indian Residential School — Federal Way
• St. Joseph’s Boarding School — Federal Way
• St. Mary’s Mission School — Omak
• Tonasket Boarding School — Tonasket
• Tulalip Indian Industrial School — Tulalip Bay
• Tulalip Mission School — Priest’s Point
Idaho
• Fort Hall Boarding School — Fort Hall
• Fort Lapwai Training School — Fort Lapwai
• Lemhi Boarding School — Lemhi
• Mary Immaculate School at the Mission of the Sacred Heart of DeSmet — De Smet
• Nez Perce boarding School — Lapwai
• St. Joseph’s Mission School — Culdesac
Manual Labor and Unmarked Graves
The report comes less than a year after Deb Haaland, the U.S. secretary of the interior, announced at the National Congress of American Indians 2021 Mid Year Conference that the Department of the Interior would begin a review of the United States’ troubled history with federal boarding schools.
Haaland became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary in 2021 after being nominated by President Joe Biden. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and is a 35th generation New Mexican.
“The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies — including the intergenerational trauma caused by the family separation and cultural eradication inflicted upon generations of children as young as 4 years old — are heartbreaking and undeniable,” Haaland said in a news release.
“We continue to see the evidence of this attempt to forcibly assimilate Indigenous people in the disparities that communities face,” Haaland continued.
Along with suppressing the identities of Indigenous children, the report also found that the schools primarily focused on manual labor and vocational training, which left graduates with few applicable job skills in the U.S. workforce, further crippling tribal economies and communities.
The investigation also identified marked and unmarked burial sites at 53 different schools. The locations of the burial sites were not disclosed in the report. The discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada was a precursor to the Department undertaking the investigative report.
The report will now move onto a second volume, aided by a $7 million investment from Congress.
Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian affairs for the Department of the Interior, recommended using the investment to produce a list of the burial sites, approximate the amount of federal funding used to support the boarding schools and further investigate the legacy impacts of the school system on Native communities today.
