Biden Apologizes for Government Role in Residential Indian Schools
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The election is at the top of our minds now, but Joe Biden did something important on Friday. He visited the Gila Crossing community school outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and apologized for the United States government’s role in running Indian boarding schools.
There was one on Cerillos Road when I moved to Santa Fe. The property was turned over to a group of Northern Pueblos, but there were bad memories. There were buildings from the late nineteenth century. The new owners razed them all. Every single one that had to do with that terrible time.
Newer ones had been built, and they are still there. Like a lot of other schools, there are funding issues. The students choose their curriculums and go on to good colleges. Their graduation was covered in our local newspaper last year, with photographs of proud parents and children carrying on traditions.
The residential schools were intended 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. Children were removed from their parents and community and were forced to speak only English and dress like the colonists.
There was sexual abuse and death. The grounds of former residential schools are being combed for graveyards for which no records were kept.
Secreatary of Interior Deb Haaland, whose grandparents were forced to attend the schools, accompanied President Biden. Representatives from a number of Indian nations traveled to be present at the apology.
The coverage is worth reading.
Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund Response to President’s Indian Boarding School Apology
Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris
Background on the schools from NYT (gift link)