Biden to apologize for abuses at indigenous boarding schools

Among the more than 500 boarding schools in the United States was the Stewart Indian Boarding School near Carson City, which operated from 1890 to 1980.

President Joe Biden is expected to issue an apology Friday for U.S. policies that created and sustained the existence of Native American boarding schools for a century and a half.

Biden is scheduled to speak at the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix. Apology expected to cover abuses More than 500 Native boarding schools operating in the United States In the 19th and 20th centuries.

Four of these boarding schools were in Nevada; among them was the Stewart Indian Boarding School near Carson City, which operated from 1890 to 1980.

Beginning in 1860, the federal government established compulsory boarding schools for Native American children in an attempt to assimilate them into white society, often abducting children as young as 4 years old. More than 60,000 children were sent to schools 2,000 miles from their homes. Nearly 900 deaths have occurred in schools as part of federal government policy.

Biden’s expected apology is the result of a three-year investigation into residential schools.

Tribal communities are grappling with the impacts of thousands of children returning home without language, cultural affiliation or parenting skills because they lack parental role models. Children exposed to chronic stress became dysfunctional adults whose efforts at parenting created a new generation with similar problems. Findings presented in published reports inside May 2022 And July 2024.

Crowded and unsanitary conditions awaited the kidnapped children

In 1879, U.S. Army officer Richard Henry Pratt founded one of the first federally funded schools off the reservation: the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Children at school were forced to cut their hair, wear uniforms and speak English.

Schools were overcrowded and unhealthy, and education and health services were inadequate. 1928 reportThe report known as the Merriam Report was found. The report stated that children were malnourished, diseases were spreading rapidly, and schools relied on manual labor. This “is prohibited by child labor laws in many states,” the report said.

According to the center, Congress in 1893 allowed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prevent the Bureau of Indian Affairs from providing food and supplies to parents or guardians who refused to enroll and keep their children in school. Some families hid their children to avoid detection, and some children fled schools “sometimes hundreds of kilometers,” according to the centre.

Governor Sisolak apologizes for Nevada’s role in 2021

Former Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak apologized for the state’s supportive role in federal policy toward the continuation of residential schools during his time in office.

“Even though it was the federal government that set the ‘kill the Indian to save the man’ policy, it was the state of Nevada that sold the bonds to finance this school, and it’s the state that now manages most of this land.” The governor said in December 2021: “I want to make an apology on behalf of this state.

“Accepting this role will not ease the pain. … But this is just the beginning, and I am proud to be the governor who takes this first step.”

Between 1890 and 1980, more than 20,000 children from 200 Tribal nations attended Stewart. Stewart Indian School graduate Dale Bennett was at the school from 1969 to 1973; He wrote about his experiences in his 2023 book: “Together We Endured: Foster Homes and Family’s Washoe Memories“

He recalled the day he was taken from his home when he was 5 years old: “I asked my sister, ‘What’s going on? Where are we? I want my mom and dad!’ I asked. He said: ‘I think we were taken away.'”

in 1913 Frank “Togo” Quinn was taken from a Paiute family in the Yerington reservation and we boarded Stewart. He was only 7 or 8 years old at the time and managed to escape and travel 80 kilometers across the open desert without assistance to get back to his home. Authorities sent Quinn back to school three times. They once chained him to another student to deter him from running away.

But nothing could stop Quinn from returning home. After crossing the desert for the third time, the authorities allowed him to stay.

Quinn was one of the few students who escaped and returned home. Many died on their way to school; There is a cemetery across the street where students are buried.

Family and community connections and Tribal cultural heritage also fell victim to residential schools, and heritage and traditions were irreparably damaged. The Washoe language, for example, was once spoken throughout the region, but the number of speakers of living languages had dwindled to just 20 as of 2011, according to University of California, Berkeley linguist Victor Golla. Efforts are ongoing to revitalize its use.

Bennett wrote: “My grandmother used to speak Washoe to me, so I learned the language and spoke it fluently. But when we left, I forgot it.”