Biden apologizes for Native American boarding schools

U.S. President Joe Biden visited the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix on Friday and formally apologized on behalf of the federal government for the U.S. Indian boarding school policy. It’s a solemn responsibility to be the first president to formally apologize to the native peoples and it’s long overdue, Biden said. For over 150 years, government-funded boarding schools separated Native American children from their families for forced assimilation. The policy is a blot on American history that’s not written about in our history books, he added.

How extensive was the boarding school program? The American government subsidized over 500 boarding schools for Native American children across the United States throughout the 1800s and 1900s, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. The effort began as a voluntary call to send tribal children to vocational schools but became forced, Biden said. Citing an unnamed individual he described as a survivor of the schools, Biden said Native American children were taken from their parents and abused emotionally, physically, and sexually, with some left in unmarked graves. It’s unknown how many children were forced into the schools but records show that over 80 percent of Indian school-age children were at boarding schools by 1926, the coalition reported.

How was the apology received? Biden’s appearance marked the first time a sitting president visited tribal lands in a decade. No presidential administration has done more for Indian country than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said. This is the first difficult but necessary step in the healing process, he added.