Joe Biden apologizes to Native Americans for federally funded Indian boarding schools

Calling it “one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” US President Joe Biden has expressed regret to Native Americans for the 150-year-long practice of abusing Indigenous children and forcing them to assimilate at federally sponsored Indian boarding schools, CNN reported.

In Laveen, Arizona, Biden said, “Quite frankly, there is no excuse that this apology took 150 years to make,” after a request for a minute of silence to “remember those lost and the generations living with that trauma.”

In 37 states or then-territories, at least 18,000 children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to more than 400 boarding institutions between 1819 and 1969, CNN reports.

The first Native American to hold a Cabinet position, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, established the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative in 2021 to examine the effects of the institutions on Native Americans. According to their final study, which was released this summer, at least 973 Native American students lost their lives while enrolled in these government boarding schools.

“As president,” Biden said, “I believe it is important that we do know there were generations of native children stolen, taken away to places they didn’t know, with people they never met, who spoke a language they had never heard.”

“Native communities silenced – their children’s laughter and play were gone.” According to him, “…Children abused emotionally, physically and sexually abused, forced into hard labor, some put up for adoption without the consent of their birth parents, some left for dead and unmarked graves,” he said.

According to President Biden, the children that came home were “wounded in body and spirit.” He spoke at the Gila Crossing Community School, which is located outside of Phoenix.
In addition to being the first time a sitting president has visited tribal territories in a decade, Biden’s visit was his first time as US President to visit Indian Country. President Barack Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation earlier in 2014, according to CNN.

He said that “no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy.” He said, “We’re finally moving forward into the light.”