In case you missed it: A U.S. President just apologized to Native Americans for 150 years of boarding school policy
Sunday, November 10, 2024
President Joe Biden did something historic two weeks ago. It came up quickly and experienced a very short news cycle due to the impending presidential election. On Friday, October 25, the general election was just 11 days away and it eclipsed almost everything in the news.
Biden appeared at an event at the Gila River Indian Reservation outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where he passionately apologized for 150 years of boarding school policy.
He called it “a blot on American history.”
From 1819 to 1969 the boarding schools were used to instill new values into the children and eradicate their tribal identities. In the course of that work, many children were abused and neglected. Many died.
Said Biden, “I formally apologize as President of the United States of America for what we did. I formally apologize. It’s long overdue… Generations of children were stolen, taken away to places they didn’t know, with people they’d never met who spoke a language they never heard.”
The U.S. Department of the Interior has documented nearly 1,000 confirmed deaths across more than 500 native boarding schools nationwide.
Canada, too, has its own record with similar boarding schools. On June 11, 2008 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a full apology for Canada’s policies that resulted in 150,000 Aboriginal children being placed in an Indian Residential School system. In recent years remains of hundreds of children were discovered buried on the grounds of a British Columbia residential school.
A September 30, 2022 article in the Journal of the San Juan Islands dealt with intergenerational trauma resulting from experiences in Indian boarding schools among residents of the San Juans.
SanJuans.Today is interested in interviewing First People regarding their own impressions of the President’s formal apology. If you’d like to be interviewed, write to [email protected].
