The federal Indian boarding schools

President Biden apologized to Native Americans on Friday for the US government’s role in creating and operating Indian boarding schools that for 150 years aimed to assimilate Native children by taking them from their families and erasing their languages and culture.

The federal government has never formally apologized for what happened until today. I formally apologize,

He founded and served as superintendent of the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School in Pennsylvania, the model for an estimated 150 other such boarding schools

kill the Indian in him, and save the man

In 1882, the federal Indian Appropriation Act set aside money to fund the boarding schools

to withhold food rations and supplies from American Indian parents or guardians who refused to enroll and keep their children in the Boarding Schools.

where only English could be spoken, and children were not allowed to use, speak about, or learn about their Native names, religion or culture

As of now, the official list of federal Indian boarding schools and maps include 417 institutions across 37 states or then-territories.

Volume II also finds that there have been at least 973 deaths of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiians while attending federal operated or supported schools

While most scholars who have studied boarding schools regard them as oppressive institutions and would likely accept cultural genocide as an apt term for their objectives

Boarding schools have also been characterized as institutions of outright genocide on the grounds that the mortality rate (from disease) within boarding schools was very high and that boarding schools took children from Native groups and in this way prevented births within them.