Final Investigative Report On Federal Indian Boarding Schools Released

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland yesterday released the second and final volume of the department’s investigative report looking into federally operated and supported Indian boarding schools.

“I am so proud of the strength of our team, our accomplishments here today and where this initiative will lead us,” Haaland said on a call announcing the report. “We are here because our ancestors persevered, and it is our duty to share their stories with people.”

The new report, part of the department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative launched in 2021, expands on the first volume by increasing the number of schools included and adding more details about the institutions including attendee deaths, burial sites, the participation of religious institutions and organizations and federal dollars spent to operate the facilities.

“For the first time in the history of this country, the United States government is accounting for its role in operating Indian schools to forcibly assimilate Indian children and working to set us on a path to heal from the wounds inflicted by those schools,” Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland said on the call. “Over the past three years, in no small part due to this initiative, we’ve witnessed a change in our nation’s understanding of these schools.”

The facilities include two in Riverside County: St. Boniface Indian School in Banning and Perris Indian School in Perris, which was later moved to Riverside and renamed The Sherman Institute. That school, now known as Sherman Indian High School, was the site of one of Haaland’s “Road to Healing” tour stops last August.

During that event, a number of people shared both their personal experiences as well as those of family members at Indian boarding schools throughout the country.

“It’s just that we’re trying to survive,” Kiete Vielle said at the event. “Our people have always been in survival mode, and finally, we have somebody in the office that will listen to us.”

As part of the final report, Newland included eight recommendations for the federal government including issuing a formal acknowledgment and apology, establishing a national memorial, returning former federal Indian boarding school sites to the tribes and telling the story of federal Indian boarding schools.

“These actions should be rooted in what we’ve learned that’s set forth in this report, as well as in consultation with Indian tribes and the people affected by these schools,” Newland said. “As we’ve learned over the past three years, these institutions are not just part of our past, their legacy reaches us today, and it’s reflected in the wounds people continue to experience in communities across the country.”

The report includes information on 417 institutions across 37 states and confirms that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending the schools. The report also identifies at least 74 burial sites at 65 different school sites and estimates that the U.S. government spent more than $20 billion (in today’s dollars) between 1871 and 1969 as part of the federal government’s assimilation efforts.

“Ultimately, this report further proves what Indigenous people across the country already knew, that federal policy set out to break us, to destroy our cultures and our life ways,” Newland said. “It’s undeniable that those policies failed, and now we must bring every resource to bear to restore what they set out to destroy.”

“Native American history is American history, and everyone must know this history,” Haaland said through tears. “It is history that has shaped our nation and that for too long has been swept under the rug, all while Indigenous communities grapple with the undeniable fallout of intergenerational trauma.”

Both volumes of the report as well as other supporting documents can be found here on the Bureau of Indian Affairs website.