Biden expected to apologize for federal government’s role in Indian boarding schools

President Joe Biden is expected to issue an apology to the Native American community for the federal government’s role in the abusive Indian boarding schools that forced Native American children to assimilate over a 150-year period, two sources familiar with the plans said.

President Joe Biden is expected to issue an apology to the Native American community for the federal government’s role in the abusive Indian boarding schools that forced Native American children to assimilate over a 150-year period, two sources familiar with the plans said. Biden is expected to make the announcement during a visit at the Gila Crossing Community School outside of Phoenix on Friday as he makes his first trip to Indian Country while in office. “The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods,” the White House said Thursday. “In making this apology, the president acknowledges that we as a people who love our country must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful. And we must learn from that history so that it is never repeated.” The Washington Post first reported the expected apology. In 2021, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, commissioned the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to review the impact of the federal boarding school policies. The department issued a final report this summer confirming at least 973 Native American children died while attending these federal boarding schools. The review found at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 different schools. At least 18,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend more than 400 Indian boarding schools across 37 states or then-territories between 1819 and 1969.