Indigenous families seek justice for boarding school abuse as graves of children uncovered

Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children over the span of 150 years were taken from their families and made to live in U.S. boarding schools. Some never came home.

Hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families over a span of 150 years, made to live in boarding schools across the U.S. that were run by the federal government and churches in an effort to force assimilation.

“It was a national policy to take Indian children, to beat their native language out of them, to remove them from their families so they wouldn't have that cultural teaching,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told “Nightline.”

“Native kids are born into not just their mother's arms, but into the arms of their entire communities … when you are born into that nurturing community and all of a sudden [you’re] ripped away from that – imagine how much trauma that would have on a child.”

According to Denise Lajimodiere, a Native American scholar and the author of "Stringing Rosaries," the purpose of these residential schools was “total assimilation into white European culture.” Native American children were forced to cut their hair and wear uniforms to conform.