More than 500 Native American children died in many government boarding schools

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a Native American reuters

AFP reported US Department of the Interior May 11 published a report showing that more than 500 Native Americans, commonly known as “Indians” or “Natives of the Americas,” had died in boarding schools.

“About 19 federal Native American boarding schools resulted in more than 500 child deaths American Indians, Native Alaskans and Native Hawaiians,” the report reads. This report comes after an investigation conducted by the US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland ordered implementation in 2021.

“The ministry estimates that continuing the investigation will uncover the number of children Native Americans died at the boarding school Confederation for Indians numbered in the thousands or tens of thousands,” according to the report.

The report said burial sites were found in more than 50 of the more than 400 places taught in the Federal boarding school system for Indians from 1819 to 1969.

The report also lists punishments used at boarding schools but does not link them to deaths.

“Boarding school rules are often enforced with punishments, including corporal punishment such as solitary confinement, beatings, starvation, slapping and handcuffs,” according to the report.

Not only are children abused, children in the boarding school system are not taught useful skills for life after graduation.

The system, the report said, is “focused on manual labor and vocational training. This leaves American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians only able to do jobs unrelated to the economy. industrial economy of the United States, further disrupting the Tribal economy”.

A statement released alongside the report said the school system had a “dual goal of assimilation.” cultural and expropriation of indigenous territories through the forcible displacement and resettlement of their children”.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a Native American, condemned the traumatic impact on Native Americans that the boarding school system had had.

“Consequences of the policy federal boarding school for Native Americans – including the multi-generational traumas caused by family separation and de-culturalization in generations of 4-year-olds – is heartbreaking and undeniable. accept,” Haaland said.