A first-of-its-kind federal report published this month on the history of Indian boarding schools signals the “very beginning” of a long national process toward healing deep generational wounds in Michigan and beyond, advocates say.
Native American boarding schools
Survivors of a U.S. policy that forced Indigenous children to attend boarding schools where they were abused, or went missing, detailed to members of a U.S. House Natural Resources panel during a Thursday hearing the need for Congress to establish a truth commission dedicated to unveiling the traumas Indigenous children experienced at the schools.
The atrocities committed at boarding schools designed and run by the federal government to eradicate Indigenous people were outlined by the U.S. Interior Department for the first time in a report published Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to begin releasing information next month from its investigation into federal boarding schools and their impact on Native American communities.
The dark and complex legacy of Native American boarding schools is not unique to Canada. The United States’ implementation of the residential school system closely mirrors its northern neighbor. But the American government has done far less to acknowledge that history or even mention it in history books. That is, until recently.