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After Apologies for Native American Schools, What’s Next?

Online Niel October 30, 2024

President Joe Biden visited the Gila River Indian community in Arizona on Friday and said what many Native Americans have been waiting to hear for more than a century.

Biden apologized for the abuse caused by a federal policy that took Native American children from their homes and sent them to overcrowded, unsanitary boarding schools, often hundreds of miles from their families.

“After 150 years, the United States government finally stopped the program, but the federal government has never formally apologized for what happened, until today,” Biden told a crowd of more than 1,000 tribal representatives . “I formally apologize as the United States of America for what I have done… It is a sin on our souls.”

Biden’s apology was the culmination of a three-year investigation into the more than 500 boarding schools in the US, the first of which was established in 1860. The schools’ stated purpose was to assimilate Native American children into white society. Hundreds of thousands of children, often abducted by the authorities, were sent to schools; at least 900 died while in school custody. Parents who refused to give up their children had their food rations and supplies withheld.

The conclusions of the federal investigation were presented in released reports in May 2022 and July 2024.

Four of these boarding schools were in Nevada, including the Stewart Indian Boarding School near Carson City, which operated from 1890 to 1980.

What Biden said and didn’t say

Stacey Montooth, executive director of the Nevada Department of Native American Affairs and a member of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s cabinet, watched Biden’s speech on Friday.

“I wasn’t just listening carefully to his words, I was watching for signs of real remorse,” Montooth told RGJ. “What I witnessed was empathy and genuine remorse.”

Still, she thought the speech could have gone further.

“Ideally, the president would have outlined some specific, measurable action steps to build his apology,” Montooth said. “Our tribal communities, especially our elders who have endured violence at the hands of the United States government, are in desperate need of resources to deal with this appalling 90-year policy. The physical and emotional toll of kidnapping and belonging to our families and our land continues. to wreak havoc in the lives of our people.”

Work to do

Montooth identified several actions he would like to see from the federal government after Biden’s speech, starting with health care. The agreements of over a century have the federal government obliged to provide free medical care to Native American populations.

“One of the easiest ways the federal government can begin to come to terms with its Indian boarding policy is to fully fund the Indian Health Service,” Montooth said. “Under the Biden administration, for the first time in history, the Indian Health Service received advance funding to help 2.6 million Native American patients.”

However, federal watchdog groups say those programs have gone unfunded for decades.

“This from the richest nation on the planet, despite the fact that our grandparents survived the mental, physical and sexual abuse that the leaders of this country allowed to happen,” Montooth said.

Meanwhile, the Truth and Healing Commission on the Indian Boarding Policy Act is stalled in Congress — a bill that would create a commission to further examine and address wrongdoing.

“The federal government has a moral obligation to our relatives and to all Americans to reveal the truth about how many Native Americans attended Indian boarding schools, what their names were, where they were sent, their tribal affiliations, and most importantly, what exactly happened in these 500-plus locations across our country,” Montooth said. “A federal commission can do this work.”

“Not too distant past”

For the past five years, the former Stewart campus has welcomed visitors as the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum. More than 15,000 visitors have toured the campus to date, Montooth said.

“Indian boarding schools are in the past, but in the not too distant past,” she said. “The public needs to understand that what has happened for 90 years, just below our state capitol, to every Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe and Mojave person is directly related to poor physical and mental health, low high school graduation rates and the high number of unemployment that our tribal and Native American communities are struggling with right now.”

Montooth said he hopes the apology speech could represent a turning point in relations between Native Americans and non-Native Americans.

“I absolutely believe that by uncovering and remembering the true stories of the first people on this earth, especially from the era of the Indian boarding school, all Americans will be better off,” Montooth said. “The Stewart Indian School Center and Museum is proof of that. “

Brett McGinness is the engagement editor for the Reno Gazette Journal. He is also the writer of The Reno Memo – a free newsletter about news from the Biggest Little City. Subscribe to the newsletter right here. Consider supporting the Reno Gazette Journalalso.