My Family Survived the Horrors of Native American Boarding Schools – Why Biden’s Apology Doesn’t Go Far Enough

(Conversation) – I am a direct descendant of family members who were forced to attend an Indian boarding school run by the US government or the church as children. This includes my mother, all four of my grandparents, and most of my great-grandparents.

On October 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first US president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Indian children to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the most “horrific chapters” in US history and a “badge of shame.” “But he didn’t call it genocide.

However, over the past 10 years, many Aboriginal historians and scholars have said that what happened at Indian Residential Schools “meets the definition of genocide.”

From the 19th to 20th centuries, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without parental consent. The purpose of these schools was to deprive Native American children of their Native names, languages, religions, and cultural traditions.

The US government directly operated boarding schools or paid Christian churches to run them. Historians and scholars have written about the history of Indian residential schools for decades. But, as Biden noted, “most Americans don’t know about this history.”

As an Indigenous scholar of Indigenous history and a descendant of Indian Residential School survivors, I know of the “horrifying” history of Indian Residential Schools from both survivors and scholars who claim they were sites of genocide.

Was it genocide?

The United Nations defines “genocide” as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Scholars have examined various cases of genocide against indigenous peoples in the United States.

Historian Jeffrey Ostler argues in his 2019 book Surviving Genocide that the illegal annexation of Indigenous lands, the deportation of Indigenous peoples, and the numerous deaths of children and adults that occurred as they walked hundreds of miles from their homelands in the 19th century constituted genocide. .

The massacre of indigenous peoples after gold was discovered in what is now California in the 19th century also constitutes genocide, historian Benjamin Madeley writes in his 2017 book “American Genocide.” At that time, the mass migration of new settlers to California to mine gold led to the killing and displacement of indigenous peoples.

Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children in Indian boarding schools. Sociologist Andrew Woolford argues that scholars should start calling what happened in Indian residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries a “genocide” because of the “sheer destructiveness of these institutions.”

Wolford, former president of the International Association of Genocide Researchers, explains in his 2015 book This Benevolent Experiment that the purpose of Indian residential schools was “the forcible transformation of a multitude of indigenous peoples so that they no longer existed as an obstacle (real or perceived) to colonial settler dominance on the continent.”

Indigenous writers have explained how this transformation occurred in Indian residential schools. “Federal agents beat Indigenous children in such schools for speaking Native languages, kept them in unsanitary conditions, and forced them into manual and hazardous forms of labor,” writes Indigenous law professor Maggie Blackhawk.

What my grandmother witnessed

Interior Secretary Debra Ann Haaland said every Native American family suffered the “trauma and terror” of Indian residential schools. And my family is no different.

One of the most horrific stories my maternal grandmother shared with her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student. They were both under 10 years old. A student died from poisoning after lye soap was put in her mouth as punishment for speaking an Indigenous language.

We know that similar punishments have happened and children have died in Indian boarding schools. In 2024, the Home Ministry reported that 973 children died in Indian boarding schools.

Tribes are increasingly seeking the return of the remains of children killed and buried in Indian residential schools.

Lasting Legacy

The US government is beginning to encourage survivors to tell stories about their experiences at Indian boarding school. The Home Office is recording and documenting their stories on digital video and they will be placed in a government repository.

My 84-year-old mother is the only survivor of an Indian boarding school in our family. She shared her story with the Home Office last summer, along with dozens of other survivors.

Haaland said these “first-person accounts” could be used in the future to learn about the history of Indian residential schools and “ensure that no one ever forgets.”

“For too long, this nation has sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children,” Biden added at the apology ceremony, “but now your voices are heard.”

As a descendant of Indian Residential School survivors, I appreciate President Biden’s apology and his attempt to break the silence. But I am also convinced that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors experienced was genocide.

(Rosalyn R. LaPierre is a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of Religion News Service.)