BIDEN APOLOGIZES FOR “MOST HORRIFIC CHAPTERS” OF US HISTORY

Sat 26 October 2024:

In a landmark moment, President Joe Biden issued an apology on Friday for what he called “one of the country’s most horrific chapters”: the forced separation of Native American children from their families into government boarding schools with the aim of erasing their cultural identity.

From the early 1800s to the 1970s, the U.S. operated hundreds of boarding schools across the nation, designed to assimilate Native American children into European-American culture, often pushing Christian beliefs. A recent report exposed distressing accounts of abuse—physical, mental, and sexual—and documented the deaths of nearly a thousand children.

“I formally apologize, as president of the United States of America, for what we did,” Biden said, addressing the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Referring to the era as “one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” he added, “I know no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy… Today, we’re finally moving forward into the light.”

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Joining Biden was Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, who emphasized resilience: “Federal authorities failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways… Despite everything that has happened, we are still here.” Under the Biden administration, there have been initiatives supporting Native communities, from expanded Tribal autonomy to protections of sacred ancestral sites.

For nearly two centuries, church-run boarding schools in the U.S. aimed to “civilize” Native American children by separating them from their families and erasing their cultures. Starting in the early 1800s and continuing until the 1970s, these government-supported schools operated under an official policy of forced assimilation. Children were stripped of their traditional clothing, prohibited from speaking their native languages, and converted to Christianity—often under intense physical and psychological pressure.

Churches, mainly Catholic and Protestant, ran hundreds of these institutions across the U.S. with devastating consequences. Abuse reports reveal widespread physical, mental, and even sexual violence against children, as well as neglect, leading to significant trauma. Thousands of children died or went missing, many buried in unmarked graves on school grounds.

The recent U.S. government investigation into these schools has highlighted their dark legacy, with evidence of abuse documented across over 400 schools in 37 states. While official apologies have been made by both government leaders and some church representatives, the legacy of these schools remains a painful chapter in the history of Indigenous communities, whose resilience continues to shape their fight for justice and cultural preservation.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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