United States: Interior Department's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative finds 417 church-partnered schools and a federally funded assimilation system

Proceedings

1. 2022-05-11 · official-finding

   U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., USA. Volume 1 of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigative report, released 11 May 2022, documented that the federal government operated or supported 408 boarding schools across 37 states and territories (including Alaska and Hawaii) from 1819 to 1969, employing systematic militarized and identity-suppression methods, and identified marked or unmarked burial sites at approximately 53 schools, with the number expected to grow.

2. 2024-07-30 · official-finding

   U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., USA. Volume 2, the initiative's final report, released 30 July 2024 after review of approximately 103 million pages of government records, updated the list to 417 institutions, documented at least 973 recorded student deaths and dozens more burial sites, detailed the participation of religious institutions and organizations in operating the system, and found the government appropriated more than $23.3 billion (FY23-adjusted) to fund the system and related assimilation policy between 1871 and 1969. The report issued policy recommendations to Congress and the Executive Branch for redress.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• compulsory removal of Native children from families under federal policy; residential control combined, at many schools, with a religious order's or denomination's own institutional authority over the children in its custody