World Courant
President Biden on Friday supplied a “lengthy overdue” formal apology from the federal government for the Federal Indian Boarding Faculty Initiative, describing it as “one of the horrific chapters in American historical past.”
The U.S. Division of the Inside says this system, which lasted over a 150-year interval that resulted in 1969, established 408 faculties throughout 37 states to “culturally assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian youngsters by forcibly eradicating them from their households, communities, languages, religions and cultural beliefs.”
“After 150 years, america authorities finally stopped this system. However the federal authorities has by no means, by no means formally apologized for what occurred — till at present,” Biden advised an viewers whereas talking on the Gila River Indian Group in Arizona. “I formally apologize, as President of america of America, for what we did. I formally apologize. That is lengthy overdue.”
“At first, within the 1800s, the trouble was voluntary, asking tribes… to ship their youngsters away to vocational faculties. However then the federal authorities mandated the removing of youngsters from their households and tribes, launching what’s referred to as the Federal Indian Boarding Faculty period,” he stated.
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President Biden speaks on the Gila Crossing Group Faculty in Laveen, Arizona, on Friday. (AP/Rick Scuteri)
“One of the crucial horrific chapters in American historical past,” Biden continued. “We ought to be ashamed, a chapter that almost all Individuals do not learn about.”
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Attendees clap at an occasion with President Biden on the Gila Crossing Group Faculty on the Gila River Indian Group reservation in Laveen, Arizona, on Friday. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“Generations of native youngsters stolen, taken away to locations they did not know, with individuals they by no means met, who spoke a language they’d by no means heard. Native communities silenced. Their youngsters’s laughter and play had been gone,” Biden additionally stated. “Kids would arrive at faculties, their garments taken off, their hair that they had been advised was sacred, was chopped off, their names actually erased, changed by a quantity or an English identify.”
President Biden stated throughout his speech that the Federal Indian Boarding Faculty period was one of many “most horrific chapters in American historical past.” (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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A minimum of 973 Native American youngsters died throughout this system, throughout which greater than 18,000 had been taken from their mother and father, in response to The Related Press.
Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox Information Digital.
Biden apologizes for federal Indian boarding faculties: ‘One of the crucial horrific chapters in American historical past’
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