For the first time in its 248-year existence, the United States government investigated its own Federal Indian Boarding Schools, a genocidal element of the racist settler colonial project by which the country was formed. From the passage of the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 up until 1969, the U.S. government stole Indigenous children from their parents, and separated and killed family members as part of a broader policy to steal territory and sever the cultural, economic and spiritual ties between Indigenous peoples.
Children were forced into boarding schools to assimilate to the European settlers’ way of life. They lived in harsh conditions and were subjected to forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, death, disease, and starvation. Indigenous children dealt with a full erasure of their identity — having their physical appearance altered, names changed, and Christianity forced upon them. The justification used by the U.S. government was to “kill the Indian, save the man,” as said by Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the first boarding school, Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
Launched by U.S. Dept. of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Indigenous person to hold the position — the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative included a lengthy fact-finding mission along and a pathway for the government to pave a road to healing. Read our newest article featuring the two investigative reports on boarding schools. Unicorn Riot attended three ‘Road to Healing’ listening sessions, see our coverage below.
