Close to 1,000 dead in America’s indigenous schools

The United States is being asked to officially apologize after an investigation found that nearly 1,000 children died in boarding schools for Native Americans.

The investigation, initiated by the US Secretary of the Interior, shows that at least 973 children died from abuse, disease and harsh treatment in the US state boarding school system over a 150-year period.

The activities of the boarding schools, which were examined in the state investigation, continued until 1969.

Investigators have found both marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 boarding schools established to assimilate Native American children into the norms of the ruling society.

No specific cause of death is indicated on the graves, but the investigation’s officials say it was abuse, disease and accidents.

The inquiry, unveiled on Tuesday, was launched after several former students from the United States’ indigenous population spoke of the harsh treatment they endured when they were separated from their parents and forced into boarding schools.

In a first preliminary report from 2022, it was estimated that over 500 children had died during their schooling in boarding schools.

“The federal government took deliberate and strategic action through federal Native American residential schools to isolate children from their families, denying them their identities and their language, culture and connections that are fundamental to indigenous peoples,” wrote US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in connection with the report was published.

Haaland is the first minister in an American government to come from one of America’s indigenous peoples.