Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative

“I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we’re all proud to embrace.”    

— Secretary Deb Haaland 

Between 1819 through the 1970s, the United States implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of federal Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children by forcibly removing them from their families, communities, languages, religions and cultural beliefs. While children attended federal boarding schools, many endured physical and emotional abuse and, in some cases, died.

In June 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies with the goal of addressing their intergenerational impact and to shed light on the traumas of the past. 

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative included a number of efforts:

• Investigative Report: The Department, under the leadership of Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, conducted a first-ever investigation of the federal Indian boarding school system. The first volume was released in May 2022, and the second and final volume was released in July 2024. The investigation identified the number and details of institutions to include student deaths, the number of burial sites, participation of religious institutions and organizations, and federal dollars spent to operate these locations. It also included policy recommendations for consideration by Congress and the Executive Branch to continue to chart a path to healing and redress for Indigenous communities. Both volumes of the report as well as all the associated appendices can be found the Bureau of Indian Affairs website.
   
• The Road to Healing: In late 2023, Secretary Haaland and Assistant Secretary Newland completed “The Road to Healing,” a historic 12-stop tour across the country that provided Indigenous survivors the opportunity to share with the federal government their experiences in federal Indian boarding schools for the first time. The Road to Healing events including opportunities to connect survivors with trauma-informed support through the Department of Health and Human Service’s Indian Health Service and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Transcripts from visits on “The Road to Healing” are below:
   
  • Riverside Indian School, OK
  • Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, MI
  • Rosebud Sioux Tribe, SD
  • Gila River Indian Community, AZ
  • Navajo Nation, AZ, NM, UT
  • Tulalip Indian Tribes, WA
  • Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, MN
  • Sherman Indian High School, CA
  • Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, CA
  • Alaska Native Heritage Center, AK
  • Pueblo of Isleta, NM 
  • Montana State University, MT
     
• Oral History Project: The Department also launched an oral history project to document and make accessible to the public the experiences of generations of Indigenous then-children who attended the federal Indian boarding school system. Through a grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and with funding from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is currently interviewing survivors for what will be a collection of first-person narratives. 

The Department and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, part of the largest museum, research and education complex in the world, are partnering to explore how best to share with the public the history of the federal Indian boarding school system and its role in U.S. development, with a proposed focus on the never-told-before experiences of survivors.

Resources:

• Secretarial Memo launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
• Secretary Haaland op-ed: My grandparents were stolen from their families as children. We must learn about this history.
• Interior Department, National Endowment for the Humanities Partner to Preserve Federal Indian Boarding School Oral History and Records
• Secretary Haaland Announces Major Milestones for Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
• Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume I and II