My Family Survived the Horrors of Native American Boarding Schools: Why Biden’s Apology Didn’t Go Far Enough

I am a direct descendant family members who were forced as children to attend Indian boarding schools run by the U.S. government or church. This includes my mother, all four of my grandparents, and most of my great-grandparents.

On October 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first US president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Indian children to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the “most”“horrific chapters” in US history and “badge of shame.” But he did not call it genocide.

However, over the past 10 years, many Aboriginal historians and scholars have stated that what happened at Indian Residential Schools, “meets the definition of genocide“

From the 19th to 20th centuries, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without parental consent. The purpose of these schools was to deprive Native American children of their Native names, languages, religions, and cultural practices.

The US government operated boarding schools directly or through payment. Christian churches to govern them. Historians and scientists have written about history of Indian boarding schools for decades. But, as Biden noted, “most Americans don’t know about this story.”

How Indigenous scientist As a student of Indigenous history and a descendant of Indian Residential School survivors, I know of the “horrific” history of Indian Residential Schools from both survivors and scholars who claim they were sites of genocide.

Was it genocide?

The UN defines “genocide”.as “the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Scholars have examined various cases of genocide against indigenous peoples in the United States.

Historian Jeffrey Ostlerin his 2019 book “Surviving genocide,” argues that the illegal annexation of Indigenous lands, the deportation of Indigenous peoples, and the numerous deaths of children and adults that occurred as they walked hundreds of miles from their homelands in the 19th century constituted genocide.

Massacres of indigenous peoples after gold was found in the 19th century in what is now California is also genocide, writes the historian Benjamin Madeley in his 2017 book “American genocide” At that time, the mass migration of new settlers to California to mine gold led to the killing and displacement of indigenous peoples.

Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children in Indian boarding schools. Sociologist Andrew Wolford argues that scholars should start calling what happened in Indian residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries a “genocide” because of the “sheer destructiveness of these institutions.”

Wolford, former president of the International Association of Genocide Researchers, explains in his 2015 book: “This charity experimentthat the purpose of Indian boarding schools was “the forcible transformation of the multitude of indigenous peoples so that they would no longer exist as an obstacle (real or perceived) to settler colonial rule on the continent.”

Native writers have explained how this transformation in Indian boarding schools. “Federal agents beat Indigenous children in such schools for speaking Native languages, kept them in unsanitary conditions, and forced them into manual and hazardous forms of labor,” writes the Indigenous law professor. Maggie Blackhawk.

What my grandmother witnessed

Interior Secretary Debra Ann Haaland said every Native American family has been affected by “trauma and horror» Indian boarding schools. And my family is no different.

One of the most horrific stories my maternal grandmother shared with her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student. They were both under 10 years old. A student died from poisoning after lye soap was put in her mouth as punishment for speaking an Indigenous language.

We know that there were similar punishments and children died in Indian boarding schools. In 2024, the Home Office reported that 973 children died in Indian boarding schools.

Tribes are increasingly looking for return of children’s remains who died and are buried in Indian boarding schools.

Lasting Legacy

The US government is starting encourage survivors to tell their stories about their experiences in an Indian boarding school. The Home Office is recording and documenting their stories on digital video and they will be placed in a government repository.

My 84-year-old mother is the only survivor of an Indian boarding school in our family. She shared her story with the Home Office last summer, along with dozens of other survivors.

Haaland stated these “first-person accounts”. can be used in the future learn about the history of Indian residential schools and “ensure no one ever forgets“

“For too long, this nation has sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children,” Biden added at the apology ceremony, “but now your voices are heard“

As a descendant of Indian Residential School survivors, I appreciate President Biden’s apology and his attempt to break the silence. But I am also convinced that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors experienced was genocide.

This article has been republished from Talk under Creative Commons license. Read original article.