President Joe Biden apologizes for public boarding schools

The Oneida Indian Nation has responded to President Joseph Biden’s recent remarks by apologizing to America’s Native Americans over public boarding schools.

“We are grateful to President Biden for his commitment to addressing the historical impact of the Indian residential school policy, and we are grateful to the Department of the Interior and Secretary Haaland for their ongoing efforts to shed light on the trauma caused by these policies,” Oneida Indian Nation said. spokesman Ray Halbritter said.

“These schools have left an indelible mark on the Oneida Indian Nation and all First Nations, and they are not a distant memory to us. Survivors live among our communities, and the trauma they experienced resonates with our families:

Halbritter called the apology a historic step forward in righting the wrongs of the past and “…bringing our communities together for the benefit of future generations.”

Biden: Apology ‘long overdue’

Biden said America’s apology to Native Americans over government-run boarding schools is “long overdue.”

On Friday, Biden spoke about abuses committed against students at indigenous boarding schools one and a half centuries ago. These public boarding schools separated students from their families and deprived them of their cultural heritage.

“After 150 years, the United States government ultimately stopped the program, but the federal government never, ever formally apologized for what happened until today,” Biden told an audience of more than 1,000 tribal and local leaders and tribal members . Gila River Indian Community. “As the United States of America, I formally apologize for what we did.”

Biden went on to call the incident “…a sin on our souls” and asked the audience to observe a minute of silence.

History of the Oneida Indian Nation with Residential Schools

In 2022, the Oneida Indian Nation established a Peace Walk near I-90 in Verona.symbolizing the harm caused by boarding schools.

Oneida Indian Nation officials said at the time that its members attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania between 1882 and 1918, when the school closed. More than 180 children who attended the school, the first public boarding school for American Indian children, are buried in the Carlisle Indian Cemetery.

Members of the Oneida Indian Nation also attended the Thomas Indian School on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in western New York between 1856 and 1957.

Trauma in a boarding school

Under Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Party and the first Indigenous Cabinet secretary, the federal government completed a three-year study that examined the failed federal policy of sending Indigenous children as young as four to far-flung boarding schools. policies that have led to generations of trauma.

Brian Newland, assistant minister of Indian Affairs, led much of the investigation and said Friday that during a visit to Australia to learn about the healing path being taken by Indigenous people, one of the women asked him when work to heal the tribal people would begin. be done.

“When, when will our work be completed? When will this be enough? Newland said. “The woman said, ‘When we raise a whole generation of people from birth who live full lives and then leave this earth without carrying the trauma of their ancestors, that’s when this work will be done.’

Information from the Arizona Sentinel was used in this report.