Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
Investigative Report
May 2022
Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs
Bryan Newland
Table of Contents
1. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 3.............................................................
2. Executive Summary 5..................................................................................................
3. Overarching Instructions 10.......................................................................................
4. Data Collection Process and Review of Relevant Information 13...........................
5. Developing the Federal Indian Boarding School List 17 ..........................................
6. U.S. Law and Policy Framework: Indian Territorial Dispossession and Indian
Assimilation 20 ..............................................................................................................
6.1 U.S. War
-Making Power: The War Department’s Historic Role in Indian Affairs 25................
6.2 U.S. Treaty-Making Power: Indian Territorial Dispossession and Indian Assimilation 32 .........
6.3 Indian Child Removal: A Part of Historical U.S. Policy
35 .........................................................
7. Federal Indian Boarding School System Framework 37.........................................
8. The Role of Religious Institutions and Organizations in the Federal Indian
Boarding School System 46.........................................................................................
9. Federal Indian Boarding School System Conditions 51...........................................
9.1 Use of Child Labor
as Curricula, and in Response to Deficient Conditions 59...........................
10. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and Alaska Native Villages 64...........................
11. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and the Native Hawaiian Community 69.........
12. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and Freedmen 79 .................................................
13. Other Types of Schools 81...........................................................................................
14. Federal Indian Boarding School List 82....................................................................
15. Marked and Unmarked Burial Sites Across the Federal Indian Boarding School
System 85 .......................................................................................................................
16. Other Indian Institutions 87 ........................................................................................
17. Legacy Impact of the Indian Boarding School System 87 ........................................
18. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Findings and Conclusions 91..............
19. Recommendations of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Bryan Newland
95
...................................................................................................................................
United States Department
of
the Interior
OF
FICE
OF
TH
E SECRETARY
The Honorable Deb Haaland
Secretary
of
the Interior
Washington,
DC
20240
Dear Madam Secretary:
Washington, DC 20
24
0
APR
- 1
2022
On June 22, 2021, you issued a memorandum directing Department
of
the Interior (Department)
agencies to coordinate
an
investigation into the Federal Indian boarding school system to
examine the scope
of
the system, with a focus on the location
of
schools, burial sites, and
identification
of
children who attended the schools. You also directed that I submit a report
of
our investigation by April 1, 2022.
In accordance with your direction, I am submitting to you the first Federal Indian Boarding
School Initiative Investigative Report.
This report shows for the first time that between 1819 and 1969, the United States operated or
supported 408 boarding schools across
37
states (or then-territories), including
21
schools
in
Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. This report identifies each
of
those schools by name and
location, some
of
which operated across multiple sites.
This report confirms that the United States directly targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children in the pursuit
of
a policy
of
cultural assimilation that coincided with
Indian territorial dispossession.
It
identifies the Federal Indian boarding schools that were used
as a means for these ends, along with
at
least 53 burial sites for children across this system- with
more site discoveries and data expected as we continue our research.
The report highlights some
of
the conditions these children endured
at
these schools and raises
important questions about the short-term and long-term consequences
of
the Federal Indian
boarding school system on Indian Tribes, Alaska Natives, and the Native Hawaiian Community.
I am recommending further investigation to examine those consequences.
This report places the Federal Indian boarding school system in its historical context, explaining
that the United States established this system as part
of
a broader objective to dispossess Indian
Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian
Community
of
their territories
to
support the expansion
of
the United States. The Federal Indian
boarding school policy was intentionally targeted at American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native
Hawaiian children
to
assimilate them and, consequently, take their territories. I believe that this
historical context is important to understanding the intent and scale
of
the Federal Indian
boarding school system, and why it persisted for 150 years.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting closures
of
Federal facilities hampered our
ability to obtain
and
review a number
of
documents needed to answer all
of
the questions you
posed to us in your June 22, 2021, memorandum. Our work was also made more difficult by the
fact that the Department was operating under a continuing resolution for much
of
the past year,
which limited the funds available to examine some issues. For those reasons, I am
recommending further research under the appropriation authority Congress has granted under the
fiscal year (FY) 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L 117-103).
This report, as I see it, is only a first step to acknowledge the experiences
of
Federal Indian
boarding school children.
It
notes a desire from people across Indian Country and the Native
Hawaiian Community to share their individual and family experiences within the Federal Indian
boarding school system and the resulting impacts today. This report also presents an opportunity
for us to reorient
our
Federal policies to support the revitalization
of
Tribal languages and
cultural practices. This reorientation
of
Federal policy is necessary to counteract nearly two
centuries
of
Federal policies aimed at the destruction
of
Tribal languages and cultures. In turn,
we can help begin a healing process for [ndian Country and the Native Hawaiian Community,
and the United States, from the Alaskan tundra to the Florida everglades, and everywhere
in
between.
Thank you, Madam Secretary, for your leadership to look at the legacy
of
Federal Indian
boarding schools and to all who are working hard to complete this needed work.
Sincerely,
~
Bryan Newland
Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs
1
In 1886, the Apache Wars ended when Chiricahua Apache leader
Goyaałé (Geronimo) and his band surrendered to the United States.
1
Critical for westward expansion, the U.S. Senate passed the following
resolution thereafter: “Resolved, That the Secretary of War be
directed to communicate to the Senate all dispatches of General Miles
referring to the surrender of Geronimo, and all instructions given to
and correspondence with General Miles in reference to the same.”
2
Although neither Geronimo nor others in his band were charged with
or tried for crimes under U.S. courts, President Cleveland ordered for
Geronimo and his band to be removed from present-day Arizona and
held captive indefinitely in Florida as U.S. prisoners of war.
3
Under
U.S. military control, surviving Apache children were forcibly
removed from their families and shipped by train to the Carlisle Indian
Industrial School in Pennsylvania.
4
Some children were later returned
to their families as confinement of the Chiricahua Apache band
extended across U.S. military installations.
5
Demonstrating that all
Indians, including Indian children, hold a distinct political status in
the United States,
6
some Apache children never returned—
comprising one-fourth of Carlisle gravesites.
7
1
Annual Report to the Secretary of the Interior XLI (1886), Commissioner of Indian Affairs, [hereinafter ARCIA
for [year]].
2
S. Exec. Doc. No. 49-117 at 1 (1887).
3
ARCIA for 1886, at XLI.
4
Letter from the Secretary of the Interior (Feb. 2, 1887), in S. Ex. Doc. No. 49-73, at 1 (1887); ARCIA for 1887, at
XVII, 260 (detailing that the Apaches “‘now confined at Fort Marion, Saint Augustine, Fla.,’ are in the custody of
the military branch of the Government”).
5
Act of Feb. 18, 1904, 33 Stat. 26; Act of June 28, 1902, 32 Stat. 467; Act of Mar. 16, 1896, 29 Stat. 64; Act of
Feb. 12, 1895, 28 Stat. 658; Act of Aug. 6, 1894, 28 Stat. 238.
6
Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 553 n.24 (1974).
7
Jacqueline Fear-Segal & Susan B. Rose, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 152–185 (2016).
3
1. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
On June 22, 2021, t
he 54th Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, announced the
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, directing the Department of the Interior
(Department) by Secretarial Memorandum, to undertake an investigation of the loss of
human life and lasting consequences of the Federal Indian boarding school system.
9
For
nearly two centuries, the Federal Government was responsible for operating or overseeing
Indian boarding schools across the United States and its territories. Today, the Department
is therefore uniquely positioned to assist in the effort to recover the histories of these
institutions.
As described further
below, the United States has unique treaty and trust
responsibilities to Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and
the Native Hawaiian Community, including to protect Indian treaty rights and land and
other assets. To support these political and legal obligations, the Department protects and
stores critical archival records and other information relating to Indian Affairs. Important
goals of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative include:
• Identifying Federal Indian boarding school facilities and sites;
• Identifying names and Tribal identities of Indian children who were placed
in Federal Indian boarding schools;
• Identifying locations of marked and unmarked burial sites of remains of
Indian children located at or near school facilities; and
• Incorporating Tribal and individual viewpoints, including those of
descendants, on the experiences in, and impacts of, the Federal Indian
boarding school system.
9
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1931, at 4 (noting that in Indian education “one kind of a philosophy and one kind of a
system have been established a long time”); ARCIA for 1916, at 9, 10 (noting “require[ment] [for] “a system of
schools,” “a practical system of schools,” “uniform course of study for all Indian schools marks a forward step in the
educational system,” “system of education”); ARCIA for 1899, at 437 (describing “The Development of the Indian
School System”); ARCIA for 1886, at LX (documenting “control [of] the Indian school system,” “supervision of the
Indian school system,” “history and development of the Indian school system,” and “divisions and operation of the
system”); Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of War 61 (1846) (documenting the
“system of education”); Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of War 516 (1839) (noting
“manual-labor system”); Report on Indian Affairs to the Secretary of War 61 (1828) (providing a statement showing
the “number of Indian schools, where established, by whom, the number of Teachers, &c., the number of Pupils, and
the amount annually allowed and paid to each by the Government,” that is, documenting a system).
4
The Department conducted the initial investigative work in several phases. The first
phase included the identification and collection of records and information related to the
Department’s oversight and implementation of the Federal Indian boarding school system.
The Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Bryan Newland sought input from Tribal leaders
on determining the nature and scope of any proposed sitework, addressing cultural
concerns and the potential dissemination of sensitive information generated from the
existing records or from future sitework activities, and for the future protection of burial
sites and potential repatriation or disinterment of remains of children under Federal law,
including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and
in coordination with other Federal agencies. Assistant Secretary Newland held formal
consultations with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and
the Native Hawaiian Community on November 17, 18, and 23, 2021. Under the supervision
of Assistant Secretary Newland, the Department prepared this report on the initial
investigation of the Federal Indian boarding school system.
10
10
Santa Fe Indian School children on burros [Photograph]. (ca. 1900). Shades of L.A. Collection, TESSA Digital
Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library.
5
2. Executive Summary
11
Pursuant to the
Secretarial Memorandum issued on June 22, 2021, Assistant
Secretary Newland is leading the Department’s first investigation of the Federal Indian
boarding school system. Federal records affirm that the United States targeted Indian and
Native Hawaiian children as part of U.S.-Indian relations and U.S.-Native Hawaiian
relations to enter the Federal Indian boarding school system, coinciding with Indian and
Native Hawaiian territorial dispossession.
In analyzing records under
its control, the Department developed an official list of
Federal Indian boarding schools for the first time. The National Native American Boarding
School Healing Coalition (NABS), in partnership via a Memorandum of Understanding
with the Department, was instrumental in the sharing of information and records pertinent
to Federal development of the list.
12
The Department has also started to identify locations
11
Very early class of young boys with flags at the Albuquerque Indian School [Photograph]. Department of the
Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Albuquerque Indian School, 1947-ca. 1964 (most recent creator). (ca.
1895). National Archives (292873).
12
Memorandum of Understanding Between the U.S. Department of the Interior and National Native American
Boarding School Healing Coalition, Dec 7, 2021.
6
of marked and unmarked burial sites of remains of American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children at or near school facilities.
The Department found that between 1819 to 1969, the Federal Indian boarding
school system consisted of 408 Federal schools across 37 states or then-territories,
including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. Some individual Federal Indian
boarding schools accounted for multiple sites. The 408 Federal Indian boarding schools
accordingly comprised 431 specific sites. The list of the names and locations of these
schools are included in this report at Appendix A. Summaries for each school are provided
in Appendix B. Maps of each current state showing the schools are provided in Appendix
C.
While
Federal Indian boarding schools were as varied as the Indian Tribes, Alaska
Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community they impacted and the geographic
areas they were built in, the Department identified several common Federal Indian
boarding school system features, described below, which remain under investigation.
For a school to qualify as a Federal Indian boarding school, for the purpose of this
investigation, the institution must meet four criteria, as described in greater detail below,
including whether the institution (1) provided on-site housing or overnight lodging; (2) was
described in records as providing formal academic or vocational training and instruction;
(3) was described in records as receiving Federal Government funds or other support; and
(4) was operational before 1969.
Outside the scope of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the Department
identified over 1,000 other Federal and non-Federal institutions, including Indian day
schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone dormitories that may have
involved education of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people,
mainly Indian children.
Initial result
s show that the earliest opening date of a Federal Indian boarding school
in the system was 1801, and the latest opening date was 1969. However, the open date does
not necessarily correspond to when the Federal Indian boarding school was first
documented as receiving Federal support. The average number of Federal Indian boarding
schools in current states with identified Federal Indian boarding schools was 11 schools.
The greatest concentration of schools in the Federal Indian boarding school system was in
present-day Oklahoma with 76 Federal Indian boarding schools (19 percent of total);
7
Arizona with 47 schools (12 percent of total); and New Mexico with 43 schools (11 percent
of total).
Initial investigation results show that approximately 50 percent of Federal Indian
boarding schools may have received support or involvement from a religious institution or
organization, including funding, infrastructure, and personnel. As the U.S. Senate has
recognized, funds from the 1819 Civilization Fund “were apportioned among those
societies and individuals—usually missionary organizations—that had been prominent in
the effort to ‘civilize’ the Indians.”
13
The Federal Government at times paid religious
institutions and organizations on a per capita basis for Indian children to enter the Federal
Indian boarding schools that these institutions and organizations groups operated.
The investigation
shows that the United States may have used monies held in Tribal
trust accounts, including those based on cessions of Indian territories to the United States,
to fund Indian children to attend Federal Indian boarding schools.
Based on initial data,
the investigation shows that between 1820–1932 attendance,
enrollment, and capacity of Federal institutions used for Indian education, including
Federal Indian boarding schools, Federal Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, and
orphanages was as follows:
• Attendance ranged fro
m one child to over 1,000 children;
• Enrollment ranged from one child to over 1,200 children; and
• Capacity ranged from one child to over 1,700 children.
The Fede
ral Indian boarding school system deployed systematic militarized and
identity-alteration methodologies to attempt to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native,
and Native Hawaiian children through education, including but not limited to the
following: (1) renaming Indian children from Indian to English names; (2) cutting hair of
Indian children; (3) discouraging or preventing the use of American Indian, Alaska Native,
and Native Hawaiian languages, religions, and cultural practices; and (4) organizing Indian
and Native Hawaiian children into units to perform military drills.
13
Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Indian Education: A National Tragedy – A National Challenge, S. Rep.
No. 91-501 at 143 (1969) [hereinafter Kennedy Report].
8
The Federal Indian boarding school system predominately included manual labor of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children as part of school curricula,
including but not limited to the following: livestock and poultry raising; dairying; western
agriculture production; fertilizing; lumbering; brick-making; cooking; garment-making;
irrigation system development; and working on the railroad system.
The F
ederal Indian boarding school system focused on manual labor and vocational
skills that left American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian graduates with
employment options often irrelevant to the industrial U.S. economy, further disrupting
Tribal economies.
Federal Indian boarding school rules were often enforced through punishment,
including corporal punishment such as solitary confinement; flogging; withholding food;
whipping; slapping; and cuffing. The Federal Indian boarding school system at times made
older Indian children punish younger Indian children.
Of the 408 F
ederal Indian boarding schools, approximately 90 schools (22 percent)
might still operate as educational facilities. However, not all 90 institutions still board
children or are federally supported.
The Departmen
t’s investigation has already identified marked or unmarked burial
sites at approximately 53 different schools across the Federal Indian boarding school
system. As the investigation continues, the Department expects the number of identified
burial sites to increase. The composition of the approximate numbers of identified burial
sites to date is as follows:
• Marked burial sites
– 33
• Unmarked burial sites – 6
• Both marked and unmarked burial sites present at a school location – 14
The Department will not make public the specific locations of burial sites associated
with the Federal Indian boarding school system in order to protect against well-documented
grave-robbing, vandalism, and other disturbances to Indian burial sites.
14
14
See, e.g., 43 C.F.R. § 10.3 (2022).
9
Based on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation’s initial
analysis, approximately 19 Federal Indian boarding schools accounted for over
500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian child deaths. As the
investigation continues, the Department expects the number of recorded deaths to increase.
This report also includes Appendix D with a summary of the views that Tribal
leaders and representatives expressed during a formal Nation-to-Nation consultation
process. During those consultations, Tribal leaders and representatives discussed the
importance of protecting burial sites and strengthening protections under NAGPRA. Other
consultation participants expressed the importance of accounting for the experiences of
individuals and their families within the Federal Indian boarding school system, and
advocated for the Federal Government to provide an opportunity for them to share those
experiences on the record.
This report does not include an exhaustive list of all burial sites across the Federal
Indian boarding school system, nor does this report identify the children who were placed
in or attended Federal Indian boarding schools. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic limited
the Department’s ability to access facilities containing important records relevant to this
investigation. In addition, the Department was operating under a series of continuing
resolutions from October 1, 2021, until the FY 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act
(P.L. 117-103) was enacted on March 15, 2022. The absence of specific appropriations
limited the scope of the Department’s ability to carry out some of the research needed for
this investigation. Lastly, this report does not analyze the connection between the Federal
Indian boarding school system and present-day experiences of people in Indian Tribes,
Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community across the United States.
Assistant Secretary Newland makes eight recommendations to the Secretary of the
Interior to fulfill the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, including producing a list
of marked and unmarked burial sites at Federal Indian boarding schools and an
approximation of the total amount of Federal funding used to support the Federal Indian
boarding school system, including any monies that may have come from Tribal and
individual Indian trust accounts held in trust by the United States. Assistant Secretary
Newland ultimately concludes that further investigation is required to determine the legacy
impacts of the Federal Indian boarding school system on American Indians, Alaska
Natives, and Native Hawaiians today.
10
15
3. Overarching Instructions
To carry out the Feder
al Indian Boarding School Initiative and consistent with the
Secretarial Memorandum, the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs instructed those
working on the report to:
Collect Relevant D
ata and Consult
The proposed scope of
work and nature of the investigation include the collection
of relevant information and consultations with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages,
Alaska Native Corporations, and the Native Hawaiian Community.
Assistant Secretary
Newland led departmental action to survey historical records in
Federal repositories, including the Department of the Interior Library and the American
Indian Records Repository (AIRR) at the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration (BTFA),
an agency within the Department, as described further below.
The objective of this investigation
is to identify the Indian boarding schools that
were a part of the Federal Indian boarding school system. While the investigation
concentrates on records that give insight into residential facilities and plans—including
enrollment records and vital statistics, correspondence, maps, photographs, and
administrative reports—it gives particular emphasis to records relating to cemeteries or
potential burial sites associated with a particular residential facility, which may later be
15
Mt Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School opening day [Photograph]. (June 30, 1893). Courtesy of the Alice
Littlefield Collection, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture &
Lifeways.
11
used to assist in locating unidentified remains of American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children. The comprehensive record assessment is intended to assist in
later identifying the number of children that attended each Federal Indian boarding school
and, where possible, their names and Tribal identities, and provide a basis for planning
future sitework.
The
Department’s collection of views of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native
Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and the Native Hawaiian Community in
consultations conducted as part of the investigation are included in Appendix D.
Following the initial stages of the investigation, the Department will reassess the
needs and priorities of the investigation for completion, accounting for, in part (1) the
availability of historical records in Federal repositories, authorities, and resources of
various agencies in the Department to perform required work, and (2) recommendations of
Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and the Native
Hawaiian Community, and Federal and non-Federal partners.
Involve Indian Tribes and other Department Bureaus and Offices
Tribal particip
ation during the first stages of the Federal Indian Boarding School
Initiative included obtaining oral and written comments from Indian Tribes, Alaska Native
Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and the Native Hawaiian Community during formal
consultation sessions. The views collected in consultations conducted as part of the
investigation are included in Appendix D.
Within the D
epartment, the following Bureaus and Offices provide support for the
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE); Bureau of Land Management (BLM); BTFA; Department of the
Interior Library; National Park Service (NPS); Office of the Assistant Secretary – Land
and Minerals Management; Office of Native Hawaiian Relations; Secretary’s Immediate
Office; Office of the Assistant Secretary – Policy, Management and Budget; Office of the
Solicitor; and the U.S. Geological Survey.
A
ddress Tribal Concerns
Throughou
t the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the Department engaged
and consulted with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and
the Native Hawaiian Community to incorporate their concerns in the investigation,
12
including, but not limited to, (1) the potential dissemination of sensitive information, (2)
future protection of burial sites, and (3) the potential repatriation or disinterment of remains
of children under applicable Federal law, including NAGPRA, and in coordination with
other Federal agencies as relevant.
Han
dle Sensitive Information with Great Care
Moving into th
e next stages of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative,
including future sitework, the Department will protect sensitive information obtained from
the investigation including, but not limited to, identities of Federal Indian boarding school
attendees, including names and Tribal identities, and locations of marked and unmarked
burial sites, to the extent allowable by applicable law.
If the Department is able to disseminate sensitive information to Indian Tribes,
Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community, or to Federal agencies
responsible for repatriation or disinterment of remains of Indian children, then it shall
address cultural concerns of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native
Hawaiian Community and ensure marked and unmarked burial sites are secure.
En
gage Relevant Federal Agencies
As the Departme
nt is not the only Federal agency positioned to examine the Federal
Indian boarding school system and its effects on American Indians, Alaska Natives, and
Native Hawaiians, the Department is engaging and supporting sister Federal agencies with
control of any records that may relate to the Federal Indian boarding school system,
including records from the Department of Defense—as the successor agency to the War
Department—and the Department of Health and Human Services.
13
16
4. Data Collection Process and Review of Relevant
Information
The Office of t
he Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs oversees BIA, BIE, and
BTFA. The BTFA provides fiduciary trust services for Tribal and individual Indian
beneficiaries that earn royalty income and other monies from activities on federally
managed lands. The BTFA is also responsible for maintaining Federal Indian records,
including those at the AIRR. For the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
investigation, BTFA established a Project Research Team to review relevant records. The
Project Research Team included BTFA staff and volunteers from other Department
bureaus, including BIA, NPS, and BLM. The Project Research Team process included
identifying, screening, and preparing records from AIRR in Lenexa, Kansas; conducting
initial and quality assurance reviews of the criteria research used to identify Federal Indian
boarding schools; generating Federal Indian boarding school summaries from collected
16
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young female students outdoors on swing set at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
14
criteria data; and working with NABS under a Memorandum of Understanding to assist
with criteria research used in the identification of Federal Indian boarding schools.
17
The Department recog
nizes that the Federal Government and non-Federal entities
operated or supported Indian boarding schools. As the Federal Indian Boarding School
Initiative is focused on Indian boarding schools that received Federal oversight or support,
the investigation examined records to develop the first official list of Federal Indian
boarding schools. The official list may change as the investigation continues to find
additional records that detail the Federal Indian boarding school system.
Research
Methodology and Scope of Review
For the F
ederal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the Department, through BTFA,
is identifying and examining Federal records in the Department of the Interior Library and
AIRR. The AIRR includes retired Indian Affairs records from BIA agencies and BTFA
offices across the Nation. Records from as far back as the 1700s include trust, education,
and other historic Indian Affairs records.
The Am
erican Indian Records Repository (AIRR)
The AIRR
is located in Lenexa, Kansas, which has 1.3 million cubic feet of
underground storage space available for Federal records. The AIRR is located 80 to 90 feet
underground and stores records in National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
archival-quality storage bays that total approximately 350,000 cubic feet. The AIRR
contains a total of over 200,000 indexed boxes of Indian Affairs records. Each standard
records center box holds one cubic foot of material; one cubic foot holds approximately
2,500 sheets of paper.
For the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, records review involves
electronic screening of possible source boxes for any information about Federal Indian
boarding schools within the AIRR. The research team applied pre-existing search processes
and tools to initiate records research at AIRR. Specifically, the Box Index Search System
(BISS) was utilized for overall queries and refinement to identify records associated with
Federal Indian boarding schools.
17
Memorandum of Understanding Between the U.S. Department of the Interior and National Native American
Boarding School Healing Coalition, Dec 7, 2021.
15
Investigation Research Process
The genera
l research process was as follows: A BISS query was completed to
determine an initial potentially responsive box list that included 39,385 boxes
(approximately 98,462,500 sheets of paper).
Continuing investigation actions will include on-site digitization of boxes or
targeted files in the potentially responsive boxes. Records will be stored in the
Department’s Enterprise Records and Document Management System. When digitization
is complete, remote review of the identified potentially responsive boxes will occur. As the
first review from October 2021 involved keyword searches for known Indian boarding
schools, a new search will be conducted following complete AIRR digitization of
responsive boxes or files to identify any new Federal Indian boarding schools. Examination
of additional responsive boxes and files will continue and follow the same process.
As AIR
R digitization advances, BTFA research staff and Department volunteer staff
will continue to review records and classify the information about Federal Indian boarding
schools, with a focus on documents with responsive information about specific schools,
attendees, attendee deaths, graves, and cemeteries. The BTFA is using an eDiscovery
program to search and tag all digitized documents. The research process will continue until
all boxes identified as having information potentially relevant to Federal Indian boarding
schools are fully reviewed.
The Departme
nt is evaluating specific records for the Federal Indian Boarding
School Initiative including but not limited to the following:
• Department
of War Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs;
• Department of the Interior Annual Reports;
• Department of the Interior Routes to Indian Agencies and Schools with their Post
Office and Telegraphic Addresses and Nearest Railroad Stations Reports;
• Department of the Interior Appropriations documents;
• Department of the Interior, National Park Service’s National Register of Historic
Places (school identification, location, and historical justification information);
• Department of the Interior Library records for initial specific school criteria;
16
• Works Progress Administration (a New Deal Agency) Reports; and
• Report With Respect to the House Resolution Authorizing the Committee on
Interior and Insular Affairs to Conduct an Investigation of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Pursuant to H. Res. 689 (82nd Cong.) December 15, 1952 (1953).
Pursuant to its Memorandum of Understanding with NABS, the Department compared its
Federal Indian boarding school list and materials with a list independently established by
NABS to seek official identification of schools in the Federal Indian boarding school
system. The BTFA research team and the NABS research team met weekly in working
sessions to review and compare findings.
Ongoing investiga
tion actions will include:
• Collaborating with NA
RA to identify other available records—including their
locations, and potential resources required for future Initiative stages;
• Identifying records covering specific Federal Indian boarding schools and
overall Indian boarding school system operation, and law and policy framework;
and
• Reviewing Department resources, authorities, and specific potential uses for
specialized documents or information, including photographs, student roster
lists, and total funding expended on Federal Indian boarding schools, as well as
creating maps and databases.
17
18
5. Developing the Federal Indian Boarding School List
For the first
time, the Department developed a historical official list of Federal
Indian boarding schools. The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative identified Indian
boarding schools that received Federal oversight or support. The number and location(s)
of Federal Indian boarding schools listed may increase as the investigation continues.
For an
institution to classify as a Federal Indian boarding school for the Federal
Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation, it must meet each of the following four
criteria:
1. Housing
– The institution has been described as providing on-site housing or
overnight lodging. This includes dormitory, orphanage, asylum, residential,
boarding, home, jail, and quarters.
2. Education – The institution has been described as providing formal academic or
vocational training and instruction. This includes mission school, religious training,
18
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of two young male students engaged in woodworking at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
18
industrial training school, manual labor school, academy, seminary, institute,
boarding school, and day school.
3. Federal Support – The institution has been described as receiving Federal
Government funds or other Federal support. This includes agency, independent,
contract, mission, contract with white schools, government, semi-government,
under superintendency, and land or buildings or funds or supplies or services
provided.
4. Timeframe – The i
nstitution was operational before 1969 (prior to modern
departmental Indian education programming including BIE).
If an institution satisfies all four criteria, it i
s categorized as a Federal Indian boarding
school. As a result, an institution primarily operated or supported by a non-Federal entity
could qualify as a Federal Indian boarding school if it met all four required criteria.
Most institutions that did not qualify as a F
ederal Indian boarding school failed to
meet the “Housing” and “Federal Support” criteria. However, it is possible that an
institution that does not currently meet the four criteria may do so in the future as additional
records are identified, examined, and analyzed, or as the Department receives other
information from Federal, non-Federal, or Tribal records.
The Depar
tment performed final quality control on the list of Federal Indian
boarding schools to ensure each institution met the four criteria and to secure the accuracy
of its first-ever list of Federal Indian boarding schools.
Housing Criterion
The Department defined the
“housing” criterion as meaning the on-site boarding of
any American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian children for education purposes.
That is, the classification of a site as a Federal Indian boarding school did not depend on
whether the school housed or lodged one child or hundreds.
Federal Support
Criterion
The Department defined the “F
ederal support” criterion broadly, beyond direct
Federal funding and building infrastructure. The types of support that may qualify as
Federal support include the following:
19
• Contractual
S
ecuring funds for education and agricultural personnel for Indian boarding
schools from the 1819 Civilization Fund.
• Land
A
cquisition of lands by congressional appropriation or private donation for
the purposes of building and operating Federal Indian boarding schools.
• Building and Infrastructure
Federally
funded construction or deconstruction of Indian boarding school
sites including new building, dismantling of usable materials, and the moving
of used buildings or recycled building materials for Indian boarding school
purposes.
Federal transfer of new or surplus buildings for Federal Indian boarding
school operations, including military installations and facilities.
Federal renovation of Federal Indian boarding schools through the Works
Progress Administration program.
•
Equipment and Supplies
Purchase of food,
clothing, and education supplies—including farming
equipment, livestock, and animals—with Federal appropriations.
• Services
Provision of se
rvices including medical care or education. For example, the
Department determined that the Federal provision of military personnel to
teach Native Hawaiian children at select schools in Hawaii following
acquisition of the islands as a territory but prior to statehood qualified as
Federal support. Also, the Department considered Federal provision of
medical personnel to Indian boarding schools operated by non-Federal
entities to be Federal support.
20
6. U.S. Law and Policy Framework: Indian Territorial
Dispossession and Indian Assimilation
19
“Like the miner’s canary, the Indian mark
s the shifts from fresh air to poison gas in our
political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians … reflects the rise and fall in our
democratic faith.”
20
– Felix S. Cohen, 1953.
To examine the Federal Indian boardin
g school system, the Department spotlights
the following aspects of Federal Indian law and policy.
The Continental Congress, Congress of th
e Confederation, and United States
recognized Indian Affairs as a main function of a national government.
21
In engaging
Indian Tribes, “separate sovereigns pre-existing the Constitution,”
22
and later Alaska
19
Choate, J. N., Carlisle Indian School student body around 1885, with the Superintendent’s House in background.
[Photograph]. (1880-1889). Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections.
20
Felix S. Cohen, The Erosion of Indian Rights, 62 Yale L.J. 348, 390 (1953).
21
See Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 2, 93, 174–76 (1775); National Records and Archives Service,
General Services Administration, Ratified Indian Treaties
1722–1869, 1 (1973); U.S. Const. art. I, § 8.
22
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 56 (1977).
21
Native Villages and the Kingdom of Hawaii, the United States pursued a twin policy:
Indian territorial dispossession and Indian assimilation, including through education.
The U.S. Senate later explained that twin policy as follows:
Beginning with President Washington, the st
ated policy of the
Federal Government was to replace the Indian’s culture with
our own. This was considered “advisable” as the cheapest and
safest way of subduing the Indians, of providing a safe habitat
for the country’s white inhabitants, of helping the whites
acquire desirable land, and of changing the Indian’s economy
so that he would be content with less land. Education was a
weapon by which these goals were to be accomplished.
23
In 1803, President Th
omas Jefferson delivered a Confidential Message to Congress on
Indian Policy explaining a strategy to dispossess Indian Tribes of their territories in part by
assimilation. According to President Jefferson, a policy of assimilation would make it
easier and less costly in lives and funding for the United States to separate Indian Tribes
from their territories.
24
President Jefferson described two means “to provide an extension
of territory which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for.”
25
The first was to
advance an assimilation policy directed at Indian children to discourage nomadic practices
and adopt sedentary practices dominated by western agriculture development:
To encourage them to abandon hunting,
to apply to the raising
stock, to agriculture, and domestic manufacture, and thereby
prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them
in this better than in their former mode of living. The extensive
forests necessary in the hunting life will then become useless,
and they will see advantage in exchanging them for the means
of improving their farms and of increasing their domestic
comforts.
26
23
Kennedy Report, at 143.
24
President Thomas Jefferson, Confidential Message to Congress Concerning Relations with the Indians (Jan. 18,
1803),
National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of
Representatives, Presidential Messages, 1791-1861, President’s Messages from the 7th Congress
[hereinafter
Confidential Message].
25
Confidential Message.
26
Confidential Message.
22
The second, to be executed alongside the assimilation policy, was to encourage Indian
Tribes to purchase goods on credit so as to likely fall into debt, which would cause Indian
Tribes to cede their lands to the United States—with the proceeds of such cessions, as
described further below, predominately funding the Federal Indian boarding school
system.
27
As President Jefferson said in an “unofficial, & private” capacity in order to “with
safety give … a more extensive view of our policy respecting the Indians”:
[W]e wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning & weaving.
… when they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small
piece of land, they will perceive [sic] how useless to them are
their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from
time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms &
families. to promote this disposition to exchange lands which
they have to spare & we want, for necessaries, which we have
to spare & they want, we shall push our trading houses, and be
glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run
in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond
what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop th[em
off] by a cession of lands.
28
As the United States developed, thi
s two-fold approach informed Federal Indian law and
policy.
The U.S. C
onstitution, ratified and adopted in 1788, expressly names “Indian
Tribes” and “Indians.”
29
The United States has since recognized the sovereign political
status of Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages and the accompanying Nation-to-Nation
relationship with them for centuries.
30
27
Confidential Message.
28
Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison (Feb. 27, 1803), in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 39, 13
November
1802–3 March 1803 (Barbara B. Oberg ed.) at 589–593 (2012) (emphasis added).
29
U.S. Const. art. I, §§ 2, 8; see Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U.S. 782 (2014); Worcester v.
Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (1831); Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. 543
(1823).
30
See, e.g., Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, 557 (1832) (“The treaties and laws of the United States contemplate
. . . that all intercourse with [Indians] shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union”).
23
It is well settled that the authority of the United States in regards to Indian Affairs
is grounded in the U.S. Constitution. Specifically:
• Article I, Section 8, Clause II, reserving for the Federal Government the power to
make war.
• Article II, Section 2, Clause II, reserving for the Federal Government the power to
make treaties.
• Article I, Section 8, Clause III, reserving for the Federal Government the power to
regulate commerce with the Indian Tribes.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that because Indian Affairs were also
traditionally considered aspects of American military and foreign policy, Congress’
legislative authority rests in part, not only upon “‘affirmative grants of the Constitution,’
but upon the Constitution’s adoption of preconstitutional powers necessarily inherent in
any Federal Government, namely, powers that this Court has described as ‘necessary
concomitants of nationality.’”
31
As the Court has said, “[t]hese powers com
prehend all that is required for the
regulation of our intercourse with the Indians.”
32
The Court has consistently described
Congress’ powers to legislate in respect to Indian Tribes as “plenary and exclusive.”
33
While extending to all legislative measures relating to Indian Tribes and Alaska Native
Villages, such powers are not absolute.
34
Two centuries of Supreme Court case law establish there is an “undisp
uted existence
of a general trust relationship between the United States and the Indian people.”
35
The
Federal Government, following “a humane and self-imposed policy …, has charged itself
with moral obligations of the highest responsibility and trust”
36
obligations “to the
fulfillment of which the national honor has been committed.”
37
The Court has recognized
that “[t]hroughout the history of the Indian trust relationship, … the organization and
31
United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 200 (2004).
32
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, 559 (1832).
33
United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 200 (2004).
34
United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S. 103, 109–110 (1935).
35
United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 225 (1983).
36
Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U.S. 286, 296–297 (1942).
37
Heckman v. United States, 224 U.S. 413, 437 (1912).
24
management of the trust is a sovereign function subject to the plenary authority of
Congress.”
38
“Because the Indian trust relationship represents an exercise of that
authority,” the Supreme Court has “explained that the Government ‘has a real and direct
interest’ in the guardianship it exercises over the Indian [T]ribes; ‘the interest is one which
is vested in it as a sovereign.’”
39
On Indian reservations, outside of Alaska, “the government would provide ‘only
sufficient land for their actual occupancy … divid[ed] among them in severalty … and in
lieu of money annuities … stock animals, agricultural implements, mechanic shops, tools
and materials, and manual labor schools for the industrial and mental education of their
youth.’”
40
The reservations were, “in effect, envisioned as schools for civilization, in which
Indians under the control of the agent would be groomed for assimilation.”
41
This report considers the intergenerational impact of the Federal Indian boarding
school system in light of the laws and policies that gave that system form, which derived
from Constitutional and pre-Constitutional powers establishing the United States’ unique
political relationships with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian
Community as distinct and sovereign political entities.
38
United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U.S. 162, 175 (2011).
39
Id. (quoting United States v. Minnesota, 270 U.S. 181, 194 (1926)).
40
ARCIA for 1858, at 7 (emphasis added).
41
Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 1.03 (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2019) (citing United States v. Clapox,
35 F. 575, 577 (D. Or. 1888)).
25
42
6.1 U.S. War-Making Power: The War Department’s Historic Role in
Indian Affairs
“And, indeed, if it be the design of Pr
ovidence to extirpate these savages in order to make
room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed
means.” – Benjamin Franklin.
43
Congress acknowledged that
from “the beginning, Federal policy toward the Indian
was based on the desire to dispossess him of his land. Education policy was a function of
our land policy.”
44
42
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Albuquerque Indian School, 1947-ca. 1964 (most recent
creator). (1900). Early class of younger girls in school uniform at the Albuquerque Indian School [Photograph].
National Archives (292874).
43
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin 225 (Frank Woodward Pine, ed.) (1916).
44
Kennedy Report, at 142; see also Northwest Ordinance of 1787, art. III (Jul. 13, 1787) (“Religion, morality, and
knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of
education, shall be forever encouraged.”), re-enacted as Act of Aug. 7, 1789, Ch. 8, 1 Stat. 50 (1789).
26
Although formal Nation-to-Nation relations between the United States and Indian
Tribes predate the Constitution, the provision of education to Indians by the Federal
Government begins with the creation of the War Department. The first law of Congress
relating to Indians was that of creating the War Department in 1789, which entrusted the
Secretary of War with responsibility for such duties relative to Indian Affairs as the
President should entrust to him.
45
Congress enacted the first explicit appropriation for
Indian Affairs in the Act of December 23, 1791, which appropriated funds for the
Department of War “for defraying all expenses incident to the Indian department, and for
defraying the expenses incurred in the defensive protection of the frontiers against the
Indians … .”
46
The policy of the Federal Government soon after expressed support for Federal and
non-Federal education of Indians. In President Jefferson’s first address to Congress in
1801, he described how Indian assimilation policy was central to Federal policy:
Among
our Indian neighbors also, a spirit of peace and
friendship generally prevails and I am happy to inform you that
the continued efforts to introduce among them the implements
and the practice of husbandry, and of the household arts, have
not been without success; that they are becoming more and
more sensible of the superiority of this dependence for clothing
and subsistence over the precarious resources of hunting and
fishing… .
47
S
tarting in 1802, Congress authorized appropriations of up to $15,000 annually “to
promote civilization among the friendly Indian tribes, and to secure the continuance of their
friendship” by promising funding, goods, livestock and animals, and staffing resources,
thus advancing the public responsibility to Indian education.
48
I
n 1817, the United States began more clearly developing its policy of assimilation
through education. President James Monroe advanced that “[w]ith the Indian tribes it is our
duty to cultivate friendly relations and to act with kindness and liberality in all our
45
Act of Aug. 7, 1789, Ch. 7, 1 Stat. 49 (establishing the Department of War).
46
Act of Dec. 23, 1791, Ch. 3, Sec. 4, 1 Stat. 226, 228. The amounts so appropriated totaled $76,764.19. Id.
47
President Thomas Jefferson, First Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 8, 1801), in A Compilation of the Messages
and Papers of the Presidents Prepared under the Direction of the Joint Committee on Printing, of the House and
Senate, Pursuant to an Act of the Fifty-Second Congress of the United States,
314 (1897).
48
Act of Mar. 30, 1802, Ch. 3, Sec. 13, 2 Stat. 139, 143; Kennedy Report, at 143.
27
transactions. Equally proper is it to persevere in our efforts to extend to them the advantages
of civilization.”
49
Congress then laid the groundwork for a general system of Indian education by
enacting the Civilization Fund Act in 1819.
50
The purpose of the Act was “providing
against the further decline and final extinction of the Indian tribes, adjoining the frontier
settlements of the United States, and for introducing among them the habits and arts of
civilization.”
51
To accomplish the Act’s mission, Congress authorized the President:
[I]n ever
y case where he shall judge improvement in the habits
and condition of such Indians practicable, and that the means
of instruction can be introduced with their own consent, to
employ capable persons of good moral character to instruct
[such Indians] in the mode of agriculture suited to their
situation; and for teaching their children in reading, writing,
and arithmetic, and performing such other duties as may be
enjoined according to such instructions and rules as the
President may give and prescribe for the regulation of their
conduct, in the discharge of their duties. A report of the
proceedings adopted in the execution of this provision shall be
annually laid before Congress.
52
To
carry the Act’s provisions into effect, Congress appropriated an annual sum of $10,000
and further required an annual report of the proceedings adopted to execute the Act.
53
The
funds annually appropriated under the Act were often apportioned to various religious
institutions and organizations until Congress repealed the annual appropriation in 1873.
54
49
Inaugural Address of James Monroe, President of the United States, March 4, 1817, in American State Papers:
Foreign Affairs Vol.
4 at 128.
50
Act of March 3, 1819, Ch. 85, 3 Stat. 516, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 271 (2020).
51
25 U.S.C. § 271 (2020).
52
Id.
53
Id.
54
Act of Feb. 14, 1873, c. 138, 17 Stat. 437, 461.
28
In 1824, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun established the position of
Superintendent of Indian Affairs within the War Department to formalize the
administration of Indian Affairs, which had supervisory responsibilities for the Federal
Indian boarding school system.
55
The duties of the Superintendent included administering
the Civilization Fund.
56
The Superintendent reported annually to the Secretary of War from
1825 to 1832.
57
In 1832, Congress established the office of Commissioner of Indian Affairs
under the direction of the Secretary of War and subject to Presidential regulation, with
responsibility for the direction and management of all Indian Affairs and all matters arising
out of Indian relations.
58
The Commissioner, a precursor role to the Assistant Secretary –
Indian Affairs,
59
was appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the
Senate.
60
From 1832 to 1849, the Commissioners of Indian Affairs provided annual reports
to the Secretary of War.
In 1849, Congress enacted legislation that established the Department and
transferred Indian Affairs from military to civil control.
61
The act directed the Secretary of
the Interior to “exercise the supervisory and appellate powers now exercised by the
Secretary of War Department, in relation to all the acts of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs.”
62
Congress routinely debated about the practicality of transferring Indian Affairs
back to the War Department. “The question whether the Indian bureau should be placed
under the War Department or retained in the Department of the Interior is one of
considerable importance and both sides have very warm advocates.”
63
The heads of the
Commissioners of Indian Affairs reported annually to the Secretary of the Interior from
1849 to 1932.
55
See Letter from Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to Thomas L. McKenney (Mar. 11, 1824), in H. Doc. No. 19–
146 at 6 (1826); see also Letter from Thomas L. McKenney to James Madison (Mar. 20, 1824) (“I am again
entrusted with a Government trust. I have had assigned to me, in subordination to the Secy. of War, the Indian
bureau, (a new arrangement) which takes in all that relates to our intercourse with these people.”), in The Papers of
James Madison, Retirement Series,
VOL. 3 (David B. Mattern, et al, ed.).
56
Act of March 3, 1819, Ch. 85, 3 Stat. 516.
57
Felix Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 11 (1941).
58
Act of July 9, 1832, Ch. 174, § 1, 4 Stat. 564.
59
The position of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs was established by Secretarial Order No. 3010 (Sept. 26,
1977). 96 Interior Dec. 1, 7 (1988). See also Nomination of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs,
Hearings before the United States Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977).
60
Act of July 9, 1832, Ch. 174, § 1, 4 Stat. 564.
61
Act of March 3, 1849, Ch. 108, 9 Stat. 395.
62
Act of March 3, 1849, Ch. 108, § 5, 9 Stat. 395.
63
S. Rep. No. 39-156, at 3–8 (1867).
29
After responsibility for the administration of Indian Affairs was transferred to the
Department, Indian police
64
supported the removal of Indian children and their placement
in the Federal Indian boarding school system. In 1886, for example, U.S. Indian Agent
Fletcher J. Cowart described the effort by Indian police to forcibly remove Mescalero and
Jicarilla Apache children from their homes and furnish them to the Federal Indian boarding
school system
:
I found the attendance at the boarding school about half of what
it should be, and at once set about increasi
ng it to the full
capacity of the accommodation. This I found extremely
difficult. When called upon for children, the chiefs, almost
without exception, declared there were none suitable for school
in their camps. Everything in the way of persuasion and
argument having failed, it became necessary to visit the camps
unexpectedly with a detachment of Indian police, and seize
such children as were proper and take them away to school,
willing or unwilling. Some hurried their children off to the
mountains or hid them away in camp, and the Indian police had
to chase and capture them like so many wild rabbits.
65
“The hope for the effective w
ork lies with the children … School facilities should be
enlarged, the children divorced from [nomadic] camp life, and with a plain English
education instructed well in farm or mechanical labor.”
66
Despite the official transfer from military to civil control, Con
gress continued to
empower the President and War Department to continue support for the Federal Indian
boarding school system with select jurisdiction, infrastructure, and personnel, including
through statutory provisions such as the following:
• The President may detail officers of the United S
tates
Army to act as Indian agents at such agencies as in the
64
See United States v. Mullin, 71 F. 682, 687 (D.C. Neb. 1895) (“The Indian police is a force organized under rules
and regulations adopted by the interior department, the agent being commander thereof, and is the ordinary means
relied upon by the agent and the department for enforcing the orders of the department, for keeping peace upon the
reservation, and otherwise enforcing obedience to the laws of the United States and the regulations of the
department of the interior in force upon the reservation.”).
65
ARCIA for 1886, at 199.
66
ARCIA for 1886, at 202.
30
opinion of the President may require the presence of any
Army officer, and while acting as Indian agents such
officers shall be under the orders and direction of the
Secretary of the Interior.
67
• The Secretary of War shall be authorized to detail an
officer of the Army, not above the rank of captain, for
special duty with reference to Indian education.
68
• The Secretary of War is authorized to set aside, for use
in the establishment of normal and industrial training
schools for Indian youth from the nomadic tribes having
educational treaty claims upon the United States, any
vacant posts or barracks, so long as they may not be
required for military occupation, and to detail one or
more officers of the Army for duty in connection with
Indian education, under the direction of the Secretary of
the Interior, at each such school so
established: Provided, That moneys appropriated or to
be appropriated for general purposes of education
among the Indians may be expended, under the
direction of the Secretary of the Interior, for the
education of Indian youth at such posts, institutions, and
schools as he may consider advantageous, or as
Congress from time to time may authorize and
provide.
69
• The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to establish
and maintain the former Fort Apache military post as an
Indian boarding school for the purpose of carrying out
treaty obligations, to be known as the Theodore
Roosevelt Indian School: Provided, That the Fort
Apache military post, and land appurtenant thereto,
shall remain in the possession and custody of the
67
Act of July 1, 1898, Ch. 545, § 1, 30 Stat. 571, 573.
68
Act of June 23, 1879, Ch. 35, § 7, 21 Stat. 35, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 273 (2020).
69
Act of July 31, 1882, Ch. 363, 22 Stat. 181, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 276 (2020) (emphasis added).
31
Secretary of the Interior so long as they shall be required
for Indian school purposes.
70
The War Department continued to provide support and personnel to further the objectives
of the Federal Indian boarding school system even after Congress transferred responsibility
for Indian Affairs to the Department.
71
70
Act of January 24, 1923, Ch. 42, 42 Stat. 1187, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 277 (2020).
71
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young male students in metalworking classroom at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
32
6.2 U.S. Treaty-Making Power: Indian Territorial Dispossession and Indian
Assimilation
72
Through treaties and other agreements, India
n Tribes ceded to the United States
approximately 1 billion acres of land.
73
Like Great Britain and the colonial governments
before it, the United States negotiated and entered into formal treaties with Indian Tribes
as separate and distinct sovereigns.
74
From 1722 to 1869, the British Crown and the
United States made at least 374 treaties with Indian Tribes.
75
As non-Indian settlement
increased over time, the negotiation power of Indian Tribes diminished. The U.S. Congress
has emphasized that “[e]ducation policy … took place in the context of wave after wave of
invasion by white settlers reinforced by military conquest. Treaties, although almost always
72
Children and employees in front of the Yakima Indian Agency school, Fort Simcoe, Washington, approximately
1888 [Photograph]. (1888). University of Washington Special Collections, Washington State Localities
Photographs.
73
Kennedy Report, at 143.
74
National Records and Archives Service, General Services Administration, Ratified Indian Treaties 1722–1869, at
1 (1973).
75
National Records and Archives Service, General Services Administration, Ratified Indian Treaties 1722–1869, at
1 (1973).
33
signed under duress, were the window dressing whereby we expropriated the Indian’s land
and pushed him back across the continent.”
76
The Treaty Clause of the Constitution reads:
This Constitution, and the laws of the U
nited States which shall
be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which
shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall
be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state
shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of
any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
77
As a result, Indian treaties and successive statutes, includi
ng during the Federal
Indian boarding school era, originate with the Constitution and involve U.S.-Indian
relations;
78
U.S.-Native Hawaiian relations;
79
and political relationships unique to Indian
Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community.
80
More than 150 Indian
treaties between Indian Tribes and the United States included
education-related provisions, the terms of which often varied.
81
For example, the
1794 Treaty with the Oneida, Tuscarora, and Stockbridge Indians provides that:
The United States will provide, during three years after the mills shall be
completed, for the expense of employing one or two suitable persons to
manage the mills, to keep them in repair, to instruct some young men of the
76
Kennedy Report, at 143.
77
U.S. Const. Art. VI., Cl. 2.
78
See,e.g., United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193, 201 (2004) (“And for much of the Nation’s history, treaties, and
legislation made pursuant to those treaties, governed relations between the Federal Government and the Indian
tribes.”).
79
See, e.g., Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495, 501 (2000) (“the United States and European powers made constant
efforts to protect their interests and to influence Hawaiian political and economic affairs in general. The first
‘articles of arrangement’ between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii were signed in 1826 … and
additional treaties and conventions between the two countries were signed in 1849, 1875, and 1887”).
80
See Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, 141 S. Ct. 2434, 2440 (2021); United States v.
Cooley, 141 S. Ct. 1638, 1642 (2021); McGirt v. Oklahoma, 140 S. Ct. 2452, 2477 (2020); Doe v. Kamehameha
Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827, 847 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc); Worcester v. Georgia,
31 U.S. 515, 557 (1832).
81
Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, § 22.03 (1)(a) (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2019).
34
three nations in the arts of the miller and sawyer, and to provide teams and
utensils for carrying on the work of the mills.
82
In contrast, the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty b
etween the United States and Great Sioux
Nation mandated that:
In order to insure the civilization of the Indians entering into
this
treaty, the necessity of education is admitted, especially of
such of them as are or may be settled on said agricultural
reservations, and they, therefore, pledge themselves to compel
their children, male and female, between the ages of six and
sixteen years, to attend school, and it is hereby made the duty
of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly
complied with.
83
The text of many Indian treaties evinces that Indian educatio
n was a priority in U.S.-Indian
relations.
In 1871, Congress en
ded treaty-making with Indian Tribes, but existing treaty
obligations were expressly validated and affirmed.
84
Thereafter, the Federal Government
used only statutes, executive orders, and agreements to regulate Indian Affairs.
85
82
Treaty between the United States and the Oneida, Tuscorora [sic] and Stockbridge Indians, dwelling in the
Country of the Oneidas, (Dec. 2, 1794), 7 Stat. 47.
83
Treaty between the United States of American and different Tribes of Sioux Indians, art. 7 (Apr. 29, 1868),
15 Stat. 635, 637 [1868 Fort Laramie Treaty].
84
An act of Congress of March 3, 1871 (l6 Stat. 566).
85
Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 5.01 (2) (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2019).
35
86
6.3 Indian Child Removal: A Part of Historical U.S. Policy
“Many Indian families resisted the assault of the Federal Government on their lives by
refusing to send their children to school.”
– Kennedy Report, U.S. Senate, 1969.
87
After 1871, Congress enacted laws to compel Indian parents to send their children
to school and to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to issue regulations to “secure the
enrollment and regular attendance of eligible Indian children who are wards of the
Government in schools maintained for their benefit by the United States or in public
schools.”
88
For example, under the Act of March 3, 1893,
89
Congress authorized the
Secretary of the Interior to withhold rations, including those guaranteed by treaties, to
Indian families whose children did not attend schools:
The Secretary of the Interior may in his discretion, establish
such regulations as will prevent the issuing of rations or the
86
Grabill, J.C.H., U.S. School for Indians at Pine Ridge, S.D. [Photograph]. (1891). Grabill Collection, Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
87
Kennedy Report, at 12.
88
See, e.g., Act of February 14, 1920, Ch. 75, § 1, 41 Stat. 410, codified as 25 U.S.C. § 282 (2020).
89
Act of March 3, 1893, Ch. 209, § 1, 27 Stat. 628, 635, codified as 25 U.S.C. § 283 (2020).
36
furnishing of subsistence either in money or in kind to the head
of any Indian family for or on account of any Indian child or
children between the ages of eight and twenty-one years who
shall not have attended school during the preceding year in
accordance with such regulations.
90
And as the Federal Government has stated, the eventual “abolition of the ration system …
which in many instances has had the effect of forcing the children into school, has been
made possible through the ameliorating influence of the Government and church
schools.”
91
The United States has applied such Federal regulations, including removal of Indian
children to off-reservation Federal Indian boarding schools without parental consent. For
example, the Department has recognized the Federal effort to transport Indian children
from the Navajo Nation to off-reservation Federal Indian boarding schools without parental
consent as follows:
In 1919 it was discovered that only 2,089 of an estimated 9,613
Navajo children were attending school, and thus the
Government initiated a crash program of Navajo education.
But because of a lack of schools on the reservation, many
Navajo children were transported to boarding schools
throughout the West and Southwest, without their parents’
consent.
92
There is ample evidence in Federal records demonstrating that the United States coerced,
induced, or compelled Indian children to enter the Federal Indian boarding school system.
90
Act of March 3, 1893, Ch. 209, § 1, 27 Stat. 628, 635, codified as 25 U.S.C. § 283 (2020); see, e.g., ARCIA for
1906, at 402 (“This good record has been possible thru the granting of authority by the Secretary of the Interior to
withhold annuities from parents who refused to place their children in some school.”).
91
ARCIA for 1903, at 376.
92
Kennedy Report, at 12.
37
93
7. Federal Indian Boarding School System Framework
“Pas
t experience goes far to prove that it is cheaper to educate our wards than make
war on them, or let them grow up in ignorance, to say nothing of the humanity of the act,
or the results attained.”
94
Federal records document that the United States considered the
Federal Indian boarding school system a central part of its Indian assimilation policy. The
Department has described the role of Indian assimilation policy coupled with Indian land
dispossession policy as follows:
The essential feature of the Government’s
great educational
program for the Indians is the abolition of the old tribal
relations and the treatment of every Indian as an individual.
The basis of this individualization is the breaking up of tribal
lands into allotments to the individuals of the tribe. This step is
fundamental to the present Indian policy of the Government.
Until their lands are allotted, the Government is merely
marking time in dealing with any groups of Indians.
95
The Department has st
ated it was “indispensably necessary that [the Indians] be placed in
positions where they can be controlled, and finally compelled, by stern necessity, to resort
93
Male students with broom at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School. [Photograph] (n.d.). Fort Yuma Quechan
Indian Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
94
ARCIA for 1880, at 89.
95
ARCIA for 1910, at 28.
38
to agricultural labor or starve,”
96
later adding that “[i]f it be admitted that education affords
the true solution to the Indian problem, then it must be admitted that the boarding school
is the very key to the situation.”
97
Indeed, the Department early on concluded that Indian
boarding schools “go further … towards securing [U.S.] borders from bloodshed, and
keeping peace among the Indians themselves, and attaching them to us, then would the
physical force of our Army, if employed exclusively towards the accomplishment of those
objectives.”
98
Federal record
s indicate that the United States viewed official disruption to the
Indian family unit as part of Federal Indian policy to assimilate Indian children. “The love
of home and the warm reciprocal affection existing between parents and children are
among the strongest characteristics of the Indian nature.”
99
When the Department requested
the Brookings Institution
100
to study “the economic and social condition of American
Indians,”
101
the resulting Meriam Report found in 1928 that the main disruption to the
Indian family and Tribal relations had come from the Federal Indian boarding school
system:
[O]n the whole government practices may be said
to have
operated against the development of wholesome [Indian]
family life.
Chief of these is the long continued policy of educating the
[Indian] children in boarding s
chools far from their homes,
taking them from their parents when small and keeping them
away until parents and children become strangers to each other.
The theory was once held that the problem of the [Indian] could
be solved by educating the children, not to return to the
reservation, but to be absorbed one by one into the white
population. This plan involved the permanent breaking of
family ties, but provided for the children a substitute for their
96
ARCIA for 1850, at 1.
97
ARCIA for 1886 LXI (1886).
98
ARCIA for 1826, at 508.
99
ARCIA for 1904, at 392.
100
In 1927 the Institute for Government Research (IGR) became the Brookings Institution.
101
Lewis Meriam, Institute for Government Research, The Problem of Indian Administration, at vii (1928)
[hereinafter Meriam Report].
39
own family life by placing them in good homes of whites for
vacations and sometimes longer, the so-called “outing system.”
The plan failed, partly because it was weak on the vocational
side, but largely by reason of its artificiality. Nevertheless, this
worst of its features still persists, and many children today have
not seen their parents or brothers and sisters in years.
102
The Fed
eral Indian Boarding School Initiative sheds a new light on how the Federal Indian
boarding school system produced intergenerational trauma by disrupting family ties in
Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community.
103
A significant
outcome of deliberate Federal disruption to the Indian family unit
through removal of Indian children from their Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages to
off-reservation Indian boarding schools, is that, depending on location, Indian children
experienced the Federal Indian boarding school system alongside other Indian children
from the same and different Indian Tribe(s) and Alaska Native Village(s).
104
The Federal
Government accordingly devised artificial communities of Indian children throughout the
Federal Indian boarding school system, resulting in the creation of other Indian families
102
Meriam Report, at 573–74.
103
Hartog, C. (1910). Rehoboth School [Photograph]. Indian mission sketches: Descriptions and views of Navajo
life, the Rehoboth Mission School and the Stations Tohatchi and Zuni, 22. Gallup, N.M.: The Author. Hathi Trust
Digital Library.
104
Kennedy Report, at 160.
40
and extended families depending on whether an Indian child returned to the child’s own
Indian Tribe or Alaska Native Village or located elsewhere after completing education in
a Federal Indian boarding school.
105
For example, in 1886, Haskell Institute, Kansas,
instituted a “a stricter form of discipline than heretofore prevailed” by establishing a “cadet
battalion organization of five companies [to] br[eak] up the tribal associations. Size of
cadets, and not their tribal relations, determining now place in dormitory and mess hall,
also necessitates a more frequent recourse to the English language as a common medium,
by bringing pupils of different tribes into closer contact.”
106
In that year alone, the Institute
intentionally mixed Indian children from 31 different Indian Tribes to disrupt Tribal
relations and discourage or prevent Indian language use across the “Apache, Arapaho,
Cheyenne, Cherokee, Chippewa, Comanche, Caddo, Delaware, Iowa, Kiowa, Kickapoo,
Kaw, Mojave, Muncie, Modoc, Miami, New York, Omaha, Ottawa, Osage, Pawnee,
Pottawatomie, Ponca, Peoria, Quapaw, Seneca, Sac and Fox, Seminole, Shawnee, Sioux,
[and] Wyandotte” children.
107
The Department acknowledged that “[i]ntermarriage by the
young graduates of different nations would necessitate the use of the English language,
which their offspring would learn as their mother tongue.”
108
Federal Indian law and policy
accounts for Indians that are (1) from a single Indian Tribe or Alaska Native Village;
(2) multi-Tribal; (3) Alaska Native Corporation shareholders; (4) reservation-based;
(5) urban-based; (6) other Indian families; (7) extended families, (8) terminated;
(9) descendant; and (10) otherwise statutorily determined—various political and legal
classifications that result in part from the Federal Indian boarding school system.
109
105
See, e.g., Kennedy Report, at 160 (describing that “Navajo children were sent as far away as the Chemawa
Boarding School in Oregon, and in turn displaced hundreds of Indian students from the Northwest who were
rerouted to boarding schools in Oklahoma” and “hundreds of Alaskan native children without schools [were sent] to
the Chemawa School in Oregon and the overflow to boarding schools in Oklahoma. [In 1968], more than 400
Alaskan natives were sent to the Chilocco Boarding School in Oklahoma.”).
106
ARCIA for 1886, at 6; see also Kathryn E. Fort, American Indian Children and the Law 8 (Carolina Academic
Press, 2019) (“Even when children were completely separated from their language and culture, they were able to
connect with other Native children through the use of their newly learned English language skills.”).
107
ARCIA for 1885, at 5.
108
ARCIA for 1886, at 61 (emphasis added).
109
See, e.g., 25 U.S.C. § 1603 (13)(A)–(D) (recognizing “Indians” or “Indian” means any person who is a member
of an Indian tribe and irrespective of whether an individual lives on or near a reservation, is a member of a tribe,
band, or other organized group of Indians, including those tribes, bands, or groups terminated since 1940 and those
recognized now or in the future by the State in which they reside, or who is a descendant, in the first or second
degree, of any such member, or is an Eskimo or Aleut or other Alaska Native, or is considered by the Secretary of
the Interior to be an Indian for any purpose, or is determined to be an Indian under regulations promulgated by the
Secretary); 25 U.S.C. § 1903 (5) (recognizing “Indian child’s tribe” means (a) the Indian tribe in which an Indian
child is a member or eligible for membership or (b), in the case of an Indian child who is a member of or eligible for
membership in more than one tribe, the Indian tribe with which the Indian child has the more significant contacts”);
25 U.S.C. § 1915 (a) (recognizing “other Indian families”) (emphasis added), (b) (recognizing “a member of the
Indian child’s extended family”).
41
110
The United
States has for nearly two centuries consistently recognized that Indian
boarding schools comprised a system for Indian education: “Indian schools must train the
Indian youth of both sexes to take upon themselves the duties and responsibilities of
citizenship. To do this requires a system of schools and an organization capable of
preparing the Indian young people to earn a living either among their own people or away
from the reservation homes and in competition with their white brethren. This contemplates
a practical system of schools with an essentially vocational foundation.”
111
110
Yakima School girls, Fort Simcoe, Washington [Photograph]. (n.d.). American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Images Digital Collection, Estelle Reel Collection, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.
111
ARCIA for 1916, at 10 (emphasis added); see also ARCIA for 1931, at 4 (noting that in Indian education “one
kind of a philosophy and one kind of a system have been established a long time”); ARCIA for 1916, at 9 (noting
“uniform course of study for all Indian schools marks a forward step in the educational system,” “system of
education”); ARCIA for 1899, at 437 (describing “The Development of the Indian School System”); ARCIA for
1886, at LX (documenting “control [of] the Indian school system,” “supervision of the Indian school system,”
“history and development of the Indian school system,” and “divisions and operation of the system”); Commissioner
of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of War 61 (1846) (documenting the “system of education”);
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of War 516 (1839) (noting “manual-labor system”);
Report on Indian Affairs to the Secretary of War 61 (1828) (providing a statement showing the “number of Indian
schools, where established, by whom, the number of Teachers, &c., the number of Pupils, and the amount annually
allowed and paid to each by the Government,” that is, documenting a system).
42
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation at this stage did not
examine the Federal Indian day school system, the precursor education system to the
Federal Indian boarding school system. To analyze the Federal Indian boarding school
system in this report, the Department notes that in the past it has described that “day school
instruction is the initial and most important element in the education of the Indian.”
112
“To
the day school the Indian child comes fresh from the tepee and finds himself at once amid
new and strange surroundings.”
113
Federal Indian day schools were primarily located on
Indian reservations and did not have a housing component for children directly on-site with
the education institution. Indian day schools “have, in nearly every instance, preceded the
boarding school” and “in many cases been established through the benevolent efforts of
missionaries or the wives of Army officers stationed at military reservations in the Indian
[C]ountry.”
114
Still, the Department has underscored that only “by complete isolation of
the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated, and the extra
expense attendant thereon is more than compensated by the thoroughness of the work.”
115
To operate the Federal Indian
boarding school system, the Federal Government
supported schools with a housing component directly on-site with the education institution.
The Federal Government applied several approaches of Indian education that differed by
Federal resources provided, location type, including on and off Indian reservations,
operator type, and education program type. The Department in the past has classified Indian
boarding schools that included those that were:
• Located on Indian reservations and controlled by agents.
• Run independently.
o Supported by general appropriation.
o Supported by special appropriation.
• Contract schools
o Supported by general appropriation.
o Supported by special appropriation.
o Mission schools established and chiefly supported by religious
associations.
116
112
ARCIA for 1904, at 394.
113
ARCIA for 1904, at 392.
114
ARCIA for 1886, at LXI.
115
ARCIA for 1886, at LXI.
116
ARCIA for 1886, at LX.
43
The Department has documented that off-reservation Federal Indian boarding school
representatives were “allowed to select children from those attending reservation schools.
The effect has been, in many instances, to demoralize the latter by selecting the brightest
and best pupils, and in some instances to take children that might have been educated at
home with little expense to the Government.”
117
Federal Indian boardi
ng schools were funded by annual appropriations from
Congress but also received resources from other sources as well. For the purposes of this
report, the Department identified a number of different sources of funding for the operation
of Federal Indian boarding schools:
• Appropriations made under the
educational provisions of existing Indian
treaties.
• Funded investments of bonds and other securities held by the United States.
• Proceeds of the sale of lands of certain Indian Tribes.
• Accumulations of money in the Treasury resulting from the sale of lands.
• Annual appropriations by U.S. Congress for Indian school purposes.
118
Based upon these
sources, it is apparent that proceeds from cessions of Indian territories to
the United States through treaties—which were often signed under duress
119
—were used
to fund the operation of Federal Indian boarding schools. As a result, the United States’
assimilation policy, the Federal Indian boarding school system, and the effort to acquire
Indian territories are connected.
117
ARCIA for 1886, at LXVIII (emphasis added).
118
ARCIA for 1886, at LX–LXI.
119
Kennedy Report, at 143.
44
120
The United States used
monies resulting from Indian wealth depletion from cessions
of territories, and held in Federal trust accounts for Indian Tribes, to pay for the attempted
assimilation process of Indians. As Congress has found, a “large proportion of the expense
for the operation of the schools came from Indian treaty funds and not Federal
appropriations.”
121
For example, between 1845 and 1855, while over $2 million was spent
on the Federal Indian boarding school system, Federal appropriations accounted for only
1/20th, or $10,000 per year, of the sum, with Indian trust fund monies supplying the rest.
122
In addition, concerning the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 alone, which turned territories
from collective Indian ownership into individual Indian land allotments, Congress
determined, however intended, “the actual results of the law were a diminishing of the
Indian tribal economic base from 140 million acres to [approximately] 50 million acres,
and severe social disorganization of the Indian family.”
123
Congress further concluded that
the Dawes Act’s “land policy was directly related to the Government’s Indian education
policy because proceeds from the destruction of the Indian land base were used to pay the
costs of taking Indian children from their homes and placing them in Federal boarding
120
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young male students in printing press shop at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
121
Kennedy Report, at 146.
122
Report of the Secretary of the Interior, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 1, Part 1, 34th Congress, First Session, at 1, 561 (1855).
123
Kennedy Report, at 12.
45
schools—a system designed to dissolve the Indian social structure.”
124
The total amount of
Tribal or individual Indian trust fund account monies, if any, held in trust by the United
States and used to directly support the Federal Indian boarding school system is currently
unknown.
In 1908, the Supreme Court ruled in
Quick Bear v. Leupp that the United States
could use monies held in treaty and trust fund accounts for Indian territories ceded to the
United States to fund children “induced or compelled” to attend Indian boarding schools
that were operated by religious institutions or organizations.
125
While payments to religious
institutions and organizations depleted funds Indian Tribes were entitled to, the Court held
that the prohibition on the Federal Government to spend funds on religious schools did not
apply to Indian treaty funds,
126
did not violate Indian appropriations acts,
127
and to forbid
such expenditures would violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
128
129
124
Kennedy Report, at 12.
125
Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. 50 (1908); see also Kennedy Report at 143 (1969) (describing that as “treaty
funds became available, these too were disbursed” “among those societies and individuals—usually missionary
organizations—that had been prominent in the effort to ‘civilize’ the Indians”).
126
Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. at 81.
127
Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. at 78.
128
Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. at 81.
129
U.S. Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection, Untitled (1913). [Photograph showing High Pipe; Charles
Tackett; Hollow Horn Bear, Jr.; William Thunderhawk; Senator Sterling Of South Dakota; Eugene Little; Reuben
46
Quick Bear; Henry Horse Looking; and Silas Standing Elk) (showing Reuben Quick Bear, plaintiff in Quick Bear v.
Leupp, second row, far right)].
Although individual Federal Indian boarding schools varied by operation, management,
and funding, together they comprised a Federally recognized system.
8. The Role of Religious Institutions and Organizations in
the Federal Indian Boarding School System
130
“It is quite possible for missionarie
s without the personal qualifications necessary for work
with the Indians to maintain themselves indefinitely in isolated locations, obstacles both to
the work of the church and to the efforts of the government.”
– Meriam Report, made at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, 1928.
131
The Federal Govern
ment and Department also maintained relationships with
religious institutions and organizations for the Federal Indian boarding school system.
Indian reservations “were distributed among the major religious denominations, which, in
130
Female students in front of building at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School. (n.d.). Fort Yuma Quechan
Indian Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
131
Meriam Report, at 838.
47
an unprecedented delegation of power by the Federal Government to church bodies, were
given the right to nominate new agents, and direct educational and other activities on the
reservations.”
132
Department records indicate that, in addition to the U.S. Army assigning
officers to duty as superintendents of Indian affairs and Indian agents under the direction
of the Indian Office, the Executive accepted official recommendations by religious
institutions and organizations for presidential appointed posts in states and territories.
133
The Department has described the public-private relationship as follows:
[T]he [Indian] agencies were, so to speak, apportioned among
the prominent denominational associations of the country, or
the missionary societies representing such denominational
views; … to make nominations to the position of agent … and
in and through this extra-official relationship to assume charge
of the intellectual and moral education of the Indians thus
brought within the reach of their influence.
134
The U.S. Senate has
confirmed, the U.S. “military was frequently called in to reinforce the
missionaries’ orders.”
135
132
Kennedy Report, at 147.
133
ARCIA for 1872, at 72.
134
ARCIA for 1872, at 72.
135
Kennedy Report, at 147.
48
136
Initial examination of Fe
deral records demonstrates that the United States received
support from religious institutions and organizations for the Federal Indian boarding school
system and directly provided support to religious institutions and organizations for the
Federal Indian boarding school system.
137
“Since appropriations for Indian schools have
been regularly made, a portion of the funds has been wisely expended in the encouragement
of the benevolent work of [missionary] organizations.”
138
As the U.S. Senate has
recognized, funds from the 1819 Civilization Fund “were apportioned among those
societies and individuals—usually missionary organizations—that had been prominent in
the effort to ‘civilize’ the Indians.”
139
The United States at times paid religio
us institutions and organizations on a per
capita basis for Indian children to enter Federal Indian boarding schools operated by
religious institutions or organizations. As part of the Federal Indian boarding school
system, the Department contracted with several religious institutions and organizations
including the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church, the Board
of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, the Board of Home Missions of the
136
Female students standing outside at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School. (n.d.). Fort Yuma Quechan Indian
Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
137
Some religious and other non-federal entities that participated in these and similar initiatives have since
apologized for their roles in them, and pledged to make amends. See e.g., Elisabetta Povoledo and Ian Austen, “I
Feel Shame”: Pope Apologizes to Indigenous People of Canada, New York Times, Apr. 1, 2022.
138
ARCIA for 1886, at LXV.
139
Kennedy Report, at 143.
49
Presbyterian Church, the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, and the Protestant Episcopal
Church “to pay a certain sum for each pupil … being supplemented by the religious
organizations conducting the school.”
140
In 1886, Indian School Superintendent John B.
Riley reported to the Secretary of the Interior on the importance of using public support for
Indian children to enter Indian boarding schools operated by religious institutions or
organizations:
The Government aid furnished
enables them to sustain their
missions, and renders it possible … to lead these people, whose
paganism has been the chief obstacle to their civilization, into
the light of Christianity – a work in which the Government
cannot actively engage … They should receive the
encouragement and co-operation of all Government employés
[sic].
141
The United States also set apart tracts of
Indian reservation lands for the use of religious
institutions and organizations carrying on educational and missionary work among the
Indians.
142
The Department’s initial assessment of relevant Federal records shows that the
United States directly contributed financially to Indian boarding schools operated by
religious institutions and organizations. “The basic approach of subsidizing various
religious groups to operate schools for Indians did not come to an end until 1897.”
143
By 1928, the Departm
ent observed that the lack of central oversight over Indian
boarding schools operated by religious institutions and organizations significantly
impaired the Federal Indian boarding school system. “[N]o central interdenominational
supervision of mission work exists, and that therefore no standards are set up as a minimum
below which the work should not fall.”
144
As a result, “a weak denomination with low
educational standards for its missionaries may maintain indefinitely a mission station
140
ARCIA for 1886, at LXV.
141
ARCIA for 1886, at LXVI.
142
Act of Sept. 21, 1922, Ch. 367, § 3, 42 Stat. 995, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 280 (2020) (authorizing and directing
the Secretary of the Interior “to issue a patent to the duly authorized missionary board, or other proper authority, of
any religious organization engaged in mission or school work on any Indian reservation for such lands thereon as
have been heretofore set apart to and are now [Sept. 21, 1922] being actually and beneficially used and occupied by
such organization solely for mission or school purposes, the area so patented to not exceed one hundred and sixty
acres to any one organization at any station: Provided, That such patent shall provide that when no longer used for
mission or school purposes said lands shall revert to the Indian owners.”) (emphasis added); ARCIA
for 1902, at 51.
143
Kennedy Report, at 147.
144
Meriam Report, at 838.
50
manned by people with only the most elementary education and with no training whatever
…” and “a strong denomination with high standards of general education … may lend
support in isolated spots to work of a specialized nature assumed by missionaries with no
technical and little real understanding of the problems involved in their secular
activities.”
145
“The worst feature of such situations is not that the Indians of the localities
are poorly served, but that the governing boards remain ignorant of the real problems of
Indian missions.”
146
147
145
Meriam Report, at 838.
146
Meriam Report, at 838.
147
Students in front of building at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School [Photograph]. (n.d.). Fort Yuma Quechan
Indian Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
51
9. Federal Indian Boarding School System Conditions
148
Despite differences in operatio
n, management, and funding, the United States
recognized that the Federal Indian boarding school system was central to Indian territorial
dispossession and Indian assimilation. Often using active or decommissioned military sites,
Federal Indian boarding schools “were designed to separate a child from his reservation
and family, strip him of his tribal lore and mores, force the complete abandonment of his
native language, and prepare him for never again returning to his people.”
149
As a result,
the United States applied systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies
150
in the Federal Indian boarding school system to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native,
and Native Hawaiian children through education.
In 1902, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William A. Jones describ
ed the main goal
of applying systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies in the Federal
Indian boarding school system as follows:
The young of the wild bird, though born in ca
ptivity, naturally
retains the instincts of freedom so strong in the parent and beats
the bars to secure it, while after several generations of captivity
the young bird will return to the cage after a brief period of
freedom. So with the Indian child. The first wild redskin placed
148
Apache youth in traditional clothing [Photograph]. Apache Incarceration. (n.d.) National Park Service; Apache
youth in military uniforms [Photograph]. Apache Incarceration. (n.d.) National Park Service.
149
Kennedy Report, at 12.
150
Meriam Report, at 379, 382, 394; Maria Yellow Heart Brave Heart et al., The American Indian Holocaust:
Healing Historical Unresolved Grief, 8 American Indian & Alaska Native Mental Health Research 56 (1998).
52
in the school chafes at the loss of freedom and longs to return
to his wildwood home. His offspring retains some of the habits
acquired by the parent. These habits receive fresh development
in each successive generation, fixing new rules of conduct,
different aspirations, and greater desires to be in touch with the
dominant race.
151
Generations of
Indian children, separate and together, experienced the Federal Indian
boarding school system, which Congress recognized was “run in a rigid military fashion,
with heavy emphasis on rustic vocational education.”
152
“The chi
ldren are improved rather in their habits than in what they learn from
books.”
153
For example, to teach them “obedience and cleanliness, and give[] them a better
carriage,” Department records detail examples of organizing Indian male children “into
companies as soldiers, and the best material selected for sergeants and corporals.”
154
“They
have been uniformed and drilled in many of the movements of army tactics.”
155
As late as
1917, the Department course of study for Indian schools included “military and gymnastic
exercises” for an hour, two or three times per week in grades 4 through 6 (pre-vocational)
and in grades 6 through 10 (vocational).
156
Children in
Federal Indian boarding schools had “their twenty-four hours so
systematized that there is little opportunity to exercise any power of choice.”
157
For
example, the curriculum for first grade students across the Federal Indian boarding school
system in 1917 included the following:
158
151
ARCIA for 1902, at 3.
152
Kennedy Report, at 12.
153
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of War 128 (1846).
154
ARCIA for 1880, at 180.
155
ARCIA for 1880, at 180.
156
ARCIA for 1915, at 16–21.
157
Meriam Report, at 577.
158
ARCIA for 1916, at 13.
53
BOARDING SCHOOLS
The time assigned to a subject indicates its relative importance
FIRST GRADE General Exercises
(25 minutes.)
Assembly, once each week.
Music, once each week.
Manners and right conduct, once
each week.
English
(110 minutes.)
Current events, once each week.
Conversational and other oral
exercises.
History.
Health.
Numbers.
Nature Study.
Reading and written exercises.
Writing and Drawing (alternate).
(20 minutes.)
Breathing Exercises.
(10 minutes.)
Industrial Work
(240 minutes.)
Small and young pupils should
not be required to work full time.
Physical Training
(60 minutes.)
Evening hour.
(60 minutes.)
Little folks, free play. Adults,
miscellaneous exercises.
Meals, free time, extra detail.
(6 hours 15 minutes.)
Sleep.
(9 hours—10 hours for little folks.)
Systematic identity-alteration methodologies employed by Federal Indian boarding
schools included renaming Indian children from Indian names to different English
names;
159
cutting the hair of Indian children;
160
requiring the use of military or other
standard uniforms as clothes;
161
and discouraging or forbidding the following in order to
compel them to adopt western practices and Christianity: (1) using Indian languages, (2)
conducting cultural practices, and (3) exercising their religions.
162
“When first brought in
159
ARCIA for 1904, at 42–45.
160
ARCIA for 1886, at 199; ARCIA for 1858, at 50.
161
ARCIA for 1886, at 199; ARCIA for 1858, at 50.
162
Kennedy Report, at 10–13; Meriam Report, at 189–195; ARCIA for 1886, at XXIII; Ursula Running Bear et al.,
Boarding School Attendance and Physical Health Status of Northern Plains Tribes, 13 Applied Res. Qual. Life 633
(2018).
54
they are a hard-looking set. Their long tangled hair is shorn close, and then they are stripped
of their Indian garb thoroughly washed, and clad, in civilized clothing. The metamorphosis
is wonderful, and the little savage seems quite proud of his appearance.”
163
“Teaching the
young Indian child to speak English is essentially the first step in his training, and special
attention has been directed to giving him a working knowledge of the language in the
shortest possible time.”
164
“No Indian is spoken[:]”
165
“There is not an Indian pupil whose tuition and
maintenance is paid for by the United States Government who is permitted to study any
other language than our own vernacular – the language of the greatest, most powerful, and
enterprising nationalities beneath the sun.”
166
For some Indian Tribes and Alaska Native
Villages, the Federal Indian boarding school system was not the first systematic language
discouragement or prevention experience. For example, the Department has recognized
that for the Indian Pueblos in New Mexico, a “large number of them understand and speak
the Spanish language, and only the young, now being educated in the industrial schools,
understand and speak English.”
167
Indian boarding school rules were
often enforced through punishment, including
corporal punishment, such as solitary confinement,
168
“flogging, withholding food, …
whipping[,]”
169
and “slapping, or cuffing.”
170
At times, rule enforcement was a group
experience: “for the first offense, unless a serious one, a reprimand before the school is far
better than a dozen whippings, because one can teach the whole school that the offender
has done something that is wrong, and they all know it and will remember it, while it is
humiliating to the offender and answers better than whipping.”
171
Federal Indian boarding
schools also conducted discipline at times by making older children to punish younger
children. “When offenses have been serious enough to demand corporal punishment, the
163
ARCIA for 1886, at 199.
164
ARCIA for 1904, at 391.
165
ARCIA for 1886, at 134.
166
ARCIA for 1886, at XXIII.
167
ARCIA for 1886, at 206.
168
ARCIA for 1896, at 343.
169
ARCIA for 1899, at 206; Ursula Running Bear et al., The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian
Boarding School Attendance on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes, 42 Fam. Community Health 1
(2019).
170
ARCIA for 1886, at 195; see also, ARCIA for 1896, at 107, 123 (describing punishment for failure to speak
English).
171
ARCIA for 1886, at 195.
55
cases have generally been submitted to a court of the older pupils, and this has proved a
most satisfactory method.”
172
Describing the practice of “trying boys guilty of any serious
offense by a court-martial, using the older and more intelligent as a court,” the Department
has acknowledged, “the members of the court-martial are detailed from the cadet officers,
care being taken to secure an impartial selection from various tribes.”
173
“Charges are
preferred against the prisoner; the court examines witnesses, hears the defense, fixes the
degree of guilt, and recommends a punishment.”
174
The Department has later observed
Indian school children “live[d] under strict discipline that not only fail[ed] to accomplish
its purpose of moral training but in many cases contribute[d] to an attitude of conflict with
authority of any sort.”
175
Initial analysis demonstrates a trend of Indian children escaping and running away
from Federa
l Indian boarding schools.
176
“The children who have run away from school
have been promptly brought back and punished, and judicious punishment has in all
instances proved very salutary.”
177
For example, the Department has recognized that at
the Kickapoo Boarding School, Kansas, “[r]unaways, both boys and girls, were frequent
during the first half of the year. Corporal punishment was resorted to,” and the “habit,
being of longstanding, was not entirely overcome; but I am convinced that a prompt
returning of the runaways and a whipping administered soundly and prayerfully, helps
greatly toward bringing about the desired result.”
178
172
ARCIA for 1880, at 180.
173
ARCIA for 1881, at 188.
174
ARCIA for 1881, at 188.
175
Meriam Report, at 579.
176
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1892, at 657 (“[R]unning away of 7 boys whose return I failed to secure, though every
effort was made to intercept them by writing and telegraphing civil officials along their line of travel, and a
persistent and continued chase after them over mountains. Two of them reached the reservation in safety and
reported having seen me hunting them in the mountains.”); ARCIA for 1906, at 392, 402; ARCIA for 1905, at 169,
250, 424; ARCIA for 1904, at 224 (“I found the school sadly deficient in discipline; runaways were of frequent
occurrence; the boys were in the habit of barricading their doors, painting their faces, and indulging in Indian
dances.”); ARCIA for 1903, at 121, 182, 194, 275, 363; ARCIA for 1902, at 172, 174, 275, 384; ARCIA for 1895,
at 216; ARCIA for 1892, at 647; ARCIA for 1890, at 12; ARCIA for 1885, at 21; ARCIA for 1884, at XIX; ARCIA
for 1882, at 60, 61, 164; ARCIA for 1868, at 241.
177
ARCIA for 1886, at 38.
178
ARCIA for 1899, at 206.
56
The Department has acknowledged “frankly and unequivocally that the provisions
for the care of the Indian children in boarding schools are grossly inadequate.”
179
Rampant
physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; disease; malnourishment; overcrowding; and lack
of health care in Indian boarding schools are well-documented.
180
For example, the
Department has documented the accommodations in select Federal Indian boarding schools
as follows:
• White Earth Boarding School, Minnesota: “one bed to two pupi
ls.”
181
• Kickapoo Boarding School, Kansas: “three children to each bed.”
182
• Rainy Mountain Boarding School, Oklahoma: “single beds pushed so
closely together to preclude passage between them, and each bed has two or
more occupants.”
183
184
179
Meriam Report, at 11.
180
Kennedy Report, at 10–13; Meriam Report, 189–195; Ursula Running Bear et al., Boarding School Attendance
and Physical Health Status of Northern Plains Tribes, 13 Applied Res. Qual. Life
633 (2018).
181
ARCIA for 1896, at 170.
182
ARCIA for 1896, at 167.
183
ARCIA for 1896, at 256.
184
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young female students standing next to made beds at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
57
The Department has recognized infrastructure deficiencies in the Federal Indian
boarding school system:
The boarding schools are crowded materially beyond their
capacities. A device frequently resorted to in an effort to
increase dormitory capacity without great expense, is the
addition of large sleeping porches. They are in themselves
reasonably satisfactory, but they shut off light and air from the
inside rooms, which are still filled with beds beyond their
capacity. The toilet facilities have in many cases not been
increased proportionately to the increase in pupils, and they are
fairly frequently not properly maintained or conveniently
located. The supply of soap and towels has been inadequate.
185
Poor diets high in starch and sugar and low in fresh fruits and vegetables were
common in the Federal Indian boarding school system.
186
“The outstanding deficiency is
in the diet furnished the Indian children, many of whom are below normal health.”
187
The
Department has recognized the poor-quality water supply as well in Federal Indian
boarding schools.
188
Still, in some circumstances, the Department has acknowledged that
conditions in the Federal Indian boarding school system progressed. For example, in 1897
it recognized that in “the great majority of schools the individual towel, comb, hairbrush,
and toothbrush have displaced the social use of these toilet articles.”
189
And, Federal Indian
boarding schools in 1897 started to transition from coal-oil lamps to electricity for
lighting.
190
185
Meriam Report, at 12.
186
ARCIA for 1896, at 11–12.
187
Meriam Report, at 11.
188
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1897, at 173 (“The water supply is totally inadequate, if indeed there can be said to be
any.”); ARCIA for 1896, at 171.
189
ARCIA for 1887, at 330.
190
ARCIA for 1887, at 17.
58
191
The Federa
l Government has held that the infrastructure deficiencies of the Federal
Indian boarding school system in part are characteristic of “turning over for school use
abandoned forts and other government property. There is almost never any real economy
in this practice.”
192
“Military plants … usually date from long before the modern period of
lighting, ventilation, and conveniences, and they are often of poor construction,
necessitating continued and expensive repair bills.”
193
The Department has found in turn
that it “may be seriously questioned whether the Indian Service could do very much better
than it does without more adequate appropriations.”
194
“From the point of view of
education the Indian Service is almost literally a ‘starved’ service.”
195
191
Johnston, F. B., Students in dining hall, United States Indian School, Carlisle, Pa. [Photograph].
(1901). Johnston (Frances Benjamin) Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington,
D.C..
192
Meriam Report, at 421.
193
Meriam Report, at 421–22.
194
Meriam Report, at 421–22.
195
Meriam Report, at 348.
59
9.1 Use of Child Labor as Curricula, and in Response to Deficient
Conditions
“The labor of [Indian] children as carried on in Indian boarding schools would, it is
believed, constitute a violation of child labor laws in most states.”
– Meriam Report, made at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, 1928.
196
197
The Federal Indian
boarding school system focused on vocational training, involving
manual labor of Indian children.
198
To “furnish Indian boys and girls with a type of
education that would be practical and cost little the government years ago adopted for the
boarding schools a half-time plan whereby pupils spend half the school day in ‘academic’
subjects and the remaining half day in work about the institution.”
199
Federal records
196
Meriam Report, at 376.
197
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young female students seated with sewing machines in classroom at the
Phoenix Indian Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
198
ARCIA for 1852, at 4.
199
Meriam Report, at 374.
60
indicate that as “practical education is what [the Indian] most requires” the Federal Indian
boarding system limited text-book instruction.
200
In 1902, the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs described that to “educate the Indian is to prepare him for the abolishment of tribal
relations, to take his land in severalty, and in the sweat of his brow and by the toil of his
hands to carve out, as his white brother has done, a home for himself and family.”
201
The Federal Government embraced “the policy of giving to industrial training the
foremost plac
e in Indian education.”
202
In addition to well-documented livestock
203
and
poultry raising,
204
dairying,
205
and western agriculture production,
206
including for sales
outside the Federal Indian boarding school system,
207
Indian children at Federal Indian
boarding schools engaged in other manual labor practices including, but not limited to the
following: lumbering,
208
working on the railroad—including on the road and in car
shops,
209
carpentering,
210
blacksmithing,
211
fertilizing,
212
irrigation system
development,
213
well-digging,
214
making furniture including mattresses,
215
tables,
216
and
200
ARCIA for 1902, at 3.
201
ARCIA for 1902, at 3.
202
ARCIA for 1904 at 16 (1902); but see ARCIA for 1905, at 12, 26 (recognizing the “Indian is a natural warrior, a
natural logician, a natural artist” and that regarding “penmanship or drawing,” the “Indian child equals and excels
the white child.”).
203
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1903, at 12.
204
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1884, at 200.
205
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1904, at 396.
206
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1904, at 397 (“The system of having individual garden plots for each pupil has been
productive of excellent results, and has infused into the pupils a spirit of emulation and friendly rivalry which has
led them to put forth their best efforts.”) (emphasis added).
207
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1906, at 422.
208
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1906, at 431; ARCIA for 1858, at 64 (describing that Winnebago “boys chopped and
cleared the timber off some three acres of woodland”).
209
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1905, at 389.
210
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1903, at 378–79.
211
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1903, at 378–79.
212
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1903, at 378–79.
213
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1904, at 388; ARCIA for 1903, at 383.
214
ARCIA for 1904, at 388.
215
ARCIA for 1904, at 389.
216
ARCIA for 1903, at 373.
61
chairs,
217
cooking,
218
laundry
219
and ironing
220
services, and garment-making, including
for themselves and other children in Federal Indian boarding schools. For example, the
Department has acknowledged that in 1857 at the Winnebago Manual Labor Schools,
Nebraska, the Winnebago “girls have made five hundred and fifty garments for themselves
and the boys attending the school, and some seven hundred sacks for the use of the
farm.”
221
The Department later acknowledged that in 1903 at the Mescalero Boarding
School, New Mexico, the Mescalero Apache “boys sawed over 70,000 feet of lumber and
40,000 shingles and made upward of 120,000 brick.”
222
223
Manual labor prov
ided by Indian children in the Federal Indian boarding school
system included provision of education services to other Indian children. Indeed, the
Department “found that three the amount of [English language] drill may be secured by
217
ARCIA for 1903, at 373.
218
ARCIA for 1906, at 419.
219
ARCIA for 1906, at 419.
220
ARCIA for 1896, at 171.
221
ARCIA for 1858, at 64 (1858).
222
ARCIA for 1904, at 398.
223
Hartog, C. (1910). Schoolboys Butchering Sheep [Photograph]. Indian mission sketches: Descriptions and views
of Navajo life, the Rehoboth Mission School and the Stations Tohatchi and Zuni, 23. Gallup, N.M.: The Author.
Hathi Trust Digital Library..
62
having one or two of the more advanced pupils act as teacher … and at the same time
instruction to older pupils can be given in another part of the room.”
224
Congress has also
codified that the “Commissioner of Indian Affairs shall employ Indian girls as assistant
matrons and Indian boys as farmers and industrial teachers in all Indian schools when it is
practicable to do so.”
225
The manual labor practices employed in the Federal Indian
boarding school system varied at end.
At the turn of the 19th century, the Department formed a uniform curriculum for the
Federal Indian boarding school system.
226
“The time assigned to a subject indicates its
relative importance.” The prevocational division of the system refers to Grades 1-6. The
vocational division refers to additional 1-4 Grades after 6 (Grades 7-10). The curriculum
included that, for the prevocational division, Indian children in Grades 1-6 were assigned
4 hours to “Industrial Work.”
227
The curriculum included that, for the vocational division,
Indian children in Grades 1-4 (Grades 7-10) were assigned 4 hours to “Industrial Work.”
228
“The course has been planned with the vocational aim very clearly, and positively
dominant, with especial emphasis on agriculture and home making.”
229
Later in 1928, the Department observ
ed that whatever “may once have been the case,
Indian children are now coming into the boarding schools much too young for heavy
institutional labor.”
230
Concerning on-reservation Federal Indian boarding schools, the
Department noted “the children are conspicuously small.”
231
For example, the Department
documented the intersection between manual labor and younger children at the Leupp
Boarding and Day School, Arizona, which primarily served children from the Navajo
Nation:
224
ARCIA for 1904, at 391.
225
Act of June 7, 1897, Cch. 3, § 1, 30 Stat. 83, codified at 25 U.S.C. § 274 (2020).
226
ARCIA for 1916, at 9–12.
227
ARCIA for 1916, at 13–18.
228
ARCIA for 1916, at 18–21.
229
ARCIA for 1916, at 22.
230
Meriam Report, at 375.
231
Meriam Report, at 375.
[O]ne hundred of the 191 girls are 11 years of age or under.
The result is that the institutional work, instead of being done
wholly by able-bodied youths of 15 to 20 nominally enrolled
in the early grades, has to be done, in part at least, by very small
children–children, moreover, who, according to competent
medical opinion, are malnourished.
232
63
The Department has explained the need for Indian child manual labor in the Federal Indian
boarding school system as follows:
In our Indian schools a large amount of productive work is
necessary. They could not possibly be maintained on the
amounts appropriated by Congress for their support were it not
for the fact that students are required to do the washing,
ironing, baking, cooking, sewing; to care for the dairy, farm,
garden, grounds, buildings, etc.-an amount of labor that has in
the aggregate a very appreciable monetary value.
233
At the Haskel
l Institute, Kansas, for instance, the children were “encouraged to enjoy the
work,” “the children were carefully instructed in the cultivation of strawberries, and under
proper supervision were allowed to gather the fruit and enjoy strawberry suppers.”
234
“If
the labor of the boarding school is to be done by the pupils, it is essential that the pupils be
old enough and strong enough to do institutional work.”
235
The economic contribution of
Indian and Native Hawaiian children to the Federal Indian boarding school system and
beyond remains unknown.
232
Meriam Report, at 375.
233
Meriam Report, at 376 (1928) (citing Course of Study for United States Indian Schools 1 (1922)).
234
ARCIA for 1904, at 396.
235
Meriam Report, at 375.
64
236
10. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and Alaska Native
Villages
“If provision is made for schools [Alaska Natives] will become a valuable element in the
development of a country rich in furs, fish, lumber, and minerals.”
– U.S. Department of the Interior, 1886
237
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation demonstrates that the
Russian government, missionaries, and the United States established Indian boarding
schools for Alaska Native children. The investigation shows that between 1819 to 1969 the
United States operated or supported approximately 21 boarding schools in Alaska. Note,
an individual Federal Indian boarding school may account for multiple sites.
236
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of young male students in metalworking shop at the Phoenix Indian
Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
237
ARCIA for 1886, at LXIX.
65
As the Department has recognized, both the Russian-American Fur Company and
the Russian government, beginning with Catharine II, Empress of Russia, established
schools for Alaska Native children throughout Alaska.
238
In 1793, Catharine II issued an
ukase (edict) ordering missionaries to be sent to the North American Colony to provide
education for Alaska Natives.
239
As the United States later acknowledged following the acquisition of Alaska,
“nearly all of them read and write … Many of them are highly educated, even in the
classics.”
240
“The administration of the [Russian-American Fur Company] often reposed
great confidence in them. One of their best physicians was an Aleutian; one of their best
navigators was an Aleutian; their best traders and accountants were Aleutians.”
241
To obtain the territories that became Alaska, the United States entered into a treaty
with Russia in 1867.
242
But the treaty did not address the land tenure of Alaska Natives,
clouding title to the majority of land in Alaska deemed available.
243
“The schools sustained
by the Fur Company, representing the Russian Government, were disbanded.”
244
“The
schools once taught by Russian priests have one after another died.”
245
Between 1867 and
1884, only mission schools existed in Alaska.
246
As the Department later transmitted to
Congress, the “children of those who learned to read and write in the Russian schools,
deprived of schools by the neglect of the [U.S.] government, are left to grow up in
ignorance.”
247
As a result, the Department engaged and contracted with non-Federal entities to
commence Indian education in Alaska.
248
Russia transferred to the United States in 1867
“dock-yards, barracks, hospitals, … schools,” and other buildings.
249
This infrastructure
238
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 2–3 (1881).
239
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 2–3 (1881).
240
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 3 (1881).
241
Secretary of the Interior, S. Ex. Doc. NO. 47-30, at 3 (1881).
242
Treaty Concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions in North America (Mar. 30, 1867), 15 Stat. 539.
243
Treaty Concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions in North America (Mar. 30, 1867), 15 Stat. 539.
244
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 3 (1881).
245
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 4 (1881).
246
Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law, at 940 (1958).
247
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 4 (1881).
248
ARCIA for 1886, at LXIX; S. EX. DOC. NO. 47-30, at 4 (1881).
249
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 13 (1881).
66
was predominantly used “in harmony with the government efforts at Indian education and
civilization.”
250
The Department has described the collaboration between the U.S
. military and
religious institutions and organizations for Indian education in Alaska. For example, at the
Sitka school, including the “boarding department,” overseen by Rev. John G. Brady,
Captain [H.] Glass, of the United States ship Jamestown, “from the first, with his officers,
took a deep interest in the school.”
251
“In February, 1881, Captain Glass “caused the houses
to be numbered, and an accurate census taken of the inmates, adults, and children.”
252
He
then caused a tin label to be made “for each child, which was tied around the neck of the
child, with his or her number, and the number of the house on it,” so that if a child was
found outside of the school, the Indian policeman or teacher took the numbers on the labels
and reported them.
253
“The following morning the head Indian of the house to which the
absentee belonged was summoned to appear and answer for the absence of the child. If the
child was willfully absent, the headman was fined or imprisoned.”
254
Early on, there was no variation in the education between Alaska
Natives and
non-Alaska Natives.
255
Later, in “the act providing for a civil government in Alaska,” in
1884, Congress appropriated funds for “Indian education in Alaska.”
256
The Nelson Act of
1905 established a dual school system in Alaska and provided in part that Alaska Native
children have the right to be admitted to any Indian boarding school.
257
The United States
in turn has officially supported Alaska Native education during Alaska’s status as a U.S.
territory starting in 1867 and prior to its entry into the Union.
As questions about land title to the territory emerged, the Federal officials
acknowledg
ed that “[d]ifficulties will, however, in all probability arise between the whites
and our own Indians. These tribes live along the shores of the various bays, rivers, and
inlets.”
258
“To keep them in subjugation will require either the interposition of the navy,
250
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 7 (1881).
251
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 6 (1881).
252
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 6 (1881).
253
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 6–7 (1881).
254
S. Ex. Doc. No. 47-30, at 7 (1881).
255
Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law, at 939 (1958).
256
ARCIA for 1886, at LXIX.
257
33 Stat. L. 619, 7 codified at 48 U.S.C. § 169; see Davis v. Sitka School Board, 3 Alaska 481 (1908).
258
ARCIA for 1868, at 309.
manifested by one or more light-draught gun-boats paying periodical visits to the various
villages, and inflicting summary punishment when necessary, or the constant employment
of an armed quartermaster’s steamer, which could probably perform such duty while
transporting supposed from post to post.” Federal officials accordingly recommended “that
a show of military power be made at the earliest practicable moment” to select Alaska
Native Villages.
259
67
In 1953, when the Department invited the University of Pittsburgh to study health
care in the Territory of Alaska, the resulting Parran Report found: “Few [federal Indian
boarding schools] had physical facilities that could be considered modern or even
desirable. Some were fire traps. Children were housed in basements and attics although
legal capacity was not exceeded, in fact, crowding was commonly observed.”
260
Later, the 1958 Alaska
Statehood Act authorized the burgeoning state to select over
100 million acres from Federal public lands—and again did not resolve the land tenure of
Alaska Natives.
261
To face Alaska Native aboriginal territory claims, Congress enacted the
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.
262
The Act extinguished claims of aboriginal
title in exchange for funds and land selections by non-Tribal government Alaska Native
Corporations, and further authorized the Secretary to withdraw unreserved public lands for
conservation purposes.
263
Congress, however, failed to authorize the withdrawals within
the statutory time limit, leaving significant land tenure and jurisdiction questions
unanswered. Then, in 1980, Congress enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA) to fulfill both the Alaska Statehood Act and Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act by defining the delicate balance between Federal, State, Alaska
Native Village, Alaska Native Corporation, and private ownership and authority over
104 million acres of land in Alaska.
264
While land tenure history differed for Alaska
Natives, the United States applied its assimilation policy to Alaska Natives after 1905
through Indian education, including Federal Indian boarding schools.
259
ARCIA for 1868, at 309.
260
Thomas Parran, et al., Alaska’s Health: A Survey Report to the United States Department of the Interior
[hereinafter Parran Report] 193–94 (1954).
261
Alaska Statehood Act, Pub. L. 85–508, § 4, 72 Stat. 339 (1958).
262
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Pub. L. 92-203, codified as amended at 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601–1629 (2020).
263
43 U.S.C. §§ 1605, 1610–1615 (2020).
264
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, Pub. L. 96-487, 94 Stat. 2371, codified as amended at
16 U.S.C. §§ 3101–3233 (2020).
68
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation shows that between
1819 to 1969, the United States operated or supported approximately 21 Federal Indian
boarding schools in Alaska. Note, an individual Federal Indian boarding school may
account for multiple sites, and an institution primarily operated or supported by a
non-Federal entity could qualify as a Federal Indian boarding school, if the institution
met all four required criteria as described in the sections entitled Executive Summary and
Developing the Indian Boarding School List.
The Department has identified the following Federal Indian Boarding Schools in
Alaska:
1. Anvik Mission
2. Copper Valley Boarding School
3. Douglas Island Friends Mission School
4. Eklutna Industrial School
5. First Mission House
6. Fort Wrangell Tlingit Industrial School
7. Friends High School
8. Holy Cross Boarding School
9. Jesse Lee Home for Children – Anchorage
10. Jesse Lee Home for Children – Seward
11. Jesse Lee Home for Children – Unalaska
12. Kanakanak Hospital, Orphanage, and School
13. Kodiak Aleutian Regional High School
14. Longwood School
15. Mt. Edgecumbe Boarding School
16. Nunapitsinghak Moravian Children’s Home
17. Seward Sanitarium
18. Sitka Industrial Training School
19. St. Mark’s Episcopal Mission School
20. St. Mary Mission School – Akulurak
69
21. St. Mary Mission School – Andreasfsky
22. White Mountain Boarding School
23. William E. Beltz Boarding School
24. Woody Island Mission and Orphanage
25. Wrangell Institute
In addition to
boarding schools operated or supported by the Russian government,
Alaska Native Villages and their children experienced the Federal Indian boarding school
system for over a century. Given the unique historical experience of Alaska Native
Villages, the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative provides an appropriate first step
for intergenerational healing for Alaska Native Villages.
11. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and the Native
Hawaiian Community
The Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative investigation demonstrates that
missionaries, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, and individual Native Hawaiian monarchs and
royalty established boarding schools to educate Native Hawaiian children, including for
assimilation and retention of culture. Some boarding schools operated throughout the
Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, Republic of Hawaiʻi, Territory of Hawaiʻi, and State of Hawaiʻi. The
investigation shows that between 1819 to 1969 the United States supported approximately
seven boarding schools in Hawaiʻi. Note, an individual Federal Indian boarding school
may account for multiple sites.
The pol
itical relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiian
Community has been recognized and reaffirmed by the United States.
265
The United States
has acknowledged that “Native Hawaiians are a distinct and unique [I]ndigenous people
with a historical continuity to the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian archipelago, whose
society was organized as a nation and internationally recognized as a nation by the United
265
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827, 847 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc); see
also 20 U.S.C. § 7512 (12), (13) (2020); 43 C.F.R. part 50 (2022) (Procedures for Reestablishing a Formal
Government-to-Government Relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community).
70
States, Britain, France, and Japan, as evidenced by treaties governing friendship,
commerce, and navigation.”
266
Over nearly a century, Congress has determined repeatedly
through a body of
legislation that the Native Hawaiian Community is within the scope of Federal powers over
Indian Affairs and with which the United States has already recognized an inherent special
political and trust relationship.
267
Under its powers over Indian Affairs, the U.S
. Federal Government in Native
Hawaiian relations directed and supported land acquisition and Native Hawaiian
assimilation through education simultaneously.
268
The United States has concluded that at the time of European arrival to the Hawaiian
Islands “in 1778,
the Native Hawaiian people lived in a highly organized, self-sufficient
subsistence social system based on a communal land tenure system with a sophisticated
language, culture, and religion.”
269
In 1795, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi developed as an
absolute monarchy and a “unified monarchal government of the Hawaiian Islands was
established in 1810 under Kamehameha I, the first King of Hawaii.”
270
“The 1800s are a story of increasing in
volvement of westerners in the economic and
political affairs of the Kingdom.”
271
The United States has acknowledged “[r]ights to land
became a principal concern, and there was unremitting pressure to allow non-Hawaiians to
266
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (1) (2021).
267
Congress described this trust relationship, for example, in findings enacted as part of the Native Hawaiian
Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 7511–7517 (2020), and the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act, 42 U.S.C.
§§ 11701–11714 (2020). Those findings observe that ‘‘[t]hrough the enactment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission
Act, 1920, Congress affirmed the special relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiians,’’
20 U.S.C. 7512(8) (2020); see also 42 U.S.C. 11701(13), (14) (2020) (citing earlier laws conferring leasing and
fishing rights on Native Hawaiians). Congress then “reaffirmed the trust relationship between the United States and
the Hawaiian people’’ in the Hawaii Admission Act, 20 U.S.C. § 7512(10) (2020); accord 42 U.S.C. § 11701(16)
(2020). Since then, ‘‘the political relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people has been
recognized and reaffirmed by the United States, as evidenced by the inclusion of Native Hawaiians’’ in at least ten
statutes directed in whole or in part at American Indians and other native peoples of the United States such as
Alaska Natives. 20 U.S.C. § 7512(13) (2020); see also 42 U.S.C. § 11701(19), (20), (21) (2020) (listing additional
statutes).
268
43 C.F.R. § 50 (2016); S. Rep. No. 111–162 at 1, 4–7, 9–13 (2010); U.S. Department of Justice &
U.S. Department of the Interior, Rep. on the Reconciliation Process Between the Fed. Government and Native
Hawaiians 1, 23–25, 29–40 (2000) [hereinafter Reconciliation Report].
269
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (2) (2020).
270
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (3) (2020).
271
Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495, 501 (2000).
71
use and to own land and to be secure in their title.”
272
From 1820 to 1850, the Kingdom
transformed the communal land tenure system to a private land ownership system
following pressure from the United States and European nations which “wanted stable land
ownership to permit long-term leasing and outright land ownership for large-scale
agricultural ventures.”
273
At the same time, non-Federal entities su
pported assimilation of Native Hawaiians.
Between 1819 and 1847, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
(ABCFM), which received Federal support through the Indian Civilization Fund Act of
1819, sent 12 missionary companies to Hawaiʻi to promote Calvinism and claimed
civilized practices.
274
ABCFM mandated the first company as follows: “You are to aim at
nothing short of covering those islands with fruitful field and pleasant dwellings and
schools and churches, and of raising up a whole people to an elevated state of Christian
civilization.”
275
The missionaries built schools to reduce the Native Hawaiian language
(‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) to writing, teach Native Hawaiians to read and write, and promote
Christian conversion.
276
As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, “They sought to teach
Hawaiians to abandon religious beliefs and customs that were contrary to Christian
teachings and practices.”
277
Soon after, in 1826, Ka
ʻahumanu, the Queen Regent, negotiated the first treaty with
the United States, settling debts and granting it permission to use Hawaiian ports.
278
As
Congress has proclaimed, between 1826 to 1893, “the United States recognized the
sovereignty and independence of the Kingdom of Hawaii, … extended full and complete
diplomatic recognition to the Kingdom of Hawaii, and entered into treaties and conventions
272
Id.
273
Reconciliation Report at 25.
274
Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, Portraits of American Protestant Missionaries to Hawaii (1901).
275
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Instructions of the Prudential Committee of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Sandwich Islands Mission,
at 27 (1838).
276
Larry K. Kimura and William Wilson, U.S. Dept. of Interior, Native Hawaiians Study Commission. Report on
the Culture, Needs and Concerns of Native Hawaiians Pursuant to Public Law 96-565, Title III, Vol. I, at 196
(1983)1 Native Hawaiians Study Commission Minority Report, 196 (U.S. Dept. of Interior 1983)
277
Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495, 501 (2000).
278
H. Exec. Doc. 53-1, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, App. II, Affairs in Hawaii, Treaty of
Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Between the United States and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) (Dec. 23,
1826).
72
with the Kingdom of Hawaii to govern friendship, commerce[,] and navigation in 1826,
1842, 1849, 1875, and 1887.”
279
By the end of the 1820s, the majority of the adult Native Hawaiian population
attended missionary schools.
280
The missionaries in 1831 then established a teacher
training school at Lahainaluna, Maui.
281
The Lahainaluna Seminary trained young Native
Hawaiians to teach other Native Hawaiians to read, write, and embrace Christianity.
282
In
1834, the school began to accept boarding students.
283
The missionaries in 1834 also
supplied a printing press and printed school primers, catechisms, and the Bible in ‘Ōlelo
Hawai‘i for distribution among newly literate Native Hawaiians.
284
In 1836, the missionaries formed the Hilo Boarding Sc
hool for Native Hawaiian
male children.
285
“From the first, religious instruction, practical farming, and the
mechanical skills of the time were dominating elements of the curriculum.”
286
The Charter
of the Hilo Boarding School, created in 1848, required schooling of Native Hawaiian male
children in the various branches of Christian living and teaching of sound, useful
knowledge, coupled with manual labor to promote good citizenship training.
287
The
Department has described that the School “served well in the early days in educating
leaders among the Hawaiian race, producing what was most needed among them, teachers,
preachers, and intelligent agriculturists and homemakers.”
288
The Department has also
assessed the connections between other boarding schools: The Hilo Boarding School
“served as a feeder for Lahainaluna Seminary which was then a higher school for the
training of native preachers and missionaries.”
289
279
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (4) (2020).
280
Benjamin O. Wist, A Century of Public Education in Hawaii (1940) [hereinafter Wist].
281
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 16, A Survey of Education in Hawaii, at 95 (1920)
[hereafter Survey of Education].
282
Wist, at 90.
283
Wist, at 90
284
Linda K. Menton, A Christian and “Civilized” Education: The Hawaiian Chiefs’ Children’s School, 1839-50,
32 Hist. of Educ. Q., 213 (1992) [hereinafter Menton].
285
Survey of Education, at 347.
286
Survey of Education, at 347.
287
Hilo Boarding School Charter (June 2, 1848).
288
Survey of Education, at 347.
289
Survey of Education, at 347.
73
For operation, the Hilo Boarding School relied on student manual labor, including
for agriculture. As such, it was cautious to admit male children younger than age 10 or
12.
290
“It has always been predominately an industrial school and the labor of the pupils
themselves has been a large factor in building up the plant, developing the farm[,] and
maintaining the subsistence department.”
291
In 1900, the Hilo Boar
ding School established a “pupil government” including a
judiciary body composed of child magistrates to distribute penalties to other children for
school regulation violations and military discipline.
292
In 1910, the School instituted a
military regimen including uniforms, drills, and rifles.
293
As the Department has
acknowledged, the Hilo Boarding School “is conducted largely on a military basis, drill
instruction, and daily routine being made regular features of the boys’ life in the school.”
294
The “military regimen proves to be of great assistance in the formation of right habits and
ideals. It is a most important aid in maintaining good discipline and morale, and instilling
loyalty to the school and the Nation.”
295
The daily
schedule at the Hilo Boarding School remained largely unchanged from
its opening to its closing as a school in 1925. Original records document the daily schedule
as follows:
A.M.
5:20 Rising Bell
5:35–6:25 Study Hour
6:30 Breakfast
7:00–8:20 Work Hour
8:20 Dispensary
8:40 Inspection of Rooms
8:50–12:00 School
P.M. 12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00–4:00 Work Hour or Shop
4:15-5:15 Drill (Tuesdays)
5:45 Supper
290
Letter from David B. Lyman, Hilo to R. Anderson, (Nov. 15, 1840), at 18–19.
291
Survey of Education, at 348.
292
Catalogue of the Hilo Boarding School for boys, Hilo, Hawaii, H.T. 1920–1921, at 12 (1920).
293
Catalogue of the Hilo Boarding School for boys, Hilo, Hawaii, H.T. 1920–1921, at 20 (1920).
294
Survey of Education, at 349.
295
Survey of Education, at 349.
74
7:15 Chapel
7:20–8:30 Study Hour
8:45 Taps
On Sundays, the male children were permitted to rise at 7:00 a.m.
296
The newly educated
teachers from Lahainaluna Seminary and Hilo Boarding School were charged to establish
new mission schools throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1840, King Kamehameha III developed a Bill of Rights providing for a ‘Ōlelo
Hawai‘i-based public school system, making education a Kingdom responsibility instead
of a missionary one.
297
By 1848, over 200 schools operated in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
298
King Kamehameha III also created the Chiefs’ Children’s Scho
ol, also known as
the Royal School, to train future monarchs of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
299
Maintained by
missionaries, Native Hawaiian children were segregated by gender in the School, which
was a change from Native Hawaiian culture and practices, and disciplinary practices
included food denial and corporal punishment:
300
“When we thought the case demanded it
we have not hesitated to use the rod, taking them alone and conversing with them awhile
before we applied it and the result has generally been a happy one.”
301
The Department has recognized that by 1850, the well-being o
f Native Hawaiians
was diminishing: “With the rapid development of the sugar industry, which set in strongly
about the middle of the [18
th
] century, and in view of the steadily and rapidly decreasing
native population, it became evident that a supply of new and cheap labor must be
found.”
302
296
Catalogue of the Hilo Boarding School for boys, Hilo, Hawaii, H.T. 1920–1921, at 26 (1920).
297
See Translation of the Constitution and Laws of the Hawaiian Islands, Established in the Reign of
Kamehameha III,
at 40–43 (1842).
298
Richard Armstrong, Journal of a Tour – Around the Windward Islands, Hawai, Maui and Molokai, in the Months
of September, October, November, 1848 (1848).
299
Menton, at 213–242.
300
Menton, at 213–242.
301
Menton, at 228 (citing Report of the Chiefs’ Children’s School (1841)).
302
Survey of Education, 9.
75
So “her own people”
303
could once again thrive, the last direct descendant of
King Kamehameha I, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, in 1883 left her estate in “trust for
a school dedicated to the education and upbringing of Native Hawaiians.”
304
Princess
Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s will provided for the construction and maintenance of “two
schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls,”
305
“in the
Hawaiian Islands, called the Kamehameha Schools, on the Hawaiian monarchy’s ancestral
lands,”
306
with the purpose of providing “a good education in the common English
branches, and also instruction in morals and in such useful knowledge as may tend to make
good and industrious men and women.”
307
In 1888,
the Kamehameha School for Boys incorporated a military training
program, which the War Department recognized as a military school in 1910.
308
Between
1916 and 2002, under the National Defense Act, Kamehameha Schools participated in the
Reserve Officers Training Corp and Junior Reserve Officers Training Corp programs.
309
From 1935 to the early months of World War II, the United States recruited attendees and
graduates of the Kamehameha School for Boys to colonize the Howland, Baker, and Jarvis
Islands, first through the Department of Commerce until jurisdiction was transferred to the
Department.
310
The Kamehameha Schools continue to benefit Native Hawaiian education
today.
Although the ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i-based public school system initially operated using
only the Hawaiian language, it eventually repressed ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i in education by
promoting English.
311
By 1888, only 16 percent of children were taught in Hawaiian.
312
303
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827, 831 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (citing
Charles R. Bishop, The Purpose of the Schools, at 3 (1889)).
304
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827, 831 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc).
305
Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop (Oct. 31, 1883), in In re Estate of Bishop, Probate No. 2425 (Haw. Sup. Ct. 1884).
306
Doe v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 470 F.3d 827, 831 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc).
307
Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop (Oct. 31, 1883), in In re Estate of Bishop, Probate No. 2425 (Haw. Sup. Ct. 1884).
308
The Adjutant General’s Off., The War Department, Officers of the Army of the U.S., Oct. 20, 1910, at 80 (1910).
309
War Department Appropriation Bill for 1932, Military Activities: Hearings before the Subcommittee of House
Committee on Appropriations, 71st Cong. 936, 940 (1930).
310
S. Res. 114-109 (2015) (enacted).
311
81 Fed. Reg. 71,280 (Oct. 14, 2016); Reconciliation Report, at 29.
312
Native Hawaiian Law: A Treatise, (MacKenzie, Serrano, et al. eds.), at 1261 (2015).
In 1891, when crowned, Queen Liliʻuokalani advanced the Kingdom, seeking to
reduce control and influence by U.S. and European sugar planters, missionaries, and
business interests over it.
313
Then, as the United States has recognized, in 1893, the
“sovereign, independent, internationally recognized, and [I]ndigenous government of
Hawaii, the Kingdom of Hawaii, was overthrown by a small group of non-Hawaiians,
including United States citizens, who were assisted in their efforts by the United States
Minister, a United States naval representative, and armed naval forces of the United
States.”
314
As President Cleveland noted, “it appears that Hawaii was taken possession of
by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the government of the islands,
or of anybody else so far as shown, except the United States Minister.”
315
“United States
agents and citizens” participated in deposing Queen Liliʻuokalani, and non-Native
Hawaiians established the Republic of Hawaiʻi in 1894.
316
76
The United States has further recognized the resulting deliberate policy to suppress
‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i:
Following the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893,
Hawaiian medium schools were banned. After annexation,
throughout the territorial and statehood period of Hawaii, and
until 1986, use of the Hawaiian language as an instructional
medium in education in public schools was declared unlawful.
The declaration caused incalculable harm to a culture that
placed a very high value on the power of language, as
exemplified in the traditional saying: ‘‘I ka ‘o¯ lelo no¯ ke ola;
I ka ‘o¯ lelo no¯ ka make. In the language rests life; In the
language rests death.’’
317
For over a century, the various governments controlling the Hawaiian Islands ban
ned
‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i and required the use of the English language in public education, coinciding
with additional land acquisition by the United States of the Hawaiian Islands.
313
Reconciliation Report, at 26, 27.
314
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (5) (2020).
315
S. Rep. No. 103–126, at 1, 27–28 (1993) (quoting President Cleveland’s Message Relating to the Hawaiian
Islands—December 18, 1893).
316
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (5) (2020); Reconciliation Report, at 29.
317
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (19) (2015).
As the United States codified, in 1898, the ‘‘Joint Resolution to provide for
annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States,” “ceded absolute title of all lands held
by the Republic of Hawaii, including the government and crown lands of the former
Kingdom of Hawaii, to the United States,”
318
totaling 1.8 million acres.
319
The Joint
Resolution notably “mandated that revenue generated from the lands be used ‘solely for
the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public
purposes.’”
320
The United States in turn officially supported Native Hawaiian education
prior to Hawaii’s status as a U.S. territory and state.
321
77
Congress in 1900 enacted The Hawaiian Organic Act, establishing the Territory of
Hawaiʻi, extending the U.S. Constitution to Hawaiʻi, placing ceded lands under Federal
control and directing the use of proceeds from those lands to benefit the inhabitants of
Hawaiʻi.
322
By 1902, the Territory replaced the ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i-based public school system
with 203 English-required schools and instituted discipline practices for speaking ‘Ōlelo
Hawai‘i.
323
“[T]he extraordinary feature of the Hawaiian educational plan is that, in a land
far removed in the Pacific, it did become typically American, and that the transformation
was achieved even before the Islands themselves became American soil.”
324
In 1959, when the Uni
ted States admitted the State of Hawaiʻi into the Union, it also
reaffirmed the trust relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiian
Community.
325
It did so in part by retaining exclusive power to enforce the Ceded Land
Trust and Hawaiian Home Lands Trust, including to ensure “proceeds from the sale or
other disposition of any such lands and the income therefrom, shall be held by said State
as a public trust for the support of the public schools and other public educational
institutions, for the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians.”
326
The United States
therefore officially supported Native Hawaiian education following the statehood of
Hawaiʻi.
318
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (6) (2020).
319
81 Fed. Reg. 71,280 (Oct. 14, 2016).
320
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (6) (2020) (emphasis added).
321
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (6) (2020).
322
Act of April 30, 1900, Ch. 339, 31 Stat. 141.
323
Paul F. Nahoa Lucas, E Ola Mau Kākou I Ka ʻŌlelo Makuahine: Hawaiian Language Policy and the Courts,
34 Haw. J. Hist. 1, 12 (2000)
324
Wist, B. Othello. (1940). A century of public education in Hawaii. [Honolulu]: The Hawaii educational review.
325
20 U.S.C. § 7512 (10), (11) (2020).
326
Act of March 18, 1959, Pub. L. 86–3, § 5, 73 Stat. 4, 6.
78
After statehood of Hawaiʻi, the United States as part of Native Hawaiian relations
also supported established missionary and other boarding schools for Native Hawaiians.
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation shows that between
1819 to 1969 the United States supported approximately seven boarding schools in the
Hawaiian Islands. Note, an individual Federal Indian boarding school may account for
multiple sites and an institution primarily operated or supported by a non-Federal entity
could qualify as a Federal Indian boarding school, if the institution met all four required
criteria as described in the sections entitled Executive Summary and
Developing the Indian
Boarding School List.
The Department has identified the following Federal Indian Boarding Schools in the
Hawaiian Islands:
1. Hilo Boarding School
2. Industrial and Reformatory School (Kawailou)
3. Industrial and Reformatory School (Keoneula, Kapalama)
4. Industrial and Reformatory School (Waialee, Waialua)
5. Industrial and Reformatory School for Girls (Keoneula, Kapalama)
6. Industrial and Reformatory School for Girls (Maunawili, Ko’olaupoko)
7. Industrial and Reformatory School for Girls (Mo’ili’ili, Honolulu)
8. Kamehameha Schools
9. Lahainaluna Seminary
10. Mauna Loa Forestry Camp School
11. Molokai Forestry Camp School
Today, the United State
s has held that the “long-standing policy of the United States
has been to protect and advance Native Hawaiian interests. Native Hawaiians continue to
suffer the consequences of the 1893 overthrow of their [I]ndigenous government,”
including higher poverty rates and lower incomes than non-Native Hawaiians in Hawaii.
327
As Congress expressed in the Joint Resolution to Acknowledge the 100th Anniversary of
the Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, a commitment to acknowledge the ramifications
327
S. Rep. No. 111-162, at 2 (2010).
79
of past Federal actions is necessary to provide the proper foundation for reconciliation
between the United States and the Native Hawaiian Community.
328
The Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative provides a proper first step for intergenerational healing from
the effects of Federal Indian boarding schools in the Native Hawaiian Community.
12. Federal Indian Boarding Schools and Freedmen
The Department also recognizes
the inclusion of select non-Indians in the Federal
Indian boarding school system, given the established association of certain Freedmen with
the Five Civilized Tribes or because schools accepted both Indians and non-Indians,
including because of Federal legislation.
329
Following President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the end of
the Civil War in 1865, emancipated African Americans were referred to as “Freedmen.”
From 1865 to 1872, the Federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—
commonly referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau—supervised all relief and educational
activities relating to Freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing, and medicine.
330
The
Freedmen’s Bureau recruited teachers and worked with non-Federal entities to establish
schools and develop educational opportunities for the Freedmen.
331
Some people from the Five Civili
zed Tribes, including the Cherokee Nation,
Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and Seminole Nation, had
enslaved people before the United States forced the removal of the Tribes to the Indian
Territory in present-day Oklahoma.
332
The Five Civilized Tribes continued to hold
enslaved people in the Indian Territory until 1866 when they executed treaties with the
United States that required the Tribes to free their enslaved people.
333
The Freedmen’s
328
Pub. L. 103-150, 107 Stat. 1510 (1993).
329
See, e.g., ARCIA for 1903, at 76–82.
330
National Archives and Records Administration, The Freedmen’s Bureau, Records of the Federal Bureau of
Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.
331
Robert D. Parment, Schools for the Freedmen, 34 Negro Hist. Bull. 128 (1971).
332
Michael F. Doran, Negro Slaves of the Five Civilized Tribes, 68 Annals Ass’n Am. Geographers 335 (1978).
333
Treaty with Choctaw and Chickasaw, Apr. 28, 1866. 14 Stat. 769; Treaty with the Creeks, June 14, 1866., 14
Stat. 785; Treaty with the Seminole, July 19, 1866, 14 Stat. 755; Treaty with the Cherokee, July 27, 1866, 14 Stat.
799.
80
Bureau operated in the Indian Territory until and just after the treaties were executed in
1866.
334
Efforts to educate Freedmen ass
ociated with the Five Civilized Tribes after 1866
originated with each of the Five Civilized Tribes but differed in rates of establishment and
number of schools, most of which were lacking in resources and adequate facilities.
335
In
some cases, the Tribes already had established educational systems for their children,
which then accommodated Freedmen.
336
In those cases, the Freedmen’s schools were
typically built as stand-alone segregated schools.
Some of the Freedmen’s sch
ools were connected to existing Indian boarding
schools. For example, the Creek Nation opened the Tullahassee School in 1850 for Indian
children as a boarding school.
337
After a fire destroyed the building, the school reopened
in 1883 as the Tullahassee Manual Labor School with the cooperation of the Baptist Home
Mission Society and the Creek Freedmen and their descendants.
338
The government
provided funds to the school and controlled it from 1908 to 1914, after which Wagoner
County operated it until 1924 as a school for African Americans in Oklahoma.
339
334
Carol Sue Humphrey, Freedmen Schools, in The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture; Donald A.
Grindle, Jr., & Quintard Taylor, Red vs Black: Conflict and Accommodation in the Post Civil War Indian Territory,
1865-1907, 8 Am. Indian Q. 216, 211–229 (1984).
335
Grindle & Taylor, at 216; ARCIA for 1903, at 76–82; ARCIA for 1900, at 112, 115, 116; ARCIA for 1887, at
LXII – LXIII.
336
Grindle & Taylor, at 216.
337
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Forty-first Annual Rep. 6 (1882).
338
ARCIA for 1889, at 206; Bd. of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Forty-first Annual Rep.
9, 10 (1882).
339
Rep. of the Department of the Interior, 350 (1907).
81
13. Other Types of Schools
In addition to schools for the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Department
acknowledges that other schools had combined enrollments of Indian, African American,
White, and Hispanic students.
For example, in
1878, the government took a party of newly released Indian
prisoners of war from Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, to the Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute in Virginia to receive an education.
340
These represented the first
Indian students at Hampton, initiating an Indian education program that lasted until 1923.
From 1878 to 1912, the government provided an annual payment of $167 per Indian student
for board and clothing at Hampton.
341
Between 1878 and 1923, approximately 1,388 Indian
students representing 65 Indian Tribes attended the school.
342
The Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute eventually became Hampton University, a private institution
designated today as a Historically Black College or University.
In other cases, the Federal Government funde
d schools for Indian students that later
admitted non-Indian students. For example, in 1888, the Catholic Church established the
St. Boniface Indian School in Banning, California because of its proximity to several Indian
reservations in southern California.
343
At-risk White, Hispanic, and African American
children also attended the school until it closed in the 1970s.
340
The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, The Work of Hampton, 3 (1905); ARCIA for 1878, at XLIII.
341
The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, at 15.
342
Paulette Fairbanks Molin, Training the Hand the Head and the Heart: Indian Education at Hampton Institute,
51 Minn. Hist. 84, 82–98 (1998).
343
R. Bruce Harley, The Founding of St. Boniface Indian School, 1888-1890, Vol. 81., No. 4, S. Cal. Q., Winter,
1999, 449–466 (1999); Precious Blood School, 1953-2008, Over 50 Years of Hope.
82
344
14. Federal Indian Boarding School List
Through the
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the Department details the
first official list of Federal Indian boarding schools operated or supported by the United
States. Under its Memorandum of Understanding with NABS, the Department cross-
referenced its list with that of NABS to secure comprehensive identification of schools in
the Federal Indian boarding school system. Each site met the four required criteria: (1)
housing, (2) education, (3) Federal support, and (4) timeframe. The list details that the
Department operated or supported 408 Federal Indian boarding schools across 37 states or
then-territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. Given that an
individual Federal Indian boarding school may account for multiple sites, the 408 Federal
Indian boarding schools comprised 431 specific sites.
344
Johnston, F.B., Hampton Institute, Va. – Indian orchestra. [Photograph]. (1899 or 1900). Johnston, Frances
Benjamin, 1864-1952. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia, Library of Congress Prints
and Photographs Division Washington, D.C..
83
The official list of Federal Indian boarding schools, organized by state (or then-
territory) is provided in Appendix A. The overview of Federal Indian boarding schools by
state is as follows:
Alabama - 1
Alaska - 21
Arizona - 47
Arkansas - 1
California - 12
Colorado - 5
Connecticut - 0
Delaware - 0
Florida - 1
Georgia - 2
Hawaii - 7
Idaho - 6
Illinois - 2
Indiana - 2
Iowa - 3
Kansas - 12
Kentucky - 1
Louisiana - 0
Maine - 0
Maryland - 0
Massachusetts - 0
Michigan - 5
Minnesota - 21
Mississippi - 7
Missouri - 2
Montana - 16
Nebraska - 9
Nevada - 3
New Hampshire - 0
New Jersey - 0
New Mexico - 43
New York - 3
North Carolina - 4
North Dakota - 12
Ohio - 0
Oklahoma - 76
Oregon - 9
Pennsylvania - 3
Rhode Island - 0
South Carolina - 0
South Dakota - 30
Tennessee - 1
Texas - 0
Utah - 7
Vermont - 1
Virginia - 1
Washington - 15
West Virginia - 0
Wisconsin - 11
Wyoming - 6
84
Summaries for each Federal Indian boarding school are provided in Appendix B. The
data captured in each summary where confirmed includes the following information:
• School Name
345
• Possible Other Name(s)
346
• Associated School(s)
347
• School Address
• Years of Operation (Start Date and End Date)
348
• Currently Operating
• Federal Indian Boarding School Definition Criteria (Housing, Education,
Federal Support, Timeframe)
• School Type
• General Notes
As the investigation continues, the Department recognize
s the number of Federal Indian
boarding schools may change.
345
In either this category or in the “Possible Other Name(s)” category, an [*] denotes the current name of a school
still in operation.
346
Includes other names the school was known by or other name variations found in various reports; some variations
appear to be clear typographical and, or spelling errors.
347
An associated school is typically where the same school moved locations and either changed operators or
changed name.
348
May include “as early as” or “as late as” where the date is not a definitive open or closing date, but rather the
earliest or latest reference found for the school. Occasionally the date indicates “circa” for estimated dates.
85
349
15. Marked and Unmarked Burial Sites Across the Federal
Indian Boarding School System
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation includes identifying the
location of marked and unmarked burial sites across the Federal Indian boarding school
system, which may later be used to assist in locating unidentified remains of American
Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children. This investigation component will
provide a basis for the Department to plan future sitework, including protection of burial
sites and potential repatriation or disinterment of remains of children, under Federal law,
including NAGPRA, and in coordination with sister Federal agencies as relevant.
The identification of marked and unmarked burial sites across the Federal Indian
boarding school system remains ongoing. The Department faced several limitations to
complete this aspect of the investigation, including budget and appropriations restrictions,
limits within the current year’s budget related to appropriations as part of the continuing
resolution process, and COVID-19 pandemic restrictions affecting access to physical
records locations. Research limitations included (1) inconsistent Federal reporting of child
deaths, including the number and cause or circumstances of death, and burial sites and
(2) certain potentially relevant records are in the control of other Federal agencies and, or
non-Federal entities.
349
Lubken, Walter J. (n.d.). [Photograph of teacher and young female students seated with sewing machines in
classroom at the Phoenix Indian Industrial School]. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Phoenix Area Office.
86
To date, across the Federal Indian boarding school system, the Department
investigation has identified approximately 53 marked or unmarked burial sites. As the
investigation continues, the Department expects the number of sites to increase. The
composition of approximate identified burial sites is as follows:
• Unmarked burial si
tes – 6
• Marked burial sites – 33
• Both marked and unmarked burial sites present at a school location – 14
For the Federal India
n Boarding School Initiative investigation, the Department is
recruiting staff with the requisite skill sets—including Federal Indian law and policy and
history and community knowledge—to identify additional locations of marked and
unmarked burial sites across the Federal Indian boarding school system.
350
350
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Albuquerque Indian School, 1947-ca. 1964 (most recent
creator). (ca. 1885). Albuquerque Indian School in 1885, Relocated from Duranes to Albuquerque in 1881
[Photograph]. National Archives (292865)].
87
16. Other Indian Institutions
The Feder
al Indian Boarding School Initiative is identifying Indian boarding
schools that received Federal oversight or support. In its investigation, the Department
identified approximately 500 Indian boarding schools and classified a subset of those
schools as Federal Indian boarding schools. Outside the scope of the investigation, the
Department also identified over 1,000 other Federal and non-Federal institutions, including
Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone dormitories. Some
of the other aforementioned institutions may have involved education of Indian people,
mainly Indian children.
As part of this invest
igation, when one of the four required criteria was not met for
a specific institution, that institution was removed from the list of Federal Indian boarding
schools and classified as an “other institution.” The Department did not conduct final
quality control for the list of other institutions.
17. Legacy Impact of the Indian Boarding School System
351
351
Blindfolded children stacking blocks at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School [Photograph]. (n.d.). Fort Yuma
Quechan Indian Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
88
As the Federal Indian boarding school system operated for over a century and a half,
the Department identifies the watershed Running Bear studies, quantitative research based
on now-adult Federal Indian boarding school attendees’ medical status, that indicate the
Indian boarding school system continues to impact the present-day health of Indians who
participated in the studies. These results verify the need for a comprehensive examination
and report by an independent research group to assess the current impacts that Indian
boarding schools have had on American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians,
including health, education, and economic status.
352
A comprehensive analysis of the
Federal Indian boarding school system will inform future Federal Indian law and policy
changes in health care, education, and economic development.
Indian childhood experiences in In
dian boarding schools, “at a minimum, the
separation from family,” contributed to poor health impacts on child attendees as adults.
353
The Running Bear studies, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are the first
medical studies to systematically and quantitatively examine the relationship between
American Indian boarding school child attendance and physical health status, the number
of physical health conditions diagnosed by a medical doctor, and specific chronic health
conditions, while also controlling for parental attendance in a large sample. The
“[c]ombined direct and indirect results (beta = –.39, CI = –1.20, .42) show American
Indians who attended boarding school have lower physical health status (beta = –1.22, CI=
–2.18, –.26, p. ≤ .01) than those who did not.”
354
Indian boarding school child attendees
had a 44 percent greater count of past-year chronic physical health problems (PYCPHP) as
adults compared with adult nonattendees.
355
Now-adult attendees were more likely to have
cancer (more than three times), tuberculosis (more than twice), high cholesterol (95
percent), diabetes (81 percent), anemia (61 percent), arthritis (60 percent), and gall bladder
disease (60 percent) than nonattendees.
356
Other studies demonstrate that now-adult
352
See, e.g., Kathryn E. Fort, American Indian Children and the Law 8 (Carolina Academic Press, 2019) (“Training
for jobs that didn’t exist left many young adults with an inability to gain employment in the newly industrialized
American society. The tribal society that many young adults returned to was unrecognizable due to removal,
relocation, and federal policies of allotment. The resulting poverty of American Indian families was used as a
justification for removing Native children from their homes.”).
353
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, The Historical Trauma Response Among Natives and Its Relationship with
Substance Abuse: A Lakota Illustration, 35 J.
of Psychoactive Drugs 1, 7–13 (2003).
354
Ursula Running Bear et al., Boarding School Attendance and Physical Health Status of Northern Plains Tribes,
13 Applied Res. in Qual. of Life 633 (2018).
355
Ursula Running Bear et al., The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian Boarding School Attendance
on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes, 42 Fam. Community Health 1, 3–4 (2019).
356
Id. at 5.
89
attendees experience increased risk for PTSD, depression, and unresolved grief.
357
As a
result, a “prevailing sense of despair, loneliness, and isolation from family and community
are often described.”
358
“Both individual and paternal boarding sch
ool attendance are associated with
chronic health problems” of now-adult Indian boarding school attendees.
359
A father’s
boarding school attendance was independently associated with chronic physical health
problems.
360
Participants whose fathers attended Indian boarding school had on average a
36 percent greater PYCPHP count than those whose fathers did not attend boarding
school.
361
When controlling for maternal and paternal boarding school attendance, only a
father’s attendance was related to an increased number of PYCPHP in adulthood,
suggesting that a father’s Indian boarding school attendance is an independent predictor of
his child’s adult PYCPHP.
362
Previous research has noted that American Indian men
experienced more physical and sexual abuse in boarding school then women, particularly
those more “language-experienced.”
363
The increased trauma that men faced in the Indian
boarding school system may have produced increased stress, which then may affect the
biological systems of the body.
364
These stressors may then introduce epigenetic alterations
that are then transferred to their children, also known as epigenetic inheritance.
365
In the Running Bear studies, American
Indian child attendees “punished for the use
of language and who were also 8 years or older when attendance began reported the lowest
357
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, The Historical Trauma Response Among Natives and Its Relationship with
Substance Abuse: A Lakota Illustration, 35(1) J. of Psychoactive Drugs 1, 7–13 (2003).
358
Ursula Running Bear et al., Boarding School Attendance and Physical Health Status of Northern Plains Tribes,
13 Applied Res. Qual. of Life
633 (2018).
359
Ursula Running Bear et al., The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian Boarding School Attendance
on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes, 42 Fam. Community Health 1, 3–4 (2019).
360
Id. at 4–5.
361
Id.
362
Id.
363
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Gender differences in the historical trauma response among the Lakota, 10 J.
Health Soc Policy 1, 14 (1999).
364
Michelle Sotero, A conceptual model of historical trauma: implications for public health practice and research, 1
J.
Health Dispar. Res. Pract 93 (2006).
365
Rachel Yehuda et al., Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation, 80 Biol.
Psychiatry 372 (2016); Zaneta Thayer et al., Biological memories of past environments: epigenetic pathways to
health disparities, 6 Epigenetics 798 (2011).
90
physical health status scores.”
366
“The critical age for learning language is up to 7 and 8,
after which there is a steep decline.”
367
American Indian children “removed from their
homes at age 8 or older had a greater degree of language skill and proficiency and may
have been more likely to speak their language leading to punishment.”
368
Although similar
interaction effects are not found for other boarding school experiences, the studies point to
other adverse effects.
369
Now-adult attendees with then-limited family visits, forced church
attendance, and who were prohibited from practicing their culture and traditions had lower
physical health status as adults than those who did not have these experiences in boarding
school as children.
370
The Running Bear studies reinforce that Federal Indian boarding
school policies “often impacted several generations.”
371
The Federal
Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation further demonstrates
that “children of the first attendees of [Federal Indian] boarding schools went on to attend,
as did their grandchildren, and great grandchildren leading to an intergenerational pattern
of cultural and familial disruption”
372
under direct and indirect support by the United States
and non-Federal entities.
366
Ursula Running Bear et al., The relationship of five boarding school experiences and physical health status
among Northern Plains Tribes, 27 Applied Res. in Qual. of Life 153 (2018).
367
Dale Purves et al., The development of language: A critical period in humans, in Neuroscience (2d ed.) (2001).
368
Ursula Running Bear et al., The relationship of five boarding school experiences and physical
health status among Northern Plains Tribes, 27 Applied Res. Qual. of Life 153 (2018).
369
Id.
370
Id.
371
Ursula Running Bear et al., The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian Boarding School Attendance
on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes, 42 Fam. & Community Health 1 (2019).
372
Ursula Running Bear et al., The Impact of Individual and Parental American Indian Boarding School Attendance
on Chronic Physical Health of Northern Plains Tribes, 42 Fam. & Community Health 1 (2019).
91
373
18. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Findings and
Conclusions
The Assistant Secre
tary’s findings of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative,
which remain under investigation, based on examination of records under its control,
include the following:
1. The Fe
deral Indian boarding system was expansive, consisting of 408 Federal
Indian boarding schools, comprised of 431 specific sites, across 37 states or
then-territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii.
2. Multiple generations of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian
children were induced or compelled by the Federal Government to experience the
Federal Indian boarding school system, given their political and legal status as
Indians and Native Hawaiians.
3. The twin Federal policy of Indian territorial dispossession and Indian assimilation
through Indian education extended beyond the Federal Indian boarding school
system, including an identified 1,000+ other Federal and non-Federal institutions,
373
Female students standing and playing with blocks at the Fort Yuma Indian Boarding School [Photograph].
(n.d.).Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe Photo Gallery, Ft Yuma Indian School Collection.
92
including Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone
dormitories that involved education of Indian people, mainly Indian children.
4. Funding for the Federal Indian boarding school system included both Federal funds
through congressional appropriations and funds obtained from Tribal trust accounts
for the benefit of Indians and maintained by the United States.
5. The Federal Indian boarding school system deployed militarized and
identity-alteration methodologies to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian people—primarily children—through education.
6. The Federal Indian boarding school system predominately utilized manual labor of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children to compensate for
the poor conditions of school facilities and lack of financial support from the Federal
Government.
7. The Federal Indian bo
arding school system discouraged or prevented the use of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages or cultural or
religious practices through punishment, including corporal punishment.
8. Tribal preferenc
es for the possible disinterment or repatriation of remains of
children discovered in marked or unmarked burial sites across the Federal Indian
boarding school system vary widely. Depending on the religious and cultural
practices of an Indian Tribe, Alaska Native Village, or the Native Hawaiian
Community, it may prefer to disinter or repatriate any remains of a child discovered
across the Federal Indian boarding school system for return to the child’s home
territory or to leave the child’s remains undisturbed in its current burial site.
Moreover, some burial sites contain human remains or parts of remains of multiple
individuals or human remains that were relocated from other burial sites, thereby
preventing Tribal and individual identification.
9. The Federal Gove
rnment has not provided a forum or opportunity for survivors or
descendants of survivors of Federal Indian boarding schools, or their families, to
voluntarily detail their experiences in the Federal Indian boarding school system.
Based on the initial findings of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which
remain under investigation, and despite factors outside the Department’s control, including
93
the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and funding issues, the Assistant Secretary concludes
that:
1. The United States’ creation of the Federal Indian boarding school system was part
of a broader policy aimed at acquiring collective territories from Indian Tribes,
Alaska Natives, and the Native Hawaiian Community and lands from individuals
therein. From the earliest days of the Republic, the United States’ official
objective—based on Federal and other records—was to sever the cultural and
economic connection between Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, the Native
Hawaiian Community, and their territories. The assimilation of Indian children
through the Federal Indian boarding school system was intentional and part of that
broader goal of Indian territorial dispossession for the expansion of the United
States.
2. Assimilation of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people
eventually became an objective of Federal policy in and of itself. The Federal Indian
boarding school policies targeted Indian children as one method to accomplish this
objective.
3. The intentional targeting and removal of American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children to achieve the goal of forced assimilation of Indian people
was both traumatic and violent. Based on initial research, the Department finds that
hundreds of Indian children died throughout the Federal Indian boarding school
system. The Department expects that continued investigation will reveal the
approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools
to be in the thousands or tens of thousands. Many of those children were buried in
unmarked or poorly maintained burial sites far from their Indian Tribes, Alaska
Native Villages, the Native Hawaiian Community, and families, often hundreds, or
even thousands, of miles away. The Department’s research revealed at least 53
different burial sites across the Federal Indian boarding school system and leads to
an expectation that there are many more burial sites that will be identified with
further research. The deaths of Indian children while under the care of the Federal
Government, or federally supported institutions, led to the breakup of Indian
families and the erosion of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native
Hawaiian Community.
4. Many more Indian children who survived the Federal Indian boarding school system
live(d) with their experiences from the school(s). Moreover, several generations of
94
Indian children experienced the Federal Indian boarding school system. The Federal
Indian boarding school system directly disrupted Indian families, Indian Tribes,
Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community for nearly two
centuries.
5. Further re
view is required to determine the reach and impact of the violence and
trauma inflicted on Indian children through the Federal Indian boarding school
system. The Department has recognized that targeting Indian children for the
Federal policy of Indian assimilation contributed to the loss of the following: (1)
life; (2) physical and mental health; (3) territories and wealth; (4) Tribal and family
relations; and (5) use of Tribal languages. This policy also caused the erosion of
Tribal religious and cultural practices for Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and
the Native Hawaiian Community, and over many generations.
374
374
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Albuquerque Indian School, 1947-ca. 1964 (most recent
creator). (ca.1900). Class of younger boys in uniform at the Albuquerque Indian School [Photograph]. National
Archives (292871).
95
19. Recommendations of the Assistant Secretary –
Indian Affairs Bryan Newland
For nearly two full ce
nturies, the United States pursued, embraced, or permitted a
policy of forced assimilation of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian
people. The Federal Indian boarding school system was developed to target Indian children
to accomplish this policy objective for over 150 years and influence U.S.-Indian relations
and U.S.-Native Hawaiian relations. The Department must fully account for its role in this
effort and renounce forced assimilation of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the
Native Hawaiian Community as a legitimate policy objective.
To begin the process of healing
from the harm and violence caused by assimilation
policy, the Department should affirm an express policy of cultural revitalization—
supporting the work of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native Hawaiian
Community to revitalize their languages, cultural practices, and traditional food systems,
and to protect and strengthen intra-Tribal relations.
To complete the Secretary’s objectives of the Federal Indian Boarding School
Initiative, and
to begin the pursuit of this express policy, the Assistant Secretary – Indian
Affairs provides the following recommendations based on the current findings:
1. Contin
ue full investigation. Support Secretary Haaland to authorize further
investigation of the Federal Indian boarding school system to complete a
comprehensive review of records under the Department’s control. Congress
appropriated $7 million in new funds through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022
Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 117-103) to authorize action by the
Department to expand its investigation of the Federal Indian boarding school
system, with funds that are continued as part of the FY 2023 President’s request.
Conduct several additional, critical research priorities including digitization,
examinatio
n, and analysis of records from both AIRR and NARA. The BTFA
identified 39,385 boxes in AIRR with potentially responsive documents
(approximately 98.4 million sheets of paper).
Recognize that specific needs and priorities include, but are not limited to,
identification and ev
aluation of available records, such as Indian boarding school
96
facilities and planning documents, enrollment records and vital statistics,
correspondence, maps, photographs, and administrative reports, that:
o Approximate the total number of American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children that attended Federal Indian boarding
schools;
o Approximate the total number of marked and unmarked burial sites
associated with Federal Indian boarding schools;
o Locate marked and unmarked burial sites associated with a particular
Indian boarding school facility or site, which may later be used to assist
in locating unidentified remains of Indian children, Indian Prisoners of
War, and Freedmen from the Five Civilized Tribes;
o Expand the summary profiles of individual Federal Indian boarding
schools;
o Detail the health and mortality of Indian children who experienced the
Federal Indian boarding school system, which may later be used to
develop dataset(s) for analysis of health impacts of Indian boarding
school attendance, including an approximate mortality rate for
attendees, as the Department was responsible for the health care of
American Indians and Alaska Natives until 1954;
o Identify documented methodologies and practices used in the Federal
Indian boarding school system that discouraged or prevented the use of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages or
cultural or religious practices;
o Approximate the amount of Federal support, including financial,
property, livestock and animals, equipment, and personnel for the
Federal Indian boarding school system, recognizing that some records
are no longer available;
o Approximate the amount of Tribal or individual Indian trust funds held
by the United States in trust that were used to support the Federal Indian
boarding school system, including to non-Federal entities and, or
individuals, recognizing that some records are no longer available;
o Identify religious institutions and organizations that have ever received
Federal funding in support of the Federal Indian boarding school
system;
97
o Identify States that may have ever received Federal funding in support
of the Federal Indian boarding school system;
o Identify nonprofits, associations, academic institutions, philanthropies,
and other organizations that may have received Federal funding in
support of the Federal Indian boarding school system;
o Confirm additional sites within the Federal Indian boarding school
system;
o Examine the connection between the use of Federal Indian boarding
schools and subsequent systematic foster care and adoption programs to
remove Indian children, including the Indian Adoption Project
established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Child Welfare League
of America, that were not repudiated by Congress until the enactment of
the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.
With additional investigation, produce a second report by the Department,
including the following: (1) determining locations of marked or unmarked burial
sites associated with the Federal Indian boarding school system; (2) identifying
names, ages, and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations; and (3)
approximating a full accounting of Federal support for the Federal Indian boarding
school system, including a proactive approximate accounting of any Tribal and, or
individual Indian trust funds held in trust by the United States used to support the
Federal Indian boarding school system. The portions of that report that contain
sensitive information such as individual names or locations of burial sites will not
be released to the public.
Continue departmental engagement and support of relevant Federal agencies that
have control or possession of records pertaining to the Federal Indian boarding
school system.
2. Identify surviving Federal Indian boarding school attendees. Develop a system
for voluntary identification of surviving now-adult attendees, including
communication methodologies.
3. Do
cument Federal Indian boarding school attendee experiences. Develop a
platform for now-adult Federal Indian boarding school attendees and their
descendants to formally document their historical accounts and experiences, and
understand current impacts such as health status, including substance abuse and
violence.
98
4. Support protection, preservation, reclamation, and co-management of sites
across the Federal Indian boarding school system where the Federal
Government has jurisdiction over a location.
5. Develop a specific rep
ository of Federal records involving the Federal Indian
boarding school system at the Department of the Interior Library to preserve
centralized Federal expertise on the Federal Indian boarding school system.
6. Identify and engage other Federal agenc
ies to support the Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative, including those with control of any records
involving the Federal Indian boarding school system or that provide health
care to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, including
for the provision of mental health services to students attending Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE) operated and funded schools.
7. Support non-Federal entities that may independently release records under
their control. To make the Federal investigation more thorough and accurate,
support non-Federal entities, such as States and religious institutions and
organizations, including those that have received Federal funding to operate
Federal Indian boarding schools, that may independently release records relating
to the Federal Indian boarding school system such as those that cover Indian child
removal and provision of health care services to Indians, including at military
installations.
8. Support
Congressional action involving the following policies:
• NAGPRA
. Support exemptions from Freedom of Information Act requests
to protect sensitive,
specific information on burial locations across the
Federal Indian boarding school system that contain remains of Indian
children to prevent against well-documented grave-robbing, vandalism, and
other disturbances to Indian burial sites.
o Support action to direct Federal agencies that control cemeteries to
allow the reburial of
remains of Indian children and funerary objects
repatriated pursuant to NAGPRA, and consistent with specific Tribal
practices. Amendment of the Recreation and Public Purposes Act may
be needed to facilitate use of BLM lands for this purpose.
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o Support action to increase appropriations and professional staffing for
programs in Federal agencies that are responsible for agency
compliance with NAGPRA.
o Support action to authorize the appropriate agencies to disinter or
repatriate, under the direction of an Indian Tribe, Alaska Native Village,
or the Native Hawaiian Community, or family with an identified
interest, and consistent with specific Tribal practices, any remains of
Indian children discovered in marked or unmarked burial sites
associated with the Federal Indian boarding school system.
• Advance Native language revitalization. Support funding for the
expansion and development of programs implementing or supporting
Native language revitalization for Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
operated and funded schools, as well as non-BIE schools. Also work to
seek funding for the expansion and development of programs outside BIE
schools implementing or supporting Native language revitalization,
including language immersion schools and community organizations.
• Promote Indian health research. Support scientific studies that turn
discovery into health by appropriating specific funds to authorize Federally
funded research on the Federal Indian boarding school system, including
health impacts on Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the Native
Hawaiian Community and individual American Indians, Alaska Natives,
and Native Hawaiians.
• Recognize the generations of American Indian, Alaska Native, and
Native Hawaiian children that experienced the Federal Indian
boarding school system with a Federal memorial.
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In 1905, after nearly 20 years of U.S. prisoner of war captivity,
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Geronimo (Goyaałé) was temporarily released from Fort Sill,
Oklahoma to attend the inauguration of U.S. President Theodore
Roosevelt.
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Geronimo also negotiated to visit the Carlisle Indian
Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Speaking to the Federal Indian
boarding school attendees, Goyaałé said: “You are all just the same
as my children to me, just the same … when I look at you all here
… You are here to study, to learn the ways of white men; do it
well.”
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Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Rep. to the Secretary of the Interior XXXIV (1887) (noting the Apaches
under Geronimo were not “under the care of the Interior Department”).
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Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report to the Secretary of the Interior 431 (1905).
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Carlisle Arrow, Mar. 7, 1905.
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The Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the
Interior values the special contributions to this report from the following:
The Bureau of Trust Funds Administration (BTFA)
The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
The Department of the Interior Library
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS)
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
