‘I’m heading to do something that should have been done a long time ago,’ he told members of the press.
President Joe Biden will make a formal apology to America’s Indian nations for the more than 150 years of forcing tribal children to attend federal Indian boarding schools.
“I’m heading to do something that should have been done a long time ago: to make a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we treated their children for so many years,” Biden told members of the media on Oct. 24. ”That’s why I’m heading west.”
Biden is set to visit the Gila River Indian Community during his visit to Arizona on Oct. 25. He will be the first president to apologize for the federal education program that forced Native American children from their homes and into boarding schools designed to assimilate them into “white” American culture.
Taxpayer money funded the creation of more than 400 government and religiously run boarding schools in 37 states across the country from 1819 through 1969, including Alaska and Hawaii, with Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, and the Dakotas having some of the largest student populations. The policy was created by the Indian Civilization Act of 1819 and was officially struck down by the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.
Along with the elimination of native languages, the schools became associated with testimonies of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The Department of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report found that at least 973 children died in those schools.
“The president … believes that to usher in the next era of the federal-tribal relationships, we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past,” the White House said. “That is why he is issuing a historic presidential apology.
“In making this apology, the president acknowledges that we as a people who love our country must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful,” the White House said. ”And we must learn from that history so that it is never repeated.”
Biden will outline his administration’s record among the Native American tribes and communities. That record includes devoting $32 billion from the American Rescue Plan, $13 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and $700 million from the Inflation Reduction Act toward tribal nations and communities. That money was intended for projects such as high-speed internet, roadways, public transportation, home electrification, drought resistance, and climate resilience and adaptation programs.
Addressing Native American voters, Biden is also expected to highlight the national monuments he established and memorandums he signed further protecting tribal treaty rights and sacred sites, as well as his administration’s decision to appoint more than 80 Native Americans to positions, including Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary; and Chief Lynn Malerba, the first Native American treasurer of the United States.
Biden’s visit to Gila River and his return to Arizona will take place less than two weeks before an election that has Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump fighting for votes in the battleground state.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.