As ex-students, Native American tribal elders testified on Saturday, in Oklahoma, about the sexual and physical abuse they endured in US boarding schools. The abuse included and were not limited to beatings, whippings, sexual assaults, forced haircuts and racist slurs and nicknames.

The elders, coming from various states and tribes, were united on common experiences in the boarding schools designed to snatch the indigenous communities of their cultural identities, "assimilating" them into White America. 

Donald Neconie, a former US Marine and member of the Kiowa Tribe who once attended the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, attested to his grief: "I still feel that pain," continuing to say that he "will never, ever forgive this school for what they did to me."

The US Secretary of Interior, Deb Haaland, who is the first Native American cabinet secretary in US history, was present and quiet in the hearing. Haaland is touring the nation to hear about the Natives' experiences in government-backed boarding schools.

“Federal Indian boarding school policies have touched every Indigenous person I know,“ Haaland said at the beginning of the event. “Some are survivors. Some are descendants. But we all carry the trauma in our hearts.

“My ancestors endured the horrors of the Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department that I now lead. This is the first time in history that a cabinet secretary comes to the table with this shared trauma.”

In a report released by the department, 400 boarding schools were identified as present between the late 18th century into the last 1960s, though most of them are closed today, with the existing ones holding different missions. 

Riverside is one of the oldest, and it has some 800 students enrolled at it from 75 tribes across the country today. 

However, in the past, students were uprooted and snatched from their families into the school - Neconie spoke of his experience at the school.

Neconie recalled that from the late 1940s to the early 50s, he was beaten if he cried or spoke his native dialect, Kiowa. “Every time I tried to talk Kiowa, they put lye in my mouth,“ he said. “It was 12 years of hell.“ Lye is a chemical compound used to dissolve dead bodies, and used to manufacture soap and detergents. 

Another elder, Brought Plenty, who is  Sioux from Standing Rock, also testified, revealing that she was forced to cut her hair and forbidden from speaking her native language. She was also forced to whip other girls with wet towels, being punished when she didn't. 

“What they did to us makes you feel so inferior,“ she said. “You never get past this. You never forget it.“

Dorothy WhiteHorse, who is Kiowa that attended Riverside in the 40s, recalled that despite her not going through rough experiences herself, she witnessed 3 young boys running away from home to get caught in a snowstorm and freeze to death. “I think we need a memorial for those boys,“ she said.

For long, the US government has not addressed the historical violence that has been perpetrated against Native tribes, especially in boarding schools, where at least 500 children are known to have died. However, that number is bound to increase to tens of thousands with the progress of research on US boarding school violence. 

Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico, according to the report, held the most boarding schools in the country with 76, 47 and 43 respectively. 

Read next: Chinese diplomat slams violation of indigenous peoples' rights by West

Boarding schools, mass graves in Canada

Since the beginning of last year, there have been shocking and distressing discoveries of a large number of unmarked graves and remains of indigenous children in Canada, and the truth remains untangled to this day, Jiang underlined.

The unmarked graves in Canadian residential schools shocked the world, especially that they were being continuously unearthed over the period of nearly a year up until early on this year, with 93 unmarked graves found in a school in British Columbia.

Children were often caught trying to escape from the school, and reports in 1928 claim two boys drowned trying to escape by boat. Survivors testify that numerous children went missing or died while attending the school. 

Even later on, in mid-February, more unmarked graves were found at two former Saskatchewan residential schools, adding to the heart-aching series of discoveries of children who were abused and mistreated at the Catholic schools trying to prohibit children from practicing their culture and convert them to Christianity.

Read more: Canadian Police Reveal Decade-Long Investigation into School Abuse Claims