At least 973 Native American children died under the US government's abusive boarding school system, an investigation commissioned by US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland revealed on Tuesday by officials who urged the government to issue a formal apology for the schools.

The probe found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the over 400 US Native American boarding schools where children of the minority group were forcibly assimilated into white society. Although the investigation did not disclose descriptions of each child's death, officials said the causes of death included sickness and abuse that lasted for 150 years, ending in 1969. In addition, children may have also passed away at home after contracting illnesses at the boarding school.

"The federal government took deliberate and strategic action through boarding school policies to isolate children from their families, deny them their identities, and steal from them the languages, cultures and connections that are foundational to Native people," Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary and Laguna Pueblo tribe member, told reporters on Tuesday, adding the system was established "to eradicate the, quote, ‘Indian problem,’ to either assimilate or destroy native peoples altogether."

The boarding school system was established by the federal government through the implementation of laws and policies in 1819 to support these institutions, enabling their century-long operation with some still active in the 1960s. According to a 2022 report, over 500 children reportedly died in the government-run schools.

Listening sessions reveal accounts of abuse

The investigation was conducted through a series of listening sessions compiled over the last two years, revealing firsthand accounts from dozens of former students who attended schools all over the country such as Oklahoma, South Dakota, Michigan, and other states, who shared the harsh abuse and treatment they faced under the assimilation boarding school system.

The listening sessions shed light on the various methods schools practiced to assimilate the children while erasing their Native American identities, such as enduring punishment if they spoke their native language and forcibly having their hair cut. 

The interviewed individuals described the harsh abuse they were subjected to, suffering through beatings, food deprivation, and solitary confinement.  In addition, Native American children were given English names as part of the boarding school system's attempt to assimilate them, as well as forcing them to perform military drills and manual labor such as farming, brick-making, and railroad work, officials revealed. These factors essentially limited the job prospects of the former students since they only received basic vocational skills during their time at the institutions. 

Donovan Archambault, the former chairman of the Fort Belknap Indian reservation in Montana, recounted the mistreatment and cultural erasure he experienced at boarding schools since the age of 11 which eventually led him to develop a drinking problem before he achieved sobriety over two decades ago. The 85-year-old man added that he never shared his school days with his children until he wrote a book a few years ago detailing his experience.

"An apology is needed. They should apologize," Archambault told the Associated Press on a phone call held on Tuesday. "But there also needs to be a broader education about what happened to us. To me, it’s part of a forgotten history."

Haaland expressed that she was "sorry beyond words," urging the government should issue a formal apology. Interior Department officials followed her lead by calling on the government to invest in programs to heal Native American communities from their endured trauma caused by the boarding school system, including funding education, violence prevention, and the revival of their languages.

$23.3 billion funding of assimilation

Around 60,000 Native American schoolchildren were attending government or religious-run boarding schools by 1926, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition revealed.

Officials speculated that $23.3 billion in inflation-adjusted federal funds were allocated to schools,  institutions, and programs enforcing assimilation practices. Many of these institutions were run by religious and private organizations that received federal money as part of the effort to "civilize" Indigenous students, according to a new report.

In June, US Catholic bishops apologized for the church's contribution to the children's trauma, a similar step Pope Francis took in 2022 when he apologized for the Catholic church's cooperation with Canadian boarding schools that destroyed cultures and families, as well as marginalized generations of Indigenous peoples. 

Officials and politicians, including Democrat Senator Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her Republican counterpart, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have sponsored the establishment of the Truth and Healing Commission before Congress in an effort to document and acknowledge boarding school-related injustices.