LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz. (AP) — President Joe Biden did something Friday that no other sitting U.S. president has done: He apologized for the systematic abuse suffered by generations of Indigenous children in residential schools at the hands of the federal government.
For 150 years, the United States forced indigenous children from their homes and sent them to schools, where they were stripped of their culture, history and religion and beaten for speaking their languages.
“We should be ashamed,” Biden told a crowd of indigenous people gathered at the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix, including tribal leaders, survivors and their families. Biden called the federally imposed system that began in 1819 “one of the most horrific chapters in American history” while acknowledging decades of abuse of children and the widespread devastation it left in its wake.
For many Native Americans, the long-awaited apology was a welcome acknowledgment of the government’s longstanding guilt. Well, it is said, words must be followed by actions.
Bill Hall, 71, of Seattle, was 9 years elderly when he was taken from his Tlingit community in Alaska and forced to attend a boarding school, where he endured years of physical and sexual abuse that led to many more years of shame . When he first heard that Biden would apologize, he wasn’t sure he would accept it.
“But as I watched, tears began to flow from my eyes,” Hall said. “Yes, I accept his apology. Now what can we do next?”
Rosalie Whirlwind Soldier, a 79-year-old citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said she felt “a tingling in my heart” and was glad that the historic injustice was being acknowledged. However, she remains saddened by the irreversible damage done to her people.
Whirlwind Soldier suffered severe abuse at a school in South Dakota that left her with a lifelong painful limp. The Catholic-run, government-subsidized facility stripped her of her faith and tried to eradicate her Lakota identity by cutting off her long braids, she said.
“Sorry isn’t enough. Nothing is enough when you harm someone,” she said. “An entire generation of people and our future has been destroyed for us.”
According to an Interior Department investigation launched by Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead the agency, the schools were designed to assimilate children of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians as well as tribal nations to expropriate their land.
Introducing Biden on Friday, Haaland said that while the formal apology was an acknowledgment of a shadowy chapter, it was also a celebration of the resilience of the indigenous population: “Despite everything that has happened, we are still here.”
Haaland, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, commissioned the investigation in 2021. She documented the cases of more than 18,000 indigenous children, 973 of whom were killed. Both the report and independent researchers say the total was much higher.
The report made several recommendations based on the testimony of school survivors, including mental health treatment resources and language revitalization programs.
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis noted that Biden is committed to implementing these recommendations.
“This sets the framework to address the boarding school policies of the past,” he said.
Benjamin Mallott, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives, who is Lingít, said in a statement that the apology must be accompanied by meaningful action: “This includes the revitalization of our languages and cultures and the homecoming of our native children who have not yet been returned .” so that they can be buried with their families and in their communities.”
That view is shared by Victoria Kitcheyan, chairwoman of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, which sued the U.S. Army in January demanding the return of the remains of two children who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.
“That healing only begins when tribes have a way to bring their children home to be buried,” Kitcheyan said.
In an interview Thursday, Haaland said Interior is still working with several tribal nations to repatriate the remains of several children who were killed and buried at a boarding school.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who introduced a bill last year to create a Truth and Healing Commission to address the harm caused by the residential school system, called the apology “a historic step toward long-overdue accountability for the harms that that were inflicted on them. “Native children and their communities.”
And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and vice chairwoman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, also praised Biden, saying it underscores the need for a truth and healing commission.
“This recognition of the pain and injustices inflicted on Indigenous communities — while long overdue — is a critically important step toward healing,” Murkowski said in a statement.
As Biden spoke Friday, tribal members stood and many recorded the moment on their cellphones. Some wore conventional clothing, others wore shirts supporting Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
There was a moment of silence, the formal apology and then an outburst of applause.
At the end of Biden’s remarks, the crowd stood again. There were shouts of, “Thanks, Joe.”
Hall, the Seattle residential school survivor, and others have long advocated for resources to repair the damage. He fears tribal nations will continue to struggle with healing unless the government intervenes, and he still sees a long way to go.
“It took us a lifetime to get here. It will take a lifetime to get to the other side,” he said. “And that’s the saddest part. I won’t experience that again in my generation.”
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Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.
