On 30 July 2024, a federal government investigation commissioned by United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland revealed that it had found gravesites at sixty-five of over 417 United States federal boarding schools used for forceful assimilation of Native American children into White American culture and society. As a result of the federal boarding school system, "at least" 973 Native American children were found to have died, many of whom were buried in unmarked or marked graves.[1] [2] [3]
See main article: American Indian boarding schools. American Indian boarding schools were established in the United States from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and youth into Anglo-American culture. In the process, these schools denigrated Native American culture and made children give up their languages and religion.[4] They took classes on how to conduct manual labor, which included farming, housekeeping, brick-making, and railroad work. When not in class, they were expected to maintain upkeep of the schools. Unclean and overpopulated living conditions led to the spread of disease and many students did not receive enough food. Bounties were offered for students who tried to run away and many students committed suicide. Students who died were sometimes placed in coffins and buried in the school cemetery by their own classmates.[5]
The schools were usually harsh, especially for younger children who had been forcibly separated from their families and forced to abandon their Native American identities and cultures. Children sometimes died in the school system due to infectious disease.[6] Investigations of the later 20th century revealed cases of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.[7]
In the years following the school system's dismantling in 1969, several investigations opened up into hundreds of missing deceased children.[8] An initial investigation launched in 2022 estimated that over five hundred children died while part of the school system.
An investigation by the federal government commissioned by United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland— the first Native American cabinet secretary— investigated over 400 American Indian boarding school sites to determine the location of deceased children, their gravesites, and details surrounding their life and death in the institutions.
On 30 July 2024, findings of the investigation were released. The findings indicated that at least 973 Native American children were discovered to have died in the boarding school system, with sixty-five of the surveyed schools possessing gravesites with buried children. Of these, twenty-one unmarked gravesites and fifty-three marked gravesites were found. The investigation determined that while specific causes of death could not yet be determined, that the primary causes of death were from illness and abuse. The investigation also noted that the true number of deaths could be higher based on unknown numbers of children who died from illness caught at the school after being sent away from it. Additional reasons for unaccounted deaths or gravesites included unrecorded deaths outside of the 1819-1969 period, deaths from non-federally funded schools, deaths in institutions without public records, and deaths in assimilatory institutions that were not schools including asylums, day schools, orphanages, and dormitories.
Deb Haaland characterized the boarding school system as a "concerted attempt to eradicate the 'Indian problem'" through assimilation or outright wiping out Native American culture. While expressing personal remorse, Haaland suggested that the United States federal government needed to make a formal apology on behalf of the abuse, death, and trauma caused by the school system. The Department of the Interior recommended compensation for the Native American communities with government spending proportional to the estimated US$23.3 billion (inflation-adjusted) federal expenditure granted to the federal boarding school system. It also recommended significant investment in programs to help the Native American communities recover from trauma caused by the federal boarding school system, placing government funding into education, violence prevention, and programs for revitalizing Indigenous languages.
The below table documents the associated tribes of each children that died in the federal boarding school system:
| Alaskan | 31 | |
| Apache | 91 | |
| Arapaho | 14 | |
| Blackfeet | 8 | |
| Caddo Confederacy | 1 | |
| Cheyenne | 15 | |
| Cheyenne Arapaho, Oklahoma | 3 | |
| Comanche | 3 | |
| Confederated Grand Ronde | 1 | |
| Confederated Umatilla | 1 | |
| Confederated Warm Springs | 3 | |
| Confederated Yakama | 2 | |
| Crow | 4 | |
| Five Tribes - Cherokee | 18 | |
| Five Tribes - Chickasaw | 2 | |
| Five Tribes - Choctaw | 38 | |
| Five Tribes - Creek, Muscogee, Seminole | 8 | |
| Gros Ventre | 8 | |
| Ho-Chunk, Winnebago | 2 | |
| Iowa | 1 | |
| Kickapoo | 2 | |
| Kiowa | 4 | |
| Klamath, Modoc, Yahooskin | 10 | |
| Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara | 19 | |
| Menominee | 2 | |
| Navajo | 136 | |
| Nez Perce | 15 | |
| Northern Arapaho | 3 | |
| Northern Cheyenne | 3 | |
| Ojibwe, Ottawa, Potawatomi | 51 | |
| Omaha | 2 | |
| Oneida | 8 | |
| Other | 6 | |
| Catawba, Issa, Essa, Iswa | 1 | |
| Umpqua | 1 | |
| Other Tribes - Pacific (Karuk, Luiseno, Mission Indians, Quartz Valley, Klamath, Shasta, Tolowa Dee-ni', Smith River) | 9 | |
| Other Tribes - Western (Havasupai, Yava Supai, Hualapai, Mohave, Mojave, Quechan, Yuma, Washoe, Washo) | 13 | |
| Paiute, Shoshone, Bannock | 42 | |
| Pawnee | 6 | |
| Peoria, Miami, Illinois Confederacy | 1 | |
| Pima, Maricopa | 23 | |
| Pit River Tribe | 1 | |
| Pomo | 1 | |
| Ponca | 1 | |
| Pueblo | 34 | |
| Quapaw | 2 | |
| Sac and Fox | 6 | |
| Salish | 12 | |
| Seneca | 4 | |
| Shawnee | 2 | |
| Sioux, Assiniboine | 67 | |
| Tohono O'odham | 18 | |
| Ute | 19 | |
| Wichita | 4 | |
| Not Yet Identified | 238 |