In 2021, Canada passed legislation to create the federal statutory holiday called the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Indigenous communities had been celebrating Orange Shirt Day in Canada for several years prior to the government’s holiday. The day commemorates the Indigenous children that were traditionally forced to return to boarding schools on September 30, and their families as well. As discussed in our earlier post, the Canadian boarding school system for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children was modeled on the U.S. boarding school system, beginning with the Carlisle Indian School. Attendance at these schools was usually mandatory (25 USC § 283) and sometimes included in treaties as a requirement. Boarding schools that were administered by religious institutions frequently had the ability to call on the military to enforce attendance (Kennedy Report, 147.) Parents who refused to send their children to the schools were sometimes jailed or refused food or annuities.
In June 2021, shortly after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at Kamloops Residential School, the Department of the Interior (DOI) began investigations of Indigenous boarding schools here in the United States. As the DOI noted, “[we] must address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the traumas of the past.”
The department issued the first volume of the investigative report in May 2022, which provided a background on Federal Indian boarding schools and a history. There were residential schools in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, Colorado, and other states. The second volume of the report updated the official list of Federal Indian boarding schools to include 417 institutions across 37 states or then-territories.
The second volume of the report, issued in July 2024, included testimony from the Road to Healing and Oral History Project. In the Road to Healing tour, Secretary Haaland, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Brian Newland, and other officials visited 12 different sites around the nation, where they listened to the testimonies of survivors and their families. The second volume presents the results of significant data gathering, including a list of the Federal Indian boarding schools, a list of the schools by state, an updated list of school maps; the tribes of Federal Indian boarding schools, a list of Federal Indian policies related to the schools, a list of the religions of Federal Indian boarding schools, and lists of deceased students of boarding schools by year and by tribe.
The report confirmed that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending the boarding schools (Report, Vol 2, p. 5).
The report is not a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). However, it contains data, testimony, and eight recommendations for action very similar to a TRC. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, described the South African commission as “an incubation chamber for national healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness“, and perhaps this document can help achieve those goals. It is noted in the report that the research, reporting, and data gathered can aid the formation of a future national truth and healing commission; “[the] most important thing is that our work to tell the truth about the Federal Indian boarding school system be paired with action” (Report, V. 2, p. 6).
Related Resources
- Bureau of Indian Affairs. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigative report, 2022-2024. (2 volumes) (the Report)
- KF31.L355 1969 United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Special Subcommittee on Indian Education. Indian education: a national tragedy, a national challenge. 1969 report of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, United States Senate, made by its Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, pursuant to S. Res. 80 (91st Cong., 1st sess. together with supplemental views). A resolution authorizing an investigation into the problems of education for American Indians. (the Kennedy Report)
- KF26.I45 2022j United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Indian Affairs (1993- ). Volume 1 of the Department of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report and S. 2907: hearing before the Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventeenth Congress, second session, June 22, 2022.
- KF27.I52817 2022 United States. Congress. House. Committee on Natural Resources. Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. H.R. 5444, “Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act” : legislative hearing before the Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States of the Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventeenth Congress, second session, Thursday, May 12, 2022.
- E96.5.M53 2022 Miller, J. R. (James Rodger) Residential schools and reconciliation : Canada confronts its history.
- E96.5.A54 2022 Angel, Naomi. Fragments of truth: residential schools and the challenge of reconciliation in Canada.
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