ICYMI: President Biden Makes Historic Visit to Indian Country

This week, President Biden visited Gila River Indian Community and delivered on his promise to visit Indian Country. The visit built on historic action from the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to support Tribal Nations. Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, we've seen the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history, with $32 billion provided by the American Rescue Plan, and $13 billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed internet, roads, bridges, public transit, clean water, and improve sanitation in Tribal communities.

The President also took a critical step in order to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships by fully acknowledging the harms of the past and issuing a federal apology for the Indian Boarding School era. President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to their continued support for Indian Country and transformation of Nation-to-Nation relationships with tribal nations.

Read more below:

The Washington Post: 'I formally apologize': Biden condemns U.S. Indian boarding schools
[Dana Hedgpeth, Sari Horwitz and Toluse Olorunnipa, 10/25/2024]

President Joe Biden apologized to Native Americans on Friday for the U.S. government's role in creating and operating Indian boarding schools that for 150 years aimed to assimilate Native children by taking them from their families and erasing their languages and culture.

As he spoke, a large crowd of tribal leaders and community members cheered. Survivors of the schools cried, listening to words they said they never thought would come.

"The federal government has never formally apologized for what happened until today. I formally apologize," Biden said as people yelled out, "Thank you, Joe!"

"It did take place," the president continued. "Darkness can hide much. It erases nothing. Some injustices are heinous and horrific. They can't be buried. We must know the good, the bad, the truth. We do not erase history. We make history. We learn from history, and we remember so we can heal as a nation."

In his first visit to Indian Country as president, Biden called government-run Indian boarding schools one of the "most horrific chapters in American history that most Americans don't even know about." He described the effort by the U.S. government as "horribly, horribly wrong" and "a sin on our souls."

Jim LaBelle, who is Inupiaq and spent 10 years at Wrangell Institute, an Indian boarding school in Alaska, said he traveled from Anchorage with his wife and daughter to hear Biden speak. LaBelle said he was "overwhelmed" by the apology, calling the president's words "meaningful and powerful."

Ramona Klein, who belongs to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, was forced as a child to attend the Fort Totten Indian boarding school 100 miles from her home. As her voice choked up, Klein said, "It has been 70 years since I've been in a boarding school, and I'm proud to have lived to see this."

Biden also touted his record of helping Native American tribes as he aimed to cement his legacy and campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris less than two weeks before Election Day in a tight race for the presidency.

Saying he had come to Arizona to "right a wrong," Biden praised first lady Jill Biden's repeated visits to Indian Country and spoke of the traditions that Native Americans had passed down for generations.

"Respect for tribal sovereignty was shattered" by the boarding schools, Biden said.
From 1819 to 1969, the U.S. government operated — or paid churches and religious groups to run — more than 400 federal Indian boarding schools in 37 states. Biden's remarks were the first time a U.S. president has apologized for the trauma, abuse and other mistreatment experienced by the tens of thousands of Native children who were forced to attend the schools.

Children were taken from their homes, stripped of their names and given Anglicized ones or were identified by number. Their long hair was cut, and they were beaten if they spoke their tribal languages.

Biden spoke on an athletic field at Gila Crossing Community School, a K-8 school for 500 Native students on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Laveen Village, Arizona, near Phoenix. The school, built in 2019, teaches Native languages and Akimel O'odham and Pee Posh culture. The outside of the school building is emblazoned with tribal language, the kind of words that boarding school students would have been punished for using less than a century ago.

Hundreds of dignitaries, tribal officials, boarding school survivors and their guests arrived to the field with bleachers and a stage under a cloudless sky overlooking the Estrella Mountains. Children from the school and community walked in a processional, singing in their Native language. Teen and elder women wore traditional Native American ribbon skirts, while men donned beaded necklaces and bolo ties. Some survivors were already crying as they walked in to take their seats.

Carletta Tilousi, who belongs to the Havasupai and Hopi tribes, said as she listened to Biden speak, she thought about her relatives who had "experienced pain instilled on them by the federal government" at Indian boarding schools.

"It brought all that pain back to me," she said. "We need to begin the healing. The apology is the first step."

The Washington Post first reported on Thursday that Biden planned to apologize to Native Americans during his Arizona stop for the legacy of abuse at the government-run Indian boarding schools.

"It's a long time coming," Mary Kim Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe of Arizona, said as she waited for Biden to begin his remarks. Titla said her mother, Charlotte, is a survivor of the Phoenix Indian Boarding School. "A lot of us here to witness this are feeling the spirit of our ancestors."

Wearing a traditional beaded cape necklace made by the sister of another boarding school survivor, Titla brushed away tears as she talked about the children who died at Indian boarding schools.

"I can't imagine how traumatizing it is to have your babies taken away, and to places far away, to never come home," said Titla, who has three children and six grandchildren.
Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland became tearful as he said he was thinking of his ancestors.

"I'm like a lot of people here still processing it," he said. "I feel a lot of emotions. At the top of the list is gratitude. If you think of the journey that this country has been on for over 250 years, almost the entirety of the federal government's policies for Indian people have been about taking and this day is about healing.

"I'm grateful we have a president who recognizes the humanity of all Americans, including Indian people," Newland said. […]

Associated Press: Biden visits Indian Country and apologizes for the 'sin' of a 150-year boarding school policy
[Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak, 10/25/2024]

President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for the "sin" of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents, calling it a "blot on American history" in his first presidential visit to Indian Country.

"It's a sin on our soul," said Biden, his voice full of anger and emotion. "Quite frankly, there's no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make."

It was a moment of both contrition and frustration as the president sought to recognize one of the "most horrific chapters" in the national story. Biden spoke of the abuses and deaths of Native children that resulted from the federal government's policies, noting that "while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing" and that great nations "must know the good, the bad, the truth of who we are."

"I formally apologize as president of United States of America for what we did," Biden said. The government's removal of children from their Native American community for boarding schools "will always be a significant mark of shame, a blot on American history. For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention, not written about in our history books, not taught in our schools." […]

CNN: Biden apologizes to Native Americans for abusive government-funded boarding schools
[Michael Williams, 10/25/2024]

President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for what he described as "one of the most horrific chapters in American history," government-funded boarding schools that abused indigenous children and forced them to assimilate over a 150-year period.

"Quite frankly, there is no excuse that this apology took 150 years to make," Biden said in Laveen, Arizona, after calling for a moment of silence to "remember those lost and the generations living with that trauma."
At least 18,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend more than 400 boarding schools across 37 states or then-territories between 1819 and 1969. Three years ago, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, commissioned the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to review the schools' impacts on Native Americans.

Their final report, issued this summer, found at least 973 Native American children died while attending these federal boarding schools.

"As president," Biden said on Friday, "I believe it is important that we do know there were generations of native children stolen, taken away to places they didn't know, with people they never met, who spoke a language they had never heard."

"Native communities silenced – their children's laughter and play were gone," he added. "… Children abused emotionally, physically and sexually abused, forced into hard labor, some put up for adoption without the consent of their birth parents, some left for dead and unmarked graves."

Children who returned home, the president added, were "wounded in body and spirit."

Biden's remarks were made at the Gila Crossing Community School outside of Phoenix. It's the first time he has visited Indian Country as president and the first time in 10 years a sitting president has visited tribal lands.

Then-President Barack Obama paid a visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in 2014.

Biden acknowledged that "no apology can or will make up for what was lost during the darkness of the federal boarding school policy."

But, the president added, "we're finally moving forward into the light." […]

NBC News: Biden apologizes for forced Native American boarding school policy that caused abuse and deaths of children
[Alex Tabet and Lisa Cavazuti, 10/25/2024]

President Joe Biden delivered an apology Friday for a United States policy that forcibly separated generations of indigenous children from their families for more than 150 years and sent them to federally backed boarding schools for forced assimilation. 

"I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did," Biden said in strident remarks. "It's long overdue."

The president's apology comes in the wake of a years-long investigation commissioned by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Haaland's grandparents were separated from their families because of the policy. 

"We know that the federal government failed," Haaland said in emotional remarks before Biden was introduced. "It failed to violate our languages, our traditions, our life ways. It failed to destroy us because we persevered," she added.

The investigation uncovered generations of trauma. It identified the deaths of at least 973 Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children who attended the boarding schools. In total, the probe identified 417 institutions across 37 states or then-territories that were operational between 1819 and at least 1969. 

"Many Indian children suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at these institutions," the report found. It confirmed that at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 school sites. […]

PBS: Boarding school history 'a sin on our soul,' Biden says in historic apology to Native communities
[Mary Annette Pember, Shondin Mayo and Mark Trahant, 10/25/2024]

President Joe Biden delivered an historic apology Friday on behalf of the United States for the nation's dark past with Indian boarding schools, which sought to wipe out Native people, culture and language.

Calling the federal boarding school policies "a sin on our soul," Biden drew cheers, tears and at least one protester among the hundreds of the mostly Indigenous crowd gathered for the long-awaited announcement.

"After 150 years, the government eventually stopped the program [of boarding schools] but never formally apologized," Biden told the crowd. "I formally apologize today as President of the United States of America for what we did. I apologize, apologize, apologize!"

"This apology is long overdue and quite frankly there is no excuse this apology took 50 years to make," he said. "The pain that this has caused will always be a significant mark of shame."
Biden, in his first visit to tribal lands as president, was introduced to the crowd by Gila River Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis.

"Each of us understands the solemn nature of this day, this moment, this historical time and place that we are all a part of," Lewis said, praising the Biden administration's work with tribal communities. "Today's words will be carried forward by all of us here. This is a day built on respect and honor."

Biden outlined his administration's work with tribal communities over the last four years with infrastructure, water, language revitalization, tribal development and recognition of tribal sovereignty. […]

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, in her speech handing off to Biden, referenced a "10-year national plan driven by tribal leaders" that will include efforts to revitalize Native languages that many students were beaten for speaking.

Haaland, the first Native person to serve in a presidential cabinet, introduced herself in her Native language.
"Today is a day for remembering, but it's also a day to celebrate our perseverance," Haaland said, at one point choking up in tears. "In spite of everything that has happened, we are still here. We are here, healing our souls…. And we are still here doing our best to speak our languages, even if our parents were afraid to teach us. Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing us together."

Reactions from Survivors

The apology drew broad support from survivors, families, Congressional leaders, tribal officials, elders and younger generations of Native people. But many emphasized that the apology is just a first step in helping families and tribal communities heal from the generational traumas of boarding schools.

"I think the spirits of those children who went to (boarding) school before me rejoiced," said Matthew War Bonnet, 78, Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, who attended the announcement Friday. War Bonnet attended St. Francis Mission School for eight years, beginning at age 6. […]

James LaBelle, Iñupiaq, who survived the Wrangell Institute and Edgecumbe High School, was also in the audience Friday at Gila River.

"Biden's apology was very heartfelt,' said LaBelle, a past president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. "He mentioned all of the harms included in the boarding school era, acknowledged all the abuses we experienced; he didn't leave anything out.

"I feel emotional and overwhelmed," he said, "but also know that now the real work begins."

Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians in California and president of the National Congress of American Indians who also attended the announcement, said the apology is "a necessary step" and "foundational."

"I don't think it's possible to move forward into any type of healing, any type of reconciliation until you have the apology," Macarro said. "People often these days seem to discount the value of the formal announcement of an apology, an actual apology being done … But it really can't be overstated how important this step is. It is rare for a president, a world leader, to apologize for the actions of a country, a country's citizens, against another group of citizens within that country."

Biden did not mince words in describing the horrors endured by children at the schools, where staff took their traditional clothes, cut their hair and often abused them, psychologically, physically or sexually.
Biden noted in addition to the abuse, some children were put up for adoption, and others died at schools and were buried, some in unmarked graves.

"Trauma and shame passed down through generations," he said.

He said the apology "to me is one of the most consequential things I've ever had to do."

He asked the crowd for a moment of silence to remember those lost and the generations who have lived with the trauma.

"For our nation, it was too shameful to acknowledge," he said, adding, "While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing … We do not erase history, we make history, we learn history, and we remember, so we can heal as a nation."

In closing, Biden said that Native voices were finally being heard.

"That's the America we should be," he said. "That's the America we are."

The crowd began chanting, "Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe!" as he left the stage.