Just like in Canada: US government report reveals how forced assimilation of indigenous people killed more than 500 children

at the dawn of USA, the Government took charge of separating the children of Native American families to take them to boarding schools. The goal was to assimilate them into the new culture of the nation.

The result, however, was terrible. Torture, labor exploitation and death.

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“El País” gives details: “They were taken from the arms of their parents, they changed their names, they cut their hair, they prevented them from speaking their language or practicing their religion and customs, they imposed martial discipline on them. Many did not survive and were buried next to the schools where they were boarding.”.

The person who presented this information was the US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haalandwhose “paternal grandparents” were sent to one of these boarding schools, run by the federal government in collaboration with religious organizations and institutions.

“The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies, including the intergenerational trauma caused by family separation and cultural eradication inflicted on generations of children as young as four, are heartbreaking and undeniable.“, Held.

Visiting day of the Mt Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School. Photograph taken on June 30, 1893, extracted from the report presented by the United States Government. Image belongs to the Alice Littlefield Collection, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways.

Haaland talks about forced assimilation and announced that the 408 federal schools that existed between 1819 and 1969 will be investigated.

So far, it knows that more than 500 children died and that they were buried “marked or unmarked” about 53 schools. Everything indicates that it will be enough to continue digging to find many more.

The report also makes reference to these children working in “livestock, agriculture, poultry, milking, fertilization, logging, brick making; cooking, making clothes”. But, “under the guise of a supposed education”, child labor was validated.

And adds:

“Rules were often enforced through punishment, including corporal punishment such as isolation, flogging, starvation, whipping, slapping, and handcuffing. […] Older Indian children were sometimes forced to punish younger ones.”.

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The US Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, was the one who made the investigation public. AP (Evan Vucci/)

On the participation of the churches, the report notes:

“The Federal Government [también mantuvo] relationships with religious institutions and organizations to [sostener] the federal Indian boarding school system. The indigenous reserves ‘were distributed among the main religious denominations, which, in an unprecedented delegation of power by the Federal Government to the ecclesiastical bodies, received the right to […] lead educational activities”.

And adds:

“As part of the federal Indian boarding school system, [se] contracted various religious institutions and organizations, including the ‘to pay a certain sum for each student‘”.

a possible reaction

“Similar situations have been experienced in other parts of the world. During the dictatorship in Argentina, for example, they took the children of the alleged subversives – who, in reality, were only people from the left – so that ‘they would not end up being guerrillas’”comments the Argentine analyst based in the United States, Hernán Molina.

“Thus it was that many children ended up living in the house of the military or with families of good name.”.

But since the investigation led by Haaland comes from the ruling party, it should be assumed that the Government will apologize. “”, adds Molina.

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It would not be a novelty.

“El Mundo” explains: “Since they were reduced by the white man to live on reservations, the Indians have obtained in return a series of exclusive rights that they have taken advantage of to exploit the law in their favor: those territories are under the jurisdiction of each tribe, so they have the privilege of managing a large number of betting games with relative freedom thanks to the fact that there is a significant lack of legal control”.

It’s about the Law for the Regulation of Gambling in Indigenous Lands of 1998. The idea is that at least 60% of income is “earmarked for projects that improve living conditions in communities”.

Although it is difficult to know the next move of the Biden management, Molina believes that there is unlikely to be criticism from the Republican opposition. There are two important reasons.

“I don’t think they are against it because in states like North and South Dakota, Montana, or North Carolinathere are tribes that experienced what is now denounced”.

“And because, politically, it would be a mistake. In any case, the conservators can also offer other views to solve this type of problem.”.

the precedent

Everything indicates that the investigation of the Government of the United States’s president, Joe Biden, was conceived from the one that happened in Canada last year.

In May, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) published a report in which he claimed to have found in the British Columbia “the remains of 215 indigenous children in the garden of a boarding school”.

It was not necessary to dig much deeper to find more similar cases. In June, they found “751 unmarked graves in a mass grave at a boarding schoollocated in the province of Saskatchewanplace where the Marieval Indigenous Residential School.

These findings ended up giving meaning to what had been discussed years before thanks to the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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It is known, says the BBC, that between 18962 and 1998, “more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and placed in state boarding schools in Canada” which used to be run by the Catholic Church.

The media recalls that the boys and girls lived in poorly built buildings -”poorly heated and unsanitary”- and under systematic pressure to stop speaking their language and abandon their customs.

The result of abuse Held the CVR estimated six thousand dead children.

The Canadian Government, aware of the uncovering, took the floor. His prime minister, Justin Trudeaustated:

“Many were neglected and not adequately fed, clothed or housed. Others suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse. All were deprived of the love and care of their parents, families and communities”.

“To all of you, we are sorry”.

His apologies, however, were not accepted by the “Grand Chief of the Innu Nation, one of the indigenous groups affected by the internment in school residences in Newfoundland and Labrador, Greg Rich”. He answered:

“Our elders are not ready to accept an apology made for only a small part of our experience.”.

. “All this has provoked in my indignation and shame”, held the Pope Francisco after meeting with indigenous Canadians from the Inuit, Métis and First Nations, who told him about the torture and abuse they suffered in boarding schools”.

The Supreme Pontiff added:

“I am very hurt and I join the bishops in asking their forgiveness, because it is evident that the faith cannot be transmitted with something that is totally far from the same faith. It is terrible when an act against the gospel is committed in the name of faith”.

Source: Elcomercio