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Devastating Impact of Native American Boarding Schools

Cherokee Nation Scholarship Program

Kyle Price

01/03/22
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What exactly was the Native American Boarding School and why was it used? These are

questions that have recently been publicized on the National news. The reason this investigation

was started into these institutions is mainly attributed to the discovery of hundreds of unmarked

graves at the site of similar boarding schools in Canada in 2021. This discovery has raised

awareness of this very dark chapter in North American History.

The children on Native American families were taken in handcuffs from their homes and their

families to a prison like building and at times were beaten simply because they spoke English.

These children were ripped from their parents’ arms by soldiers to be taken to unknown areas at

the young age of 2 or 3 years old. The children on most days were cold and hungry. These

children speak of huddling in groups together in the hopes that they would be able to keep the

sexual predators at bay that roamed the very halls outside of their dormitory rooms.

This injustice happened to many Indigenous families in Canada and the U.S in the late 19ty

century. It has been stated that in Canada alone more than 150,000 children were abducted from

their families and taken to these boarding schools scared and afraid. In the U.S., the exact

number of children abducted remains unknown but has been and is being investigated. It has

been recorded that in Canada that nearly 25,000 of the abducted children died at the hands of

their captures while nearly as many as 40,000 died in the U.S.’s version of these so-called

boarding schools. These children died due to many factors including hunger, lack of medical

care, abuse both sexual and physical, and sadly a huge majority of these children became the

prey of deviant sexual predators.

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Many of these abducted children resisted, ran away, or took the blame for the younger

children that were in the boarding schools. The government claimed that these institutes were

schools, but it became apparent that they were merely building put into operation with one goal

and that was to create a cultural genocide of the Native Americans starting with the weak and

most vulnerable the children. But, with all this horror, what is so inspiring and worthy of endless

praise is that these courageous children who survived not only lived but left their home as Native

Americans and returned as Indians.

“We continue to see the evidence of this attempt to forcibly assimilate  Indigenous

people in the disparities that communities face,” Deb Haaland, Interior Secretary and first

Native American cabinet secretary, said in a statement. “It is my priority to not only give

voice to the survivors and descendants of federal Indian boarding school policies, but also

to address the lasting legacies of these policies so Indigenous peoples can continue to

grow and heal” (Waxman, 2022). With people like Deb Haaland on the case the mystery of

these deplorable boarding schools is being currently brought to light and will not be left out of

the light until some type of justice is seen for the missing, neglected, and innocent children of the

Native American Boarding Schools.

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Sources

Waxman, O. B. (2022, May 17). Historian: American Indian boarding schools and their impact.

Time. Retrieved January 3, 2023, from https://time.com/6177069/american-indian-

boarding-schools-history/