The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) recently announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of the Interior to share research in support of the Federal Indian Board School Initiative.
According to a June release by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the initiative is a “comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies." A statement from DOI.gov said, with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. created laws and policies that established Indian boarding schools across the country with a purpose to “culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities.”
For more than 150 years Indigenous children were taken, according to the release by the DOI.
“The Interior Department will address the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be,” said Haaland. “I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we’re all proud to embrace.”
According to a release by the DOI, the MOU allows the groups to facilitate coordination and communication to collect and review records. The initiative starts the investigation into federal boarding school policies that caused generations of trauma for Native Americans, as well as loss of life.
“The survivors, descendants, and relatives of those who experienced these schools deserve the truth. NABS has agreed to share a decade’s worth of independent research because the United States has finally agreed to start revealing the truth about this part of American history,” said Christine Diindiisi McCleave, CEO of NABS and a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe Nation.
According to the NABS release, the organization has been committed to finding and sharing information about the schools’ history. This includes the number of attendees, their tribal affiliations, and how many died or were reported missing.
Information obtained by the partnership between the DOI and NABS will be available in a report scheduled to be released in April 2022.
