Three times as many Native American students have died in Indian boarding schools, according to the Washington Post, than the U.S. Interior Department reported earlier this year.
According to the newspaper’s investigation, which sought to expose inconsistencies in the official federal government report on the fate of Native American children who were taken from their homes for the purpose of assimilation, 3,104 Native children perished at U.S.-controlled schools between 1828 and 1970, including at least 270 at Salem’s Chemawa Indian Training School.
According to the journal, the U.S. government previously claimed that 973 Native children, including 53 at Chemawa, perished in the boarding schools.
According to the Post, the causes of death included accidents, hunger, and infectious infections. Numerous deaths occurred under dubious circumstances, and in certain cases, the records show signs of abuse or neglect that most certainly led to the deaths of the children. According to a newspaper, a 10-year-old child was shot and killed in an Alaskan school in 1912. According to a teacher’s diary, a girl in Oregon fell from a high window and was taken home a corpse in 1887.
But the number 270 is not new. The Post’s story was based on research on Chemawa deaths released in 2021 by archivist Eva Guggemos of Pacific University and independent historian SuAnn Reddick.
According to Reddick and Guggemos, the 3,104 number probably understates the number of fatalities, and the mounting evidence of the boarding schools’ negative effects will only serve to confirm the devastation that Native communities have endured for many years.
Reddick stated that this is only the beginning.
According to the Associated Press, the U.S. government claims that at least 18,000 children, some as young as 4, were abducted from their parents to attend the federal boarding schools, including ten in Oregon.
In October, President Joe Biden formally apologized for the assimilation practice.
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