Lesson 30: Federal Native Boarding Schools in the United States

From 1819 to 1969, the United States federal government ran a system of boarding schools for American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children. Children were forcibly removed from their families and sent, often far from home, to schools whose purpose was assimilation: to replace their languages, cultures and identities with those of mainstream America. The US Department of the Interior investigated the system in two reports — Volume I in May 2022 and Volume II in July 2024. The two volumes count things differently, so this lesson keeps them strictly separate. Never mix a Volume I figure with a Volume II figure.

Related lesson: Canada ran a parallel system. See World History Lesson 28: Canada's Residential Schools.

Volume I (May 2022): what it found

Volume I identified 408 federal Indian boarding schools across 37 states or then-territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawai'i; some schools had multiple sites, so the 408 schools comprised 431 separate sites. The system operated between 1819 and 1969. Volume I confirmed over 500 student deaths across 19 institutions, and identified approximately 53 schools containing marked or unmarked burial sites — note the phrasing: schools containing sites, not a count of sites themselves. It found that approximately 50 percent of the schools may have received support or involvement from a religious institution or organisation, including funding, infrastructure and personnel. Volume I gives no total attendance figure: the Department said detailing the number of children who attended would require future work. Its language speaks of “tens of thousands” of children forcibly removed and assimilated — but that is not a counted total and must not be quoted as one.

Volume II (July 2024): the updated investigation

Volume II updated the list to 417 federal schools across 37 states or then-territories, including 22 schools in Alaska (one more than Volume I) and 7 in Hawai'i, comprising 451 specific sites. It identified, by name, 18,624 Indian children who entered the system — and stresses that this is not a total: “This number does not represent a comprehensive list of all children who attended,” and “the actual number of children who entered Indian boarding schools is greater.” Volume II confirmed at least 973 documented deaths of children while attending the schools between 1819 and 1969, again with the Department's own caution that the actual number is greater. It identified at least 74 marked or unmarked burial sites at 65 different schools — 53 marked and 21 unmarked — while cautioning that the actual number of burial sites is likely far greater. On religion, Volume II gives an exact count superseding Volume I's estimate: religious institutions or organisations operated 210 of the 417 schools, and at least 59 religious institutions and organisations received US Government support to operate or support schools. Volume II also lists 1,025 other institutions that did not meet its four criteria for federal boarding schools but were used to advance similar assimilation and education policy goals — those 1,025 are context, not federal boarding schools, and must not be added to the 417.

The stated purpose, in the Department's own words

Volume II concludes that “the assimilation of Indian children through the Federal Indian boarding school system was intentional and part of that broader goal of Indian territorial dispossession for the expansion of the United States,” and that the system “deployed militarized and identity-alteration methods to assimilate” children — including cutting hair, banning Native languages, renaming children, military-style discipline, and forced labour. For the first time, the report states, the US Government was accounting for its own role in operating the schools “to forcibly assimilate Indian children.” That accounting is incomplete by the Department's own admission: records were lost or destroyed, and many deaths and burial sites remain unidentified. The figures in this lesson are therefore floors, not totals — at least 973 deaths, at least 74 burial sites, at least 18,624 children identified by name.

Practice questions written for this lesson. They are not from any examination paper.

Sources

Figures and quotations in this lesson are taken from the sources below. Where sources disagree, the lesson says so rather than picking one figure silently.

• US Department of the Interior — Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative statement (Volume I summary)
• US Department of the Interior — Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume II (July 2024, PDF)
• National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition — Volume I key findings summary