Native American survivors of US boarding schools recount abuses

Elderly survivors of federally established US boarding schools for Native Americans have recounted widespread atrocities at the government-run institutions in a meeting with US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

According to Press TV, Haaland met on Saturday with the survivors at the Riverside Indian School, the oldest federally operated US boarding school for Native Americans, in her first stop on a year-long tour to collect first-hand accounts of rampant atrocities they faced at such facilities, which were, in effect, centers of forced assimilation for the indigenous people.

US authorities began establishing abusive boarding schools in the early 1800s and continued operating them through the 1970s, with the stated goal of wiping out Native American culture.

"America prides itself on being an advocate of democracy and human rights around the world but was itself one of the worst violators of human rights when it comes to Native Americans," said the elected chief of the Kiowa tribe, Lawrence SpottedBird, who attended the meeting. "They need to be honest about this history so they can heal with us."

He further insisted that it is far overdue that the United States stops "whitewashing the brutal history" of the boarding school system.

The US government has never acknowledged how many children attended such schools, how many children died or went missing from them or even how many schools existed.

Horrendous conditions at former Indian boarding schools gained global attention last year when Native American tribal leaders in Canada announced the discovery of the unmarked graves of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops residential school for indigenous children, as such institutions are known in Canada.

Unlike the United States, Canada has begun conducting a full investigation into its boarding schools through a so-called Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

ME