More information about the atrocities committed at boarding schools run by the federal government that were designed to eradicate Indigenous people is expected in the new year.

In May 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior released a based on the federal government鈥檚 first-ever investigation of the boarding school system in the country. It identified 408 federal Indian boarding schools which dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands and forcibly assimilated their children, including 43 schools in New Mexico.

The report鈥檚 second volume is expected to be published in early January 2024, said Heidi Todacheene, a senior advisor to U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna). Todacheene could not give a specific date of publication.

The upcoming report will contain new information on the total number of Indigenous children who attended federally run boarding schools, including their names and tribal affiliations, Todacheene (Din茅) said.

It will also identify their marked and unmarked burial sites, the schools鈥� affiliations with religious organizations, and federal money spent on the boarding school system, Todacheene said.

Todacheene was speaking via Zoom from Washington D.C. on Tuesday to the New Mexico Legislature鈥檚 Indian Affairs Committee in Santa Fe.

Since the first volume on the U.S. boarding school initiative came out, Todacheene said, officials from Interior and other federal agencies have continued researching and collecting data, including through Road to Healing listening sessions across the country. The second-to-last session was in Albuquerque on Oct. 29, according to Native News Online.

During the sessions, Todacheene said, Interior 鈥渉as come to realize that the United States forcibly removed Indian children and relocated them hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their original tribal communities to prevent runaways or those from returning at home.鈥�

鈥淔ederal laws have also forced parents to give up their children through punishment, imprisonment, or withholding food rations to families and communities,鈥� Todacheene said. 鈥淭he deliberate federal disruption of tribal communities through the removal of Indian children to off-reservation boarding schools will never be completely healed, nor that the loss of community or language or culture can adequately be replaced.鈥�

The listening sessions are over but Todacheene said Haaland and Interior assistant secretary Bryan Newland (Ojibwe) still welcome anyone to their story or experience.

About half of the federally run boarding schools 鈥渞eceived support or other involvement鈥� from religious organizations, the report found, and the federal government paid those schools using money from Indian Trust Funds to take children away without their parents鈥� consent and force them into environments designed to destroy generational bonds by eliminating language and culture.

Sen. Benny Shendo (D-Jemez) asked if the Interior Department plans to pay reparations to survivors, but Todacheene鈥檚 presentation ended before she could answer.

鈥淚 believe that鈥檚 illegal, because those are accounts that are held in trust for people,鈥� Shendo said. 鈥淔or the federal government to dip into that fund to pay for the annihilation and dispossession of tribes of their land, I think it鈥檚 pretty egregious.鈥�

Rep. Harry Garcia (D-Grants) asked what the federal government is doing to make up for the damage it did to survivors.

鈥淭here鈥檚 gotta be long-term effects on these children who are adults now,鈥� Garcia said.

Todacheene said the second volume will contain Newland鈥檚 recommendations 鈥渙n how to move forward and help elevate those issues.鈥�

鈥淎ll of our leadership at the Department and other federal agencies, and of course in Indian Country, we know that we could have some improvements to our health care and mental health services,鈥� Todacheene said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Shaun Griswold for questions: info@sourcenm.com. Follow Source New Mexico on and .

This week the U.S. Interior Department released on the lasting consequences of the federal Indian boarding school system.

You might recall last June Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, announced the federal agency would investigate the extent of the loss of human life and legacy of the federal Indian boarding school system, a chapter of U.S. history many Americans know little to nothing about. 

This week鈥檚 report is the first of possibly many, and it deserves to be read by as many Americans as possible. 

Here are some of the investigation鈥檚 top-level findings:

• Beginning in the late 1800s, the federal government took Indian children from their families in an effort to strip them of their cultures and language.
• Between 1819 and 1969, the U.S. operated or supported 408 boarding schools across 37 states (or then-territories), including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. 
• Of those 37 states, New Mexico had the third-greatest concentration of facilities, with 43, trailing only Oklahoma and Arizona.  
• The schools 鈥渄eployed systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies to attempt to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children through education, including but not limited to the following: (1) renaming Indian children from Indian to English names; (2) cutting hair of Indian children; (3) discouraging or preventing the use of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages, religions, and cultural practices; and (4) organizing Indian and Native Hawaiian children into units to perform military drills.
• The Federal Indian boarding school system focused on manual labor and vocational skills that left American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian graduates with employment options often irrelevant to the industrial U.S. economy, further disrupting Tribal economies. 

Boarding schools in New Mexico got an early start.

Two years after the first boarding school, the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, opened in 1879, the Presbyterian Church opened the Albuquerque Indian School (AIS) for Navajo, Pueblo and Apache students. Later, the school transferred to federal control.

The Albuquerque Indian School merits several mentions in this week鈥檚 report, including five photos as I counted them of young Indigenous girls and boys in class, and of the building itself. 

I know a few details about AIS. Last year, New Mexico In Depth  that revisited the Albuquerque Indian School鈥檚 history within the larger context of the boarding school system. 

In addition to locating boarding schools across the country, this week鈥檚 report identifies at least 53 burial sites for children across this system 鈥� 鈥渨ith more site discoveries and data expected as we continue our research.鈥� The authors declined to identify where they are.

One of those burial sites is at the , a resting place for children and staff at the Albuquerque Indian School from 1882 through 1933. It鈥檚 been known in the city for decades. A 1999 study included it in a survey of known cemeteries and burial places across Albuquerque. After a lone marker commemorating the internment went missing, there wasn鈥檛 much to mark the burial site, save for makeshift memorials put there by community members. But after the news that a large unmarked burial site was found at a Canadian boarding school last summer, the city started a formal reconciliation process, working with leaders from tribes in the southwest, including Pueblo, Navajo, Apache and others, as well as with people who have a connection to the site.

The Interior Department report features images from other New Mexico boarding schools: Santa Fe Indian School; and in the west, Rehoboth Mission School, Tohatchi and Zuni. 

And it describes the forcible removal of Mescalero children, quoting U.S. Indian Agent Fletcher J. Cowart as he described attempts in the 1880s to take Mescalero and Jicarilla Apache children, resistance from chiefs and the tribal nations and his resorting to have Indian police forcibly remove the children from their homes.

It鈥檚 unclear how many Native children went to boarding schools. But the  estimated 鈥渉undreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes and families.鈥�

By 1900, 鈥渢here were 20,000 children in Indian boarding schools, and by 1925 that number had more than tripled,鈥� according to the group. 鈥淭hey suffered physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual abuse and neglect, and experienced treatment that in many cases constituted torture for speaking their Native languages. Many children never returned home and their fates have yet to be accounted for by the U.S. government.鈥�

These atrocities were not a secret.

Our story last year highlighted that over the past century government reports sounded the alarm about the boarding schools, beginning with , which criticized the schools鈥� inadequate facilities and the removal of children from their homes. That report stressed repeatedly the need for relevant curriculum adapted to the culture of the children. 

Forty years later in 1969, the  came out, sounding more alarms.

The impacts of the boarding schools were profound. This new report describes cultural and familial disruption, and tribal erosion. It references a recent report that studied the physical health of now-adult boarding school attendees鈥� medical status, finding those who attended boarding schools are more likely to experience chronic physical disease, as well as increased risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and unresolved grief.

鈥淭he combined direct and indirect results 鈥� show American Indians who attended boarding school have lower physical health status 鈥� than those who did not,鈥� according to researcher Ursula Running Bear, whose study was paid for by the National Institutes of Health.

Now, in 2022, we have another report.

As I read it, a quarter of the way through this sentence leapt out at me.

It鈥檚 a quote from the Kennedy Report.

Reading those words turned me introspective. I remember, as a young man, on occasion saying 鈥淢anifest Destiny鈥� when talking about this country鈥檚 history. It鈥檚 what I was taught in school in Georgia decades ago.

After living nearly 17 years in New Mexico, where I鈥檝e come face-to-face with the troubling, often horrific history tucked into the shadows by that phrase, I understand more fully the problem of saying 鈥淢anifest Destiny鈥� to describe how this country came to stretch from sea to shining sea. I knew about the broken treaties, the removal of entire nations from ancestral lands, the deliberate campaign to rob Native speakers of their languages 鈥� the list is long. I鈥檇 read about it in books and magazines, seen films and documentaries. But it鈥檚 one thing to read about it, removed from the blood and guts of the human toll, and another to see the effects first hand of more than a century of federal policies and discriminatory laws. To hear friends and acquaintances give an alternative telling of the continental expansion that impacted their great-great grandparents and succeeding generations, all the way down to their children 鈥� it makes a difference, putting a human face on the stories you read in books.  

Living in New Mexico has been part of my educational journey. It鈥檚 helped me unlearn what I learned in school. And I want to keep educating myself.

I hope all of us do. But from the political debate of the past few years, where so many seem unwilling to confront uncomfortable truths about this country, I鈥檓 unsure whether America is ready to learn this particular history 94 years after the groundbreaking Meriam report

For the sake of all of us, I hope I鈥檓 wrong. 

This story was published by New Mexico In Depth

Born and raised on Navajo and Ojibwe reservations, three of endawnis Spears鈥檚 four grandparents were among the estimated hundreds of thousands of Native children separated from their families, their tribes and their traditions and forced to attend government-run Indian boarding schools.

A federal Bureau of Indian Affairs officer took Spears鈥檚 maternal grandmother at just 6 years old from Arizona to the Albuquerque Indian School in New Mexico. The agency threatened the young girl鈥檚 parents with possible jail time if they did not surrender her. 

Her paternal grandmother was sent across state lines from Minnesota to Kansas, where she was forced to attend Lawrence鈥檚 infamous Haskell Indian Training School, unable to return home for nearly a decade.

After hiding from federal officers for years, agents took her maternal grandfather at 14 to Fort Wingate, Arizona and forced him to cut his hair, pray to a Christian god and speak English, though Navajo was the only language he knew at the time. The teen repeatedly tried to run away, and staff punished him by forcing him to spend days on end in the school鈥檚 basement without food. Spears鈥檚 parents shared these stories with her over the years. 

鈥淭hese legacies and these histories are so intimate to us as Native people,鈥� said Spears, who now lives in Hopkinton, Rhode Island and serves as Brown University鈥檚 . 鈥淲e carry them in our DNA.鈥�

At least 500 Indigenous children died while attending federally operated Indian boarding schools, according to a May 11 . Just 19 facilities, a small fraction of the 408 government-supported schools identified, account for that tally 鈥� meaning the death total is likely a severe undercount.

For 150 years, up until the late 1960s, the U.S. government stole Indigenous youth from their communities, often without parents鈥� consent, and sent them to Indian boarding schools where they were forced to use English names, wear Americanized haircuts and perform military drills. Many children suffered and , and an unknown number died, often . 

The long-awaited report represents the first time the federal government has attempted a systematic accounting of the facts and consequences of the Indian boarding school system it perpetuated.

鈥淚’m glad to see it on the news. I’m glad that there are people asking these questions because our Native families, our Indigenous families in this country carry these stories with them every day,鈥� Spears told 蜜桃影视. But the process is only beginning, she added. 

鈥淲e’re just learning the full scope of the truth. 鈥� People always want to jump to reconciliation and they want to skip over the truth-telling part. We need to sit in the truth for a while.鈥�

The May report represents Volume I of an investigation that Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and the agency鈥檚 first Indigenous head, unveiled in June 2021. The effort is intended to provide a basis through which the U.S. may reckon with past brutality by locating gravesites 鈥� many of them unmarked or 鈥� repatriating children鈥檚 remains and offering resources to affected families.

鈥淚t 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,鈥� said the secretary, who鈥檚 own grandparents were also subjected to the boarding school system.

Indigenous scholars underscore that this first report only conveys a small fraction of the violence wrought by these schools, scores of which were operated by the Catholic Church and various Protestant groups at the government鈥檚 behest. 

鈥淏asically every school had a cemetery,鈥� Preston McBride, an Indian boarding school historian and a Comanche descendent. 鈥淭here are deaths at or deaths because of virtually every single boarding school.鈥�

鈥淭he United States doesn鈥檛 even know how many Indian students went through these institutions, let alone how many actually died in them,鈥� he added.

In his own research, he has documented over 1,000 child deaths at just four boarding schools. He estimates the toll over the entire system鈥檚 century and a half of operation may be .

The Department of Interior declined to comment on whether it believes that to be a plausible estimate, though the report鈥檚 authors note they expect 鈥渃ontinued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.鈥� 

鈥淓ach one of those individuals is a story, had a story, has a story. And each one of those individuals did not have the opportunity to continue their traditions, to continue their culture, their language, to have a family 鈥� to be able to pass down the knowledge, the practices, the language that they inherited from generations past,鈥� Samuel Torres, deputy CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, told the 74 after the investigation was first launched.

Spears said her grandparents did not talk about witnessing deaths at the boarding schools, perhaps to protect their family from that horror. 

Amazingly, her grandfather, George Kirk, who suffered deprivation and torture at the hands of the U.S. government, later went on to help the country win World War II. Kirk became a famed , one of 29 U.S. Marines whose skill at transmitting over 800 messages without error in a coded version of their native tongue proved a critical advantage to Allied forces.

鈥淭he very language he was starved for speaking, later helped save this country,鈥� Spears said.

To bring the boarding school history to light, the Interior Department鈥檚 research team is working through the review and electronic screening of roughly 500 million pages of documents held in the American Indian Records Repository in Lenexa, Kansas. 

Most of the staff who have worked on the report are themselves Indigenous, . 

鈥淚t鈥檚 been an exhausting and emotional effort for them to confront this horror on a daily basis to bring this information to you,鈥� said Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland, who led the investigation and is a member of the Ojibwe nation. 鈥淭his has left lasting scars for all Indigenous people. There鈥檚 not a single American Indian, Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian in this country whose life hasn鈥檛 been affected by these schools.鈥�

As the team continues its investigation, they hope to further clarify the U.S. government鈥檚 role in supporting the Indian boarding system, determine the location of more burial grounds associated with these schools and identify the names, ages and tribal affiliations of those buried there. They have already identified over 50 marked and unmarked gravesites.

The Interior鈥檚 investigation, the beginnings of what may become a public, centralized archive, will continue with

The report follows a similarly disturbing and builds on years of Native-led activism to unearth the truth behind U.S. boarding school policies. Since its founding in 2012, the Boarding School Healing Coalition has filed for the, conducted their own, supported survivors, and led in Eastern Pennsylvania. 

鈥淚 don’t think the impact [of the Investigation] can be underestimated. This is such a big part of American history that has not been talked about,鈥� Jim Gerencser, a Dickinson College archivist who co-founded a, told 蜜桃影视 last year. Many people have reached out to him looking for in-depth archives of boarding schools, family information or sources to incorporate in their . 

Carlisle has become one of the most studied U.S. boarding school sites, in part due to its size and founder鈥檚 infamous propaganda to 鈥渒ill the Indian and save the man.鈥� The site forcibly enrolled over 10,000 children from 142 Native nations over the course of 40 years.

Spears and her husband Cassius Spears Jr. 鈥� first councilman for the Narragansett tribe and nephew of former councilwoman, Tomaquag Museum leader and educator 鈥� have worked to reclaim many of their Native ways of life for their children. Her boys grow their hair out long and have pierced ears. They teach their kids about humans鈥� relationships with plants and non-human animals. They learn words and prayers in Native languages.

鈥淚 make decisions everyday to give my children what my grandparents couldn’t have,鈥� said Spears.

Lede Image: Dan Romero or Walking Bird of the Ute Tribe encircles the graves of children with sage at Sherman Indian School Cemetery in Southern California. (Cindy Yamanaka/The Riverside Press-Enterprise via Getty Images)