My Family Survived the Horrors of Indian Boarding Schools: Why Biden’s Apology Doesn’t Go Far Enough

I am a direct descendant family members who, as children, were forced to attend an Indian boarding school operated by the U.S. government or operated by the church. These include my mother, all four of my grandparents, and most of my great-grandparents.

On October 25, 2024, Joe Biden, the first U.S. president to formally apologize for the policy of sending Native Americans to Indian boarding schools, called it one of the most ““terrifying chapters” in US history and “sign of shame”. But he didn’t call it genocide.

However, over the past 10 years, many historians and indigenous scholars have concluded that what happened in Indian residential schools “meets the definition of genocide“

From the 19th to the 20th century, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without parental consent. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Native names, languages, religions, and cultural practices.

The U.S. government operated boarding schools either directly or for a fee Christian churches to run them. Historians and scholars have written about it history of indian boarding schools for decades. However, as Biden noted, “most Americans have no idea about this this story.”

as Local scholar who studies indigenous history and is a descendant of Indian residential school survivors, I know about the “horrific” history of Indian residential schools from both survivors and scholars who claim they were sites of genocide.

Was it genocide?

The The United Nations defines “genocide.”“as “the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Scholars have examined various cases of indigenous genocide in the United States.

Historian Jeffery Ostlerin his 2019 book “Survive genocide” claims that the unlawful annexation of indigenous lands, the deportations of indigenous peoples, and the numerous deaths of children and adults that occurred during the 19th century while wandering hundreds of miles from their homelands constitute genocide.

Then mass murders of indigenous people gold was discovered in the 19th century in what is now California also constitutes genocide, the historian writes Benjamin Madley in his 2017 book “American genocide” At that time, a large migration of new settlers to California to mine gold resulted in the killing and displacement of indigenous people.

Other scholars have focused on the forced assimilation of children in Indian residential schools. Sociologist Andrew Woolford argues that scholars should start calling what happened at Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries “genocide” because of the “sheer destructiveness of these institutions.”

Woolford, former president of the International Association of Genocide Investigators, explains in his 2015 book “This benevolent experiment” that the purpose of Indian residential schools was “the forcible transformation of many indigenous peoples so that they would no longer exist as an obstacle (real or perceived) to settler colonial domination of the continent.”

Local writers do explained how this transformation occurred in Indian boarding schools. “Federal agents beat Native children in such schools for speaking their native languages, held them in unsanitary conditions, and forced them to perform manual and dangerous labor,” writes Native American law professor Maggie Blackhawk.

What my grandmother witnessed

Secretary of the Interior Debra Anne Haaland stated that “trauma and terrorIndian boarding schools. And my family is no different.

One of the more terrifying stories my maternal grandmother shared with her grandchildren was that she witnessed the death of another student. They were both under 10 years old. A schoolgirl died of poisoning after lye soap was placed in her mouth as punishment for speaking her native language.

We know that similar penalties occurred and children died in Indian boarding schools. The Department of the Interior reported in 2024 that 973 children died in Indian boarding schools.

Tribes are increasingly searching return of children’s remains who died and are buried in Indian residential schools.

A lasting legacy

The US government is starting to do just that encourage survivors to tell their stories his experiences at an Indian boarding school. The Department of Home Affairs is in the process of recording and documenting their stories on digital video that will be placed in a government repository.

My mother is 84 years old and the only survivor of an Indian boarding school in our family. Last summer, she shared her story with the Department of Home Affairs, as did dozens of other survivors.

Haaland stated that these "first-person narratives" can be used in the future learn about the history of Indian boarding schools and “make sure no one ever forgets“

“For too long, this nation has sought to silence the voices of generations of Native children,” Biden added during the apology ceremony, “but now your voices are heard“

As a descendant of residential school survivors in India, I appreciate President Biden’s apology and his efforts to break the silence. But I also believe that what my mother, grandmother and other survivors experienced was genocide.

This article has been republished from Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read it original article.