Haaland announces consultation with tribal leaders on boarding school investigation

The Interior Department will consult with Native American tribes on its ongoing review of federal boarding schools that Native children were forced to attend, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Thursday.

The planned consultations come months after Haaland in June announced the Federal Boarding School Initiative, which will compile a report on the federal programs and their legacy in Native communities. At the time of the announcement, Canadian officials had made a series of discoveries of the remains of children on former school grounds, and the U.S. initiative will emphasize cemeteries or potential grave sites.

On Thursday, Haaland followed the announcement up with a series of letters to tribal leaders asking for input on how to handle sensitive information in historical records, as well as cultural sensitivity issues in handling that information. The letters also request feedback on concerns relating to repatriating human remains, potential privacy issues and management of former boarding school sites.

Native children in the late 1800s and early 1900s were made to attend the schools with a goal of forcibly assimilating them into white American culture. While there, they were forced to cut their hair, speak exclusively English and forego cultural traditions.

Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, described the school’s mission as “kill the Indian, save the man.” Haaland, the first Native Cabinet secretary, is the granddaughter of a survivor of the Carlisle school.

“I launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to begin the long healing process that our country must address in order to build a future we can all be proud to embrace. As we move forward, working with Tribal Nations is critical to addressing this legacy with transparency and accountability,” Haaland said in a statement.

“Tribal consultations are at the core of this long and painful process to address the inter-generational trauma of Indian boarding schools and to shed light on the truth in a way that honors those we have lost and those that continue to suffer trauma,” she added.

The department is also currently determining how to work with outside organizations for the next stage of the review, as well as consulting with the Indian Health Service to address trauma resulting from the investigations. Investigators will submit a final report of their findings to Haaland’s office with a target date of April 1.