WORLD BRIEFLY
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — President Joe Biden said he will formally apologize on Friday for the country’s role in forcing Indigenous children into boarding schools, where many were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused and nearly 1,000 died.
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — President Joe Biden said he will formally apologize on Friday for the country’s role in forcing Indigenous children into boarding schools, where many were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused and nearly 1,000 died.
“I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago: To make a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we treated their children for so many years,” Biden said as he left for Arizona.
“I would never have guessed in a million years that something like this would happen,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, told The Associated Press. “It’s a big deal to me. I’m sure it will be a big deal to all of Indian Country.”
Haaland launched an investigation into the boarding school system shortly after she became the first Native American to lead the Interior Department.
It found that at least 18,000 children — some as young as 4 — were taken from their parents and forced to attend schools that sought to assimilate them into white society while federal and state authorities sought to dispossess tribal nations of their land.
