By james art 
Biden apologizes to Native Americans for boarding school abuse
President Joe Biden in Arizona on October 25, 2024 apologizes to Native Americans for abuses in boarding schools.
President Joe Biden visited the Gila River Indian community in Arizona on Friday and said what many Native Americans have been waiting to hear for more than a century.
Biden apologized for the abuse caused by a federal policy that took Native American children from their homes and sent them to overcrowded, unsanitary boarding schools, often hundreds of miles from their families.
“After 150 years, the United States government eventually ended the program, but the federal government has never, ever formally apologized for what happened to this day,” Biden told a crowd of more than 1,000 tribal representatives. “I formally apologize as the United States of America for what we have done… It is a sin of our soul.”
Biden’s apology was the culmination of a three-year investigation into the more than 500 boarding schools in the US, the first of which was established in 1860. The schools’ stated purpose was to assimilate Native American children into white society. Hundreds of thousands of children, often abducted by the authorities, were sent to schools; at least 900 died while in school. Parents who refused to hand over their children had their food rations and supplies withheld.
The findings of the federal investigation were presented in reports published in May 2022 and July 2024.
Four of these boarding schools were in Nevada, including the Stewart Indian Boarding School near Carson City, which operated from 1890 to 1980.
What Biden said and didn’t say
Stacey Montout, executive director of the Nevada Department of Indian Affairs and a member of Gov. Joe Lombardo’s staff, watched Biden’s speech on Friday.
“I didn’t just listen carefully to his words, I observed signs of genuine regret,” Montuth told RGJ. “What I witnessed was genuine sympathy and remorse.”
Still, he thought the speech could have gone further.
“Ideally, the president would outline several concrete, measurable action steps to build on his apology,” Montuth said. “Our tribal communities, especially our elders who have suffered abuse at the hands of the United States government, are in desperate need of resources to address this horrific 90-year-old policy. The physical and emotional toll of being kidnapped and held from our families and our land continues to wreak havoc on our people’s lives.”
There is still work to be done
Montuth identified several actions she would like to see from the federal government after Biden’s speech, starting with health care. More than a century of treaties have obligated the federal government to provide free medical care to the Native American population.
“One of the simplest ways for the federal government to begin to come to terms with its Indian boarding school policy is to fully fund the Indian Health Service,” Montuth said. “During the Biden administration, for the first time in history, the Indian Health Service received advance funding to help 2.6 million Native American patients.”
Still, federal watchdog groups say those programs have gone unfunded for decades.
“This from the richest nation on the planet, even though we recognize that our grandparents endured mental, physical and sexual abuse that the leaders of this country allowed to happen,” Montuth said.
Meanwhile, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Policies Act is stalled in Congress, a bill that would create a commission to further investigate and address wrongdoing.
“The federal government has a moral obligation to our relatives and all Americans to reveal the truth about how many Native Americans attended Indian boarding schools, what their names were, where they were sent, their tribal affiliations, and most importantly, what exactly happened to those over 500 locations across our country,” Montuth said. “A federal commission could do the job.”
“Not too distant past”
For the past five years, the former Stewart campus has welcomed visitors as the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum. More than 15,000 visitors have toured the campus so far, Montuth said.
“Indian boarding schools are in the past, but in the not too distant past,” she said. “The public needs to understand that what has happened for 90 years, just down the road from our state capitol, to every Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe and Mojave people is directly related to poor physical and mental health, low high school graduation rates and the high unemployment that our tribal communities and Native Americans are currently struggling with.”
Montuth said he hopes the apology speech represents a turning point in relations between Native and non-Native people in the U.S.
“I absolutely believe that by uncovering and remembering the true stories of the first people on this land, specifically the Native American boarding school era, all Americans will be better off,” Montuth said. “The Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum is a testament to that. “
Brett McGuinness is engagement editor for the Reno Gazette Journal. He is also the author of The Reno Memo, a free newsletter about the biggest small town news. Subscribe to the newsletter here. Also consider supporting the Reno Gazette Journal.