Federal report urges formal apology for Native American boarding schools where 900+ died

The U.S. government should formally apologize to individuals, families and tribes harmed from policies in the 19th and 20th centuries that led to the deaths of at least 973 Indigenous children attending federal Indian boarding schools, concluded a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Interior.

Those boarding schools were the subject of the Interior Department's report, the second in an investigation led by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in an effort to understand the extent of the trauma inflicted upon indigenous communities and tribes through forced assimilation. Tens of thousands of children were shipped off to these schools in an effort to erase Native American culture, five of which were identified as located in Michigan, mostly in the northern half of the state and the Upper Peninsula. Most in the state were operated by religious organizations, with support from the federal government.

The schools in Michigan were:

• Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in Mount Pleasant, operated from 1893 to 1934, where officials have identified at least two burial sites and one deceased student identified, though other estimates of deaths at the school have been far higher.
• Mackinac Mission School on Mackinac Island, which operated from 1823 to 1849, with no deceased students identified in the report. It was operated by a religious group.
• New L'Arbre Croche Mission School, also known as Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church and Indian School in Harbor Springs, which operated from 1829 to 1983, with no students identified as deceased in the report. Holy Childhood was also operated by a religious organization. The Catholic Diocese of Gaylord has previously issued an apology for trauma recounted by former students.
• Catholic Otchippewa Boarding School in Schoolcraft County in the Upper Peninsula operated from 1883 to 1888, with no deceased students identified in the report.
• Baraga Chippewa Boarding and Day School in Baraga in the Upper Peninsula, operated from 1884 to 1931, with no deceased students identified in the report.

The report is interspersed with testimony from unidentified boarding school survivors across the United States, including heart-wrenching stories from schools in Michigan.

“The important years of bonding with your parents and getting loved and hugged on daily is vital to child health, growth, and emotional well-being," one boarding school survivor from Michigan is quoted in the report. "I did not get that. We didn’t get that. There were no hugs, no encouragement, no praise."

One survivor in the report said "the worst part of it was at night, listening to all the other children crying themselves to sleep," and that they recalled school officials forcing a child who wet the bed to scrub the bathroom on her hands and knees with a toothbrush.

But the report's authors urge the country to move forward with an apology and other steps to strengthen indigenous communities, including adequate funding for the federal Bureau of Indian Education and added investments to public schools to support indigenous students.

In the most recent school year, more than 8,000 Native American students attended Michigan's public schools.

Contact Lily Altavena: laltavena@freepress.com.