A special report from the WashingtonPost The study released today shows that more than 3,100 Native American children died while attending Indian boarding schools. These staggering numbers represent more than three times the amount reported by the federal government.
The special report is the result of a year-long investigation by Washington Post reporters led by Dana Hedgpeth, a citizen of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina, and Sari Horwitz, investigative journalist and author of Justice in Indian Country.
The period examined by the reporters was between 1826 and 1970.
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The reporters reached their conclusions by examining government and boarding school records, newspaper obituaries, and oral histories; conducting interviews with older survivors; analyzing historical maps, death certificates, and census records to track student locations and potential burial sites; and the use of cartographic regression, a technique that compares maps over different time periods to locate cemeteries.
“Our reporting provides the most complete and complete public accounting to date on how many Native American children died in the schools. It builds on our commitment to this history, promotes accountability and elevates the voices of those affected,” a Washington Post editor said in an email to Native News Online.
In response to the Washington Post’s findings, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community) told the newspaper that the administration’s investigation was “limited in scope because it was limited solely to federal documents that did not include the full told the story of the trauma of the federal Indian boarding school era.”
Newland noted that “for a century and a half, these schools were used to implement a policy of forced assimilation. Our work took just three years. Others must continue this work.”
You can view the full report here.
About the Author: “Levi \”Calm Before the Storm\” Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded the Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print category\/ online by the Native American Journalists Association. He is a member of the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net.
Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net
