A new Interior Department report underscores how closely the U.S. government collaborated with churches in operating boarding schools for Indigenous children
for Native Americans underscores how closely the U.S. government collaborated with churches to Christianize them as part of a project to sever them from their culture, their identities and ultimately their land.Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report
While this church-state collaboration is well known to specialists in the field and was the subject of federal reports in past generations, the latest one brings it to a wide audience at a time when many Americans are only beginning to learn about the boarding schools. Christian conversion was also key, the report says, citing an 1886 Commissioner for Indian Affairs document that disparaged Native spiritual traditions and said the government should provide “encouragement and cooperation” to missionaries.
And it says, citing the 1969 Senate investigation, that the U.S. military “was frequently called in to reinforce the missionaries’ orders” in the 19th century. “The boarding schools were sanctioned by the United States Government,” said War Bonnet, 76, a Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. “The government gave the churches our lands to Christianize us, modernize us and civilize us. But the churches treated us wrong. ... The government and the churches need to be held accountable.”
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