Uncovering boarding school history makes for monumental task
This July 8, 2021 image of a photograph archived at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shows a group of Indigenous students who attended the Ramona Industrial School in Santa Fe. The late 19th century image is among many in the Horatio Oliver Ladd Photograph Collection that are related to the boarding school. [AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Interior Department is embarking on a massive undertaking to uncover the troubled legacy left by Indigenous boarding schools.
For over more than a century, the schools represented a systematic attempt by the federal government, church groups and others to assimilate Indigenous youth into white society.
The challenges of identifying the schools, students and their tribes and possible burial sites for children who died while attending the schools are immense.
Records are scattered across the country and in some cases have been lost or destroyed.
Some advocates are pushing for the establishment of a federal commission that would be dedicated to investigating the schools.