Biden to apologize to Native Americans for assimilationist schools

WASHINGTON (AA) – President Joe Biden is set to apologize to Native Americans for federally-run boarding schools that forcibly removed Native children from their families and subjected them to grave abuses, the White House said Thursday.

Biden will issue his presidential apology Friday when he visits the Gila River Indian Community in the state of Arizona during a visit in which the White House said the president will “outline his record of transformative investment in Indian Country and relationships with Tribal Nations.”

“The President also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past. That is why he is issuing a historic Presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era,” it said in a statement.

Children who were forced into the schools “endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse,” according to the White House. A report from the Interior Department in 2022 found that 973 children died in the schools, which were erected to force the assimilation of Native Americans into American society.

The schools sought to destroy Native culture and language “through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods,” said the White House.