Biden apologizes to indigenous people

For 150 years, indigenous children in the USA were placed in forced state boarding schools and mistreated there. Hundreds of children died. US President Biden has now made a historic apology to the victims for the first time.

US President Joe Biden has apologized for one of the “most terrible chapters in American history”: tens of thousands of Native American children were taken from their families in the USA and forced into boarding schools run by the government. Many of the children there suffered physical, mental and sexual violence for around 150 years.

The children were beaten and abused, their hair was cut off, they were renamed and forbidden to speak their own language, Biden said. Some were given up for adoption, others died.

“As president of the United States, I apologize in the strongest possible terms for what we have done,” he said during a visit to an indigenous community in Arizona.

Hundreds of children died

The aim of the institutions, which were often run by parishes, was to erase the culture, language and identity of the children and to assimilate them. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, more than 400 state boarding schools existed from 1819 to 1969.

They are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of children, the Interior Ministry found in a 2022 report. The report documented abuse, disease, malnutrition, overcrowding and lack of medical care.

In the 1970s, the US government discontinued the boarding school system – but never apologized for its actions, said Biden. An apology was therefore long overdue. “This is a sin on our souls,” said the US President. “Frankly there is no excuse for this apology to have taken 50 years.”

“It was shameful for our nation to admit it”

It is a dark chapter in American history that many Americans know nothing about, Biden explained. He also criticized the fact that the topic was never taught in history textbooks and never taught in schools. “For those who lived through this time, it was too painful to talk about. For our nation, it was too shameful to admit it,” Biden said. “But just because history is silent doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first indigenous U.S. secretary, appeared with Biden. “You have failed to wipe out our languages, our traditions and our way of life,” she said. “Despite everything that has happened, we are still here.” Her own family was also affected by the system.

Biden's apology to indigenous people comes almost two weeks before the US presidential election. Arizona is one of the so-called swing states, i.e. the most politically contested states – and has one of the largest indigenous populations in the country.