Biden apologizes to Native Americans
President Biden on Friday issued a formal presidential apology to Native American communities for the atrocities committed against Indigenous children and their families during a 150-year era of forced federal Indian boarding schools. The president chose to speak at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, although he apologized to all tribal nations for their generations of suffering.
“After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program,” the president said. “But the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened — until today. I formally apologize, as president of the United States of America, for what we did. I formally apologize. That’s long overdue.”
From 1819 through the 1970s, the federal government and religious institutions established boarding schools throughout the country to assimilate Alaska Native, American Indian and Native Hawaiian children into White American culture by forcibly removing them from their …