Interior Department won't disclose location of Native American burial sites

Jun. 6—The locations of unmarked graveyards at Native American boarding schools will remain unknown to the general public, despite the Department of the Interior's work to uncover them.

The federal agency and experts in Native American affairs said disclosing details of the sites could expose those burial grounds to looters and continues to be a delicate issue that requires tribal consultation and approval.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, launched a federal investigation last year into the long history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., which aimed to assimilate children into European and American culture. The investigation, prompted by the discovery of thousands of child graves at Indigenous schools in Canada, includes naming the hundreds of schools and finding marked and unmarked gravesites.

The first report from the investigation, issued last month, said more than 400 Indigenous boarding schools had been identified, and at least 500 children had been buried at 19 of them. Federally supported schools made up most of those and were in 37 states, with more than 40 schools in New Mexico (the third most, behind Oklahoma and Arizona), the report said.

Unmarked graves have been found at six spots, while 14 other schools had marked and unmarked sites, the report said, adding more work needs to be done and statistics will grow.

A report on the second phase of the investigation will focus on details about the gravesites, the Interior Department said.

But Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland confirmed in an email last week the burial sites won't be disclosed.

"Consistent with federal agency practices to protect many other Tribal sacred places and burial sites from desecration, the Department will not publish the location of unmarked burial sites. We will continue to work with Tribes on repatriation of remains in accordance with federal law," the statement said.

New Mexico State Historian Rob Martinez said the boarding schools generally forced assimilation on Native American children. Many required children to speak only English and to wear white people's clothing.

"It was traumatic," Martinez said. "They would cut their hair, which was no small thing in Native culture."

Children also were forcibly removed from their families.

Barbara Creel of Jemez Pueblo, a law professor at the University of New Mexico, wrote in an email the Department of the Interior's investigation focuses on "a deadly, destructive, and ugly truth."

The boarding schools had such an impact on Native Americans, Creel wrote, that "it is no wonder that the U.S. government has had a hard time coming to terms with this legacy."

Haaland's announcement of the boarding school initiative last year cited a desire to identify boarding school facilities and sites; locate known and possible student burial sites at or near school facilities; and identify the names and tribal affiliations of the children interred there.

The initial report on the investigation named four current and former boarding schools in Santa Fe: the Santa Fe Indian School, which remains in existence; the Institute of American Indian Arts, which opened in 1962 and now is a college; St. Catherine Indian School, which closed in 1998; and Ramona Indian School, which existed in the late 1800s.

St. Catherine, with property now owned by the Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority, has a small cemetery for nuns. None of the schools has mentioned harboring burial plots for children.

Several Indigenous leaders said they support the Interior Department's decision not to disclose the locations of unmarked gravesites for boarding school children.

Regis Pecos, a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo and co-director of the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute, said the looting of Native American burial sites makes up its own chapter in the "horrific" history of the schools.

"It's a tragic part of our history, and it's come back to haunt the United States," Pecos said last week of Indigenous boarding schools. "The mass looting of graves continues today."

Pecos said the market in Native American antiquities remains lucrative. And some people dig for artifacts "as a hobby without realizing that these are sites of people who have gone on," he said.

A 1990 federal law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, requires museums, universities and other entities to inventory human remains and transfer them upon request and in consultation with tribes.

Identifying and repatriating human remains "is a very sensitive aspect of the scope of inquiry" of the federal government, said Samuel Torres, deputy CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in Minneapolis.

"I respect and I understand why the Interior Department has not released this information," said Torres, of Mexico's Mexica/Nahua people. The department "needs to get this right," he added.

Leland Michael Darrow of the Fort Sill Apache tribe in Oklahoma also said he agreed with the Interior Department's decision to not name burial sites.

"There is a long history of Native gravesites being plundered for salable items, valuable relics or curiosities," said Darrow, a tribal historian. "Unless there is reason to believe that known gravesites will be undisturbed, it is probably better to have the locations not disclosed."

Pecos said at least some tribes believe it is "taboo" to remove buried remains, but sometimes they are forced to bring the remains home and deal with those complexities. When Cochiti Lake was created about 50 years ago, he said, at least 200 Cochiti people's remains were unearthed. Cochiti Pueblo designated a place for the reburial, he said, but didn't participate in the reinterment.

The city of Albuquerque's 4-H Park cemetery contains some remains from children and administrators of the defunct Albuquerque Indian School. City representatives continue to meet with tribal officials from around the state for input on what to do with the cemetery.

Terry Sloan, the city of Albuquerque's tribal liaison, said ground-penetrating radar has been used to assess the extent of the cemetery and its remains, but tribal representatives have asked the number of remains not be disclosed. A plaque was stolen from the spot three years ago and the talks include whether to replace it.

Removing remains "has been discussed, but I don't think it will happen," Sloan said Friday. Tribal representatives don't want to disturb them, he said. A temporary fence cordons off the cemetery, and there is a sign that calls it a sacred place that shouldn't be disturbed, he said.

Christopher Eagle Bear, a Rosebud Lakota in South Dakota, was part of a group of young Lakotas who went to the site of the defunct Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania last year and brought back to the Rosebud Reservation the remains of nine children.

Six were placed in the veterans cemetery there and three went to the families for burial. "We don't really see it as reburying," Eagle Bear said. "We see it as bringing our relatives home."

He said the group sought guidance from elders and spiritual leaders on how to handle the situation.

Since then, other tribes have contacted the Lakota group, the Sicangu Youth Council, for information about what the process of recovering those remains entailed.

He said his group is researching the history of South Dakota boarding schools and also will rely on the work of the Interior Department to glean facts.

"So I feel like we're just getting started," he said.

Recovering those remains and placing them into the veterans cemetery was surreal, he said. "It was sad, cool — I don't know how to explain it."

He added, "There's no reason we should have to rebury anyone. But here we are."

As he spoke, Eagle Bear, a firefighter, said he was in New Mexico to fight wildfires.

Pecos said the Santa Fe Indian School has turned into a "shining light of a school for transforming education and using education to be the heart of cultural survival." Nevertheless, he said, most American schools continue the effort to assimilate Native American children rather than encourage them to embrace their cultures.

Martinez, the state historian, said the effect of the boarding schools on Native American life has been long-lasting. "This stuff gets passed on ... fear of education, fear of people coming in from the outside."

The boarding schools are a part of American history, he said, that must be thoroughly examined.