Native leaders press Congress for formal commission to investigate boarding school traumas

A proposal to set up a formal commission to investigate the Native American boarding school era received its first congressional hearing Thursday, one day after a federal report confirmed the U.S. government supported 408 boarding schools designed to eradicate Native cultures.

The emotional hearing before a House subcommittee drew testimony from three boarding school survivors, as well as other Indigenous leaders whose relatives were sent to the schools.

“I’ve been waiting 67 years to tell this story,” said James LaBelle, who is Inupiaq. “While I may have received an education, or a white man’s education, in the process, I lost my own language, my own culture, my traditions.”

The Interior Department said in a first of its kind report published Wednesday that thousands or tens of thousands of Native children may have died at the schools, which federal officials described as a key facet of the government’s campaign to attain tribal land.

Native boarding schools investigation: Federal officials expect to uncover thousands of deaths

The report directly linked the trauma inflicted on children forced to attend the schools to the negative health and economic outcomes that many tribal nations face today. It also included the first comprehensive list of the 408 boarding schools supported by federal dollars. Some operated until as recently as 1969. Seventy-six were in Oklahoma.

House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona, said the federal report starts a broader reckoning process in which Congress should play a role. He described the hearing as precedent-setting and the proposed commission as crucial. The panel would further investigate the damage done by the schools and recommend ways to help Native communities recover.

“This truth seeking is not about assessing punishment,” he said. “It is about recognizing that this chapter in our history is something we can’t hide from.”

Traumatic legacy of boarding schools: Read the full Department of Interior report

The proposal hasn't yet garnered widespread support from Republicans, although two Oklahoma congressmen, Reps. Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin, are among the six who have signed on as co-sponsors.

But the potential for a partisan dividing line emerged over the commission’s proposed authority to subpoena private organizations such as churches, which operated many of the schools. “Why assume that this is going to be an adversarial process?” asked Rep. Jay Olbernolte, R-California, the ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples.

Grijalva said subpoena power was necessary because the panel would be tasked with investigating a long-held public policy that impacted tribal communities for generations. Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 to pay religious organizations to run schools aimed at “civilizing” Native children.

“It should not be a dark secret,” Grijalva said.

Native American leaders have pressed for years for a formal way to collect documents from all boarding school operators. If approved by Congress, the truth and healing commission also would set up a hotline to gather testimony from as many former students as possible. The commission would issue a report within five years, describing what it found and outlining recommendations to prevent trauma from passing on to future generations.

It would help Native communities find answers that would otherwise be unknowable and provide some closure, Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma Chief Ben Barnes told lawmakers.

“We cannot go back and change the past, but we can and must hold ourselves accountable for doing the right thing today,” Barnes said. “The stories of human suffering at these institutions can no longer be hidden from view or ignored.”

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Three former boarding school students testified their hair was cut upon arrival, they faced punishment for speaking their native language and they were separated from their families for most of the year. All are now in their 70s.

Matthew War Bonnet, who belongs to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, testified that priests who operated St. Francis Indian School often beat him and other students with willow sticks and leather straps, and once a cattle prod. He remembered that he was once separated from other students for 10 days and given only bread and water as a punishment. He said he found strength by singing to himself a Lakota song taught by his father, who also spent years at boarding school.

Ramona Charette Klein said she will never forget the moment she was first sent to Fort Totten Indian School, where she was abused and demeaned by her teachers.

“I remember seeing my mom crying as she stood and watched six of her eight children placed on a big green bus,” said Klein, who belongs to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota.

LaBelle said abuse at his Alaska boarding school started almost as soon as he arrived and became known as a number instead of his name. Sexual abuse was common, he said. He “witnessed so many atrocities it almost became normal,” he said.

Today, LaBelle is part of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, which is helping to organize support to urge Congress to set up the truth and healing commission. A similar panel in Canada has uncovered mass burial sites of Native children on school grounds.

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Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, is the main sponsor of the House bill. She belongs to the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. Boarding schools have impacted all Native people, both in the past and in the present, she said at Thursday’s hearing.

“We should be able to find it in ourselves to fully investigate what happened to our relatives,” she said.

Deborah Parker, who leads the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, said instilling the commission with the authority to issue subpoenas would be “absolutely necessary” to ensure access to records. It took many generations to get to this point of public accountability, she said.

“We are here to remind you to remember these children, to tell the truth, to subpoena others who are carrying that knowledge and ensure that we get the truth that our families deserve,” said Parker, who belongs to the Tulalip Tribes in Washington.

Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs for the USA Today Network's Sunbelt Region. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.

Submitting testimony

Boarding school survivors can submit their own testimony to the House Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous People through May 26 by emailing hnrcdocs@mail.house.gov.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Congress proposal would expand Native boarding school investigation