Report: 15 Indian boarding schools operated in Washington, dealing 'loss and suffering' to generations

Kitsap Sun staff
·3 min read
FILE - A copy of a late 19th-century photograph of pupils at an Indigenous boarding school in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
FILE - A copy of a late 19th-century photograph of pupils at an Indigenous boarding school in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fifteen schools in Washington state were among more than 400 supported or operated by the federal government that worked to strip Indigenous children of their culture and heritage while employing them in manual labor and in many cases, subjecting them to corporal punishment, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Department of the Interior.

The findings came following a months-long investigation by the department, which was ordered by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in June 2021 to determine "the loss of human life" and "lasting consequences" of schools operated or supported by the U.S. government, according to the report.

It found that from 1819 to 1969, more than 408 schools operated across the federal Indian boarding school system. The report said that through analyzing Department of Interior records, it was able to develop "an official list of Federal Indian boarding schools for the first time."

The schools in Washington state were as close to Kitsap County as the Puyallup Indian School, located on Squaxin Island, and the S'Kokomish Boarding and Day School in Olympia.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has identified 15 federal boarding school sites in Washington state, where Indigenous children were sent by the federal government in an attempt to assimilate them.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has identified 15 federal boarding school sites in Washington state, where Indigenous children were sent by the federal government in an attempt to assimilate them.

The report describes the schools as deploying "systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies to attempt to assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children through education," and said those methodologies included renaming children with English names, cutting their hair, preventing the use of their native language and prohibiting the practice of their religions and cultural practices.

The report says the schools focused on manual labor and vocation skills — raising livestock, garment-making and brick-making, for example — that left many of the students with skills that were "irrelevant to the industrial U.S. economy, further disrupting Tribal economies."

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In a statement released in response to the report on Wednesday, Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said the schools sponsored by the federal and state governments "have dealt tremendous loss and suffering to the Native and Indigenous people throughout generations," and cited the systematic erasure of culture among the tribes.

The state is ready "to do what we can to acknowledge the trauma and harm these schools caused, and uplift the efforts of those who fight to ensure the many Tribal languages, cultures and knowledge persist and flourish," he said.

A makeshift memorial for the dozens of Indigenous children who died more than a century ago while attending a boarding school that was once located nearby is displayed under a tree at a public park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 1, 2021.
A makeshift memorial for the dozens of Indigenous children who died more than a century ago while attending a boarding school that was once located nearby is displayed under a tree at a public park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 1, 2021.

The 15 schools in Washington state listed in the investigative report are:

  • Chehalis Boarding and Day School, Oakville

  • Colville Mission School, Kettle Falls

  • Cushman Indian School, Tacoma

  • Fort Simcoe Indian Boarding School, White Swan

  • Fort Spokane Boarding School, Davenport

  • Neah Bay Boarding and Day School, Neah Bay

  • Puyallup Indian School, Squaxin Island

  • Quinaielt Boarding and Day School, Taholah

  • S'Kokomish Boarding and Day School, Olympia

  • St. George Indian Residential School, Federal Way

  • St. Joseph's Boarding School, Federal Way

  • Paschal Sherman Indian School, Omak

  • Tonasket Boarding School, Tonasket

  • Tulalip Indian Industrial School, Tulalip Bay

  • Tulalip Mission School, Priest's Point

The report also determined that more than 500 children died at nine Federal Indian boarding school locations across the United States. "As the investigation continues, the Department expects the number of recorded deaths to increase," it said.

A second volume of the report will cover burial sites as well as the federal government’s financial investment in the schools and the impacts of the boarding schools on Indigenous communities, the Interior Department said. It has so far identified at least 53 burial sites at or near boarding schools, not all of which have marked graves.

“Each of those children is a missing family member, a person who was not able to live out their purpose on this Earth because they lost their lives as part of this terrible system,” said Haaland, whose paternal grandparents were sent to boarding school for several years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Indian boarding schools operated in Washington, report shows