On the outskirts of Phoenix, President Joe Biden tried to make amends for the nation’s 150-year campaign to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children. The outgoing 46th president came to the Gila River Indian Community during his first diplomatic trip to Indian Country and delivered historic remarks about the nation’s dark past.
No sitting U.S. president had ever done so.
“Until today, I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did, I formally apologize,” Biden shouted into the podium microphone staged outside the Gila Crossing Community School in Laveen on Friday. “That’s long overdue.”
Overdue by more than half a century — and even longer — since the federal Indian boarding school era began in 1819 and didn’t end until 1969, a year before Biden held public office for the first time.
“As President, I believe it is important that we do know,” said Biden, “know generations of Native children stolen, taken away to places they didn’t know, with people they never met, who spoke a language they had never heard.”
They endured abuse, family separation, neglect and the eradication of their identities.
At least 18,000 Native children who attended those government-funded schools, often tied to organized religions, were routinely punished — sometimes beaten and even sexually abused — just for speaking their language or growing their hair long.
Many didn’t survive.
The Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative — under the Biden administration — has documented nearly a thousand confirmed deaths at almost 75 gravesites spanning more than 500 boarding schools nationwide.
“Some left for dead in unmarked graves, and for those who did return home, there are wounded in body and spirit,” Biden added. “Trauma and shame passed down through generations.”
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative investigation also found that the U.S. spent $23 billion, when adjusting for inflation, to finance these institutions that sowed grief and trauma all around Indian Country.
But this burden is much more than monetary.
“Lost generations, culture and language, lost trust. It’s horribly, horribly wrong. It’s a sin on our soul,” Biden said. “I’d like to ask with your permission for a moment of silence: Remember those lost and the generations living with that trauma.”
Minutes later, a pair of demonstrators protesting the U.S. role in the Gaza war briefly disrupted his speech, with one of them yelling “free Palestine” and asking, “How can you apologize for a genocide?”
Biden answered back: “There’s a lot of innocent people being killed, and [it] has to stop.”
Despite the interruption, Biden considered the purpose of this trip — with the apology that accompanied it — one of the most consequential acts of his political career.
The White House stated Friday’s visit marked the first official trip to Indian Country by any sitting U.S. president in a decade, and what Biden called an attempt to begin to right a historical wrong resonated with the crowd filled with tribal leaders.
“I think we can say with no exaggeration that President Biden truly is Indian Country’s president,” said Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community, who thanked Biden for his leadership.
He described him as “a person of unparalleled compassion, impeccable character and profound empathy,” believing that Indian Country is much stronger because of his i:bi’dag — an O’odham word meaning heart.
“We all feel that commitment as President Biden stands with us to address the boarding school era,” added Lewis, “and with the President’s words today and his actions before and since we can begin, we can begin the healing.”
That healing starts with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
“For much of this country, boarding schools are places where affluent families send their children for an exclusive education,” she said. “For Indigenous peoples, they served as places of trauma and terror for more than 100 years.”
Born in Winslow, Arizona, she’s from the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico and became the first Native American Cabinet member in U.S. history. The last four years, Haaland has led the very same federal agency responsible for generations of harm.
“But as we stand here together my friends and relatives, we know that the federal government failed,” Haaland exclaimed. “It failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways. It failed to destroy us because we persevered.”
The Gila Crossing Community School, the very same venue where Biden apologized, was one of 12 stops along her “Road to Healing” tour to meet with victims and their families. She also stopped at the Many Farms High School on the Navajo Nation.
This yearlong endeavor sought to record and catalog their experiences.
“For decades, this terrible chapter was hidden from our history books,” Haaland said, “but now our administration’s work will ensure that no one will ever forget.”
She announced from the stage that the Education Department and Department of Health and Human Services will be investing in the preservation of Native languages and is planning to roll out a 10-year national plan, guided by input from tribal leaders and Indigenous language instructors.
Another commitment to redressing this painful past includes the creation an oral collection containing first-person narratives from boarding school survivors in collaboration with the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, National Endowment for the Humanities and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Haaland also mentioned that her department is in the midst of finalizing agreements between the Library of Congress and National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution to explore how they can “share the history and legacy of the federal Indian boarding school system with the world.”
Patty Talahongva is Hopi, attended the Phoenix Indian School and sat on the six-member advisory committee behind the “Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories” permanent exhibit at the Heard Museum. She’s also co-authoring a new book: “Indian School Road: The Stolen Children who Built the West.”
“The average American doesn’t even know about this part of American history,” she said, “so by apologizing, I hope that the president is also inspiring people to learn about the atrocities that happened.”
Having Biden utter these undeniable boarding school truths out in public is “a huge part of this healing process,” but it’s certainly not enough for Talahongva and others.
Native American Rights Fund Executive Director John Echohawk of the Pawnee Nation also pressed upon him to “follow up by effectuating meaningful and appropriate action” during his final months in the Oval Office.
“That’s when the true apology will come,” Talanghova added. “If the U.S. government truly wants to apologize, then Congress will finally live up to and fulfill its trust and treaty obligations. Another step in the right direction: Land back.”
Biden’s unprecedented apology in Arizona comes just 10 days before Election Day, in a swing state where the Native vote is front and center. But the Trump campaign called it “nothing more than a photo op.”
Former Arizona Democratic State Sen. Carlyle Begay, who is Navajo and now identifies as Republican, emphasized that tribes have a role in this election “but not at the political convenience of ensuring that Native American people continue to vote just for Democratic Party” simply because of Biden coming to Arizona.
This demographic makes up 5% of the state’s population and helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the Grand Canyon State since 1996.
“I pictured my grandmother getting her hair cut and just being really emotional,” said Sandra Miller, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation and tribal deputy director with the Arizona Democratic Party. “[Biden] still sees us, and he still wants us to heal even as he’s saying his farewell.”
She’s convinced that his apology is already resonating with voters and may sway their decision to elect former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I think it’s a very important first step. He is willing to do whatever it takes to mend some of the wounds. [Haaland] having his ear on these issues has been critical,” Miller added. “But this initial step of coming here has to be backed up by action, and I believe that we need to get Kamala, otherwise we’re stuck.”
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren agreed.
“Obviously, the card I’d rather prefer is President Kamala Harris, Vice President Walz and making things a little easier,” he said. “But if it’s the other way around, we’ll reassess and give it our best shot.”
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