Political Quotes

“Mr. President, last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior released an investigative report on our country's Indian boarding school system. From 1819 to 1969, more than 400 of these schools operated across what today are 37 States. The Indian boarding school era is one of the darkest periods in American history and one that we as a nation have not properly reckoned with. For nearly two centuries, the U.S. Government took Native American children as young as 6 from their families and sent them to boarding schools, but these schools were not solely for the purpose of teaching the children. They humiliated these children, and they harmed them. Indian children were forced to change their names, to cut their hair, to stop speaking their Native languages. They did military drills three times a week. Every day, they were assigned hours of grueling work that violated child labor laws: They had to raise livestock, sew clothes, work on the railroads. Those who resisted were punished with whippings and solitary confinement. Those who resisted were punished with whippings and solitary confinement. Often, older children were forced to punish the younger ones. The conditions of these schools were awful: three to a bed, dirty water, no working plumbing. Disease and malnourishment were common. Physical and sexual abuse was rampant. We don't know how many children died at these U.S.…”