The Ministry of Interior has located 53 cemeteries and mass graves
It took Joe Biden to appoint the first Native American as the Secretary of the Interior for the United States government to fulfill the task of bringing justice to the Indians of his country. The first report on boarding schools dedicated to “civilizing” the children of “savages” reveals that more than 400 federal schools were opened for the “assimilation of Indians” between 1819 and 1869 alone, and a thousand more were subsidized.
For Minister of the Interior Deb Haaland it is a personal matter. Their parents were among those children who were transported to boarding schools where they had to have their hair cut, dressed in military-style uniforms, forbidden to speak their language and forced to work. It is known that the Indian customs of them were beaten and some even the red skin. The first part, of what is expected to be a lengthy investigation, documents the existence of at least 53 cemeteries, some without any signage. In other words, simple mass graves in which the bodies of those children between the ages of 8 and 20 were thrown. The survivors were returned to the family in a state unrecognizable to their parents.
The documentation of these abuses and the identification of new graves is part of the deputy’s recommendations to Secretary of the Interior Bryan Newland in the report that appears to be the tip of the iceberg. The Home Secretary has promised to make a long tour in the coming year to all the Indian reserves that remain in the country to ‘heal together’. In fact, this Thursday saw the first meeting to decide whether to establish a truth commission to expose the traumatic past and forcibly bring justice to the descendants of those “civilized” children.
The trail of those human rights violations was camouflaged for 150 years by calling them “orphans,” but Deborah Parker, president of the National Coalition to Heal Native American Boarding Schools, recalled Wednesday that was not the case. “Our children had parents, they had a family, they had a language and a culture,” she said tearfully as she presented the report. The federal government forced Indian families who did not want to send their children to boarding schools to do so by withholding food rations necessary for their livelihood, “even those promised in treaties signed with the Indian nations,” Newland acknowledged in the report. In some cases they were even forcibly taken away, as happened to the children of Indio Geronimo at the end of the war with the Apaches.
Navajos, Cherokees, Seminoles… Bit by bit, they disappeared, “because if you want to end a culture, you first have to keep new generations from knowing,” explains Parker. According to the Secretary of the Interior, “there is not a single Native American in the United States who has not been affected by this policy.” Your job will be to investigate their extent and find a formula to offer reparations to illuminate that dark legacy. Depression, alcoholism, violence, health problems… The consequences have led the Indian tribes to poverty and marginalization for generations. In Alaska, for example, they represent 18% of the population but 40% of those who go through the criminal justice system.
Haaland assured that President Biden is supporting his crusade to bring justice to his people. His initiative will have $7 million available this year, endowed by Congress, to continue the investigation of the mass graves and begin the list of those who passed through these boarding schools, based on the tribes they belonged to.
Source: La Verdad
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