President Joe Biden on Friday formally apologized to Native Americans for the “sin” of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated Indian children from their parents, calling it “blot on American history” in his first visit to Native Country.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00One of the most horrific chapters in American history, it should be ashamed, a chapter that
00:10most Americans don't know about.
00:12The vast majority don't even know about it.
00:15All told, hundreds and hundreds of federal Indian boarding schools across the country,
00:20tens of thousands of Native children entered the system.
00:24Nearly 1,000 documented Native child deaths, though the real number is likely to be much,
00:31much higher.
00:33Lost generations, culture, and language, lost trust.
00:39It's horribly, horribly wrong.
00:42It's a sin on our soul.
00:43After 150 years, the United States government eventually stopped the program, but the federal
00:52government has never, never formally apologized for what happened until today.
00:59I formally apologize as President of the United States of America for what we did.
01:06I formally apologize.
01:12It's long overdue at the tribal school, at a tribal school in Arizona, a community full
01:17of tradition and culture, and joined by survivors and descendants to do just that, apologize,
01:23apologize, apologize, rewrite the history book correctly.
01:27I have a solemn responsibility to be the first president to formally apologize to the Native
01:33peoples, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Native Alaskans, and federal Indian boarding
01:40schools.
01:41It's long, long, long overdue.
01:45Quite frankly, there's no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.
01:51The federal Indian boarding school policy, the pain it has caused, will always be a significant
01:58mark of shame, a blot on American history.
02:03For too long, this all happened with virtually no public attention.