Canada’s indigenous leaders call Biden’s apology for residential schools a “first step”

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press, 26 October 2024.

President Joe Biden, left, with Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community, arrives to speak at the Gila Crossing Community School on the Gila River Indian Community Reservation in Lavigne, Arizona, Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Manuel Balce Seneta

MONTREAL. Canada’s indigenous leaders say U.S. President Joe Biden’s apology for his country’s residential school system is just the first step toward healing generations of damage.

On Friday, Biden apologized for America’s residential school system, which has separated indigenous children from their parents for more than 150 years, calling it “one of the most important things” he has done as president.

The apology comes 16 years after former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada’s boarding school system. It follows an investigation into residential schools by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the country’s first indigenous cabinet secretary, which was prompted by the discovery of 215 suspected unmarked graves on the grounds of a boarding school in Kamloops, British Columbia.

“The federal Indian residential school policy and the pain it caused will always be a shame, a stain on American history,” Biden said during a speech at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. “It’s terribly, terribly wrong. Sin is on our soul.”

Former Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine, who was one of the first Canadians to speak publicly about his abuse at a boarding school, said Canada had a “huge impact” on the US coming to terms with its own history.

“The U.S. government could no longer turn a blind eye to the internment experience in the United States,” he said. “And in the end they decided it was the right thing to do, and of course it is.”

In 2021, Haaland launched an investigation that found at least 973 Native American children had died in the US residential school system, including from disease and abuse. On Friday, Biden acknowledged that the true number was probably “much higher.”

In 1819, the US government instituted a policy of forced assimilation in an attempt to “civilize” Native Americans. For over 150 years, indigenous children were forced to attend schools, many of which were run by churches. Many children were physically, emotionally and sexually abused.

The investigation found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 boarding schools across the country. Haaland, whose grandparents attended the boarding school, spent two years holding listening sessions on and off reservations across the United States to allow school survivors to tell their stories.

When the results were released last summer, Haaland said the federal government should issue a formal apology.

“For decades, this horrific chapter has been hidden from our history books,” Haaland said in Arizona on Friday. “But the work of our administration now ensures that no one will ever forget.”

Fontaine said the United States should now establish its own truth and reconciliation commission, as Canada did in 2008, and should consider compensation for survivors. A bill is currently pending in Congress that would create a “truth and healing commission” to further document the history of residential schools and make recommendations for government action.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said the history of residential schools in the U.S. echoes the experience of First Nations in Canada.

“The impact of these schools has spanned generations,” Woodhouse Nepinak said in an emailed statement. “This recognition is important, but it takes time to heal. I urge President Biden and the incoming president-elect after next month’s election to actively engage with Native American communities and ensure that this apology leads to real action to repair the harm that has been done.”

On Friday, Biden said that the “vast majority” of Americans are still unaware of what he called “one of the most horrific chapters in American history.”

It was the same in Canada before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave survivors a chance to share their experiences, Fontaine said. In 2015, the commission released its final report, which concluded that the residential school system was cultural genocide. A total of 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families to attend Canadian residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996.

“It was a dark chapter unknown to most Canadians, but it became a huge part of Canadian history that opened up to more Canadians than ever before,” Fontaine said. “And I believe that it is quite possible in the United States as well.”

But Eva Jewell, associate professor of sociology at Metropolitan University of Toronto and director of research at the Yellowhead Institute, believes it will take a long time for the United States to reach a “national understanding” of the residential school system.

“The political culture of the United States is very hostile to any equity-oriented education,” she said. “So I think where it’s going to happen, it’s probably going to be in pretty progressive states.” Jewell said the belief in American exceptionalism may explain why the apology took so long. “I think the political culture of the United States has a very unapologetic attitude about its history,” she said.

Stephanie Scott, executive director of Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, said Biden’s apology was positive but “just a first step.”

“There is a long way to go to address the ongoing harm, reparations and ongoing truth-telling to achieve reconciliation,” she said in a statement, adding that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission could serve as a model for other countries.

A 2015 commission report documented how Canada’s residential school system drew inspiration from the United States. In 1879, the lawyer and journalist Nicholas Devine wrote a report on American industrial boarding schools for indigenous children and recommended that Canada establish a similar system.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on October 26, 2024.

– With files from the Associated Press

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