By Madeline Bonner, Monuments Toolkit Research & Publications Program Associate
On December 9, 2024, President Joseph Biden issued a proclamation establishing the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
An Ongoing Fight for Indigenous Peoples and Tribal Nations
John Echohawk, Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), identified President Biden as an ally of Indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations that “have been striving to raise awareness of the grave injustices to [their] children into public consciousness for more than a century” (NARF 2024). Though the U.S. federal government has only recently begun to critically discuss the Federal Indian boarding school system, generations of Indigenous peoples have been fighting for accountability and justice since its inception. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) and the Carlisle Indian School Project are just two examples of Native-led initiatives that have been working to shed light on the impact of the Federal Indian boarding school system.
The Carlisle Indian Boarding School
Carlisle was founded by U.S. military officer Richard Henry Pratt, who is known for his racist philosophy that in order to “save” a Native person, they must be forcibly assimilated into Euro-American culture. As the first off-reservation boarding school, Carlisle became a model for more than 417 subsequently established federally supported Indian boarding schools (Biden 2024).
From 1879 to 1918, the Carlisle Indian Boarding School oversaw the forced assimilation of more than 7,800 American Indian and Alaska Native children from over 140 tribes. At least 187 students died at Carlisle and are buried in the Carlisle Barracks Main Post Cemetery. In 2017, the U.S. Army began responding to requests from Native communities for the repatriation of the remains of those buried at the Carlisle Cemetery. As of December 2024, the remains of 41 children had been disinterred and returned to their families (Biden 2024). On July 14, 2021, the remains of nine children were returned to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Chief Spotted Tail and parents of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe first requested this action on May 23, 1881 (ibid.).
At Carlisle, students were subjected to abusive discipline and forced labor. They were also required to change their physical appearance, surrender personal and/or spiritual items, and accept an assigned English name. Native languages were not allowed to be spoken. The educational agenda at Carlisle included American school subjects as well as training in “industrial skills” for boys and “home skills” for girls (NPS n.d.). The school allowed students to participate in extracurricular activities such as sports and music. Notably, Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, of the Sac and Fox Nation, attended Carlisle and competed in sports. Such extracurricular programs at Federal Indian boarding schools were instituted as additional forms of control and exploitation. In spite of this, students found ways to express agency and make space for community building within these programs.
As proclaimed by President Biden (2024), “the Federal Government’s goal was to assimilate Native children by stripping them of their languages, religions, and cultures.” Federal Indian boarding school policies, such as those enacted at Carlisle, “are directly responsible for and inextricably linked to loss of Tribal language, loss of Tribal cultural resources, and ongoing intergenerational trauma in Native communities today” (NABS 2020).
“The U.S. boarding school experiment…failed to completely erase our heritage, our cultures, and our rights as Indigenous persons. We are still here, but we live with the lasting legacies of cultural genocide” – The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
To learn more about the legacy of the Federal Indian boarding school system from survivors and their descendants, consider the following sources:
The Autry Museum of the American West’s Native American Boarding School Oral/Visual Stories
National Monument Designation
The establishment of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument follows a formal apology issued by President Biden on October 25, 2024. This apology for the trauma and abuse inflicted by the Federal Indian boarding school system is the first to be publicly issued by a sitting U.S. president (Bustillo 2024). It was a recommendation featured in an investigative report, published June 2024, as part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative (BSI).
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland launched the BSI in June 2021 as “the first-ever comprehensive effort by the federal government to recognize the troubled legacy of past federal Indian boarding school policies with the goal of addressing their intergenerational impact and shedding light on past and present trauma in Indigenous communities” (DOI 2024a). The BSI’s investigative reports (Volumes I and II) contain an accurate historical picture of the boarding school era, as best can be ascertained through research and conversations with survivors. Secretary Haaland (2022) identifies the BSI as the first step toward healing. She is the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in the U.S. and a descendant of survivors of the Indian boarding school system.
The site has been a national historic landmark since 1961, and is now a 24.5 acre national monument that will be managed cooperatively by the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Department of the Army. As part of the BSI, Secretary Haaland directed NPS to hold Tribal Consultation sessions to discuss and receive feedback on what NPS interpretation of the Federal Indian boarding school system might look like in the future. In addition, Biden’s proclamation calls for the NPS/U.S. Army management team to conduct further consultations and engage in sustained collaboration with Tribal Nations regarding the “interpretation, preservation, and operation” of the new National Monument (NPS 2024). A well-established and meaningful partnership between Tribal Nations and the management of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument should ensure that interpretive efforts accurately and comprehensively discuss this chapter in American history.
Moving Forward
There is still much work to be done. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is part of an effort working to pass the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act (S.1723/H.R.7227). This act would establish a federal commission with the responsibility of formally investigating the history and long-term effects of Indian boarding schools, providing recommendations for federal action, and promoting healing for Native communities (Congress.gov 2024).
NABS notes that the BSI is an important step toward accountability, but a federal Truth and Healing Commission “is the most comprehensive approach to developing a complete picture of the ongoing impact Indian boarding schools have had on generations of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people” (NABS n.d.). Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 2007, serves as an example of what can be achieved with this level of federal commitment to addressing forced assimilation policies and their lasting impacts in the U.S. As of January 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the bill to the U.S. Senate.
Please consult the following resources for more information on this topic:
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative’s Investigative Report Volume I (May 2022)
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative’s Investigative Report Volume II (July 2024)
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, Dickinson College
Education beyond the Mesas: Hopi Students at Sherman Institute, 1902-1929, by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert
They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima
Learn more about other monuments of reconciliation from the Monuments Toolkit.
References
Baron, Derek. 2024. “Opera and Land: Settler Colonialism and the Geopolitics of Music at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.” Journal of the Society for American Music 18, no. 2 (2024): 128–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196324000075.
Biden, Joseph. 2024. “A Proclamation on the Establishment of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument.” Presidential Proclamation. December 9, 2024. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/12/09/a-proclamation-on-the-establishment-of-the-carlisle-federal-indian-boarding-school-national-monument/
Bustillo, Ximena. 2024. “Biden to apologize for U.S. government’s Native American boarding schools.” National Public Radio. October 24, 2024. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/24/g-s1-29759/biden-apology-native-american-schools
Congress.gov. 2024. “Text – S.1723 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2023.” July 8, 2024. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1723/text.
Equal Justice Initiative. 2024. “President Biden Apologizes to Native Americans for Federal Indian Boarding Schools.” October 25, 2024. https://eji.org/news/president-biden-apologizes-to-native-americans-for-federal-indian-boarding-schools/
Haaland, Deb. 2021. “Deb Haaland: My grandparents were stolen from their families as children. We must learn about this history.” Washington Post. June 11, 2021. https://wapo.st/3BNT4Ca.
—2022. Secretarial Letter. U.S. Department of the Interior. May 11, 2022. https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/inline-files/bsi_secretarial_cover_letter_esb46-007491_signed_508.pdf
National Native American Boarding School (NABS) Healing Coalition. 2020. “Healing Voices Volume I: A Primer on American Indian and Alaska Native Boarding Schools in the U.S.” Newsletter. June 2020. https://boardingschoolhealing.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NABS-Newsletter-2020-7-1-spreads.pdf.
—n.d. “S.1723/H.R. 7227: Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.” https://boardingschoolhealing.org/truthcommission/.
National Park Service (NPS). N.d. “Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School.” U.S. Department of the Interior. Bulletin. https://www.nps.gov/cibs/planyourvisit/upload/Carlisle-Federal-Indian-Boarding-School-National-Monument-Site-Bulletin.pdf
——2024. “Secretary Haaland Applauds President Biden’s Establishment of Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Pennsylvania.” Press Release. December 9, 2024. https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/secretary-haaland-applauds-president-biden-s-establishment-of-carlisle-federal-indian-boarding-school-national-monument-in-pennsylvania.htm
Native American Rights Fund (NARF). 2024. “U.S. Apologizes For Federal Indian Boarding Schools, A Key Moment In Tribal-U.S. Relations.” October 25, 2024. https://narf.org/united-states-apology-boarding-schools/.
Sewell, Stacy. 2013. “Asserting Native American Agency in an Assimilationist Institution.” In The Native American Identity in Sports: Creating and Preserving Culture, edited by Frank
Salamone. Rowan & Littlefied.
U.S. Department of Indian Affairs. 2024. “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative – National Park Service Engagement.” Announcement. https://www.bia.gov/service/tribal-consultations/federal-indian-boarding-school-initiative-national-park-service.
U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). 2024a. “Secretary Haaland Announces Major Milestones for Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.” Press Release. July 30, 2024. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-haaland-announces-major-milestones-federal-indian-boarding-school
—2024b. “Interior Department Leaders Revisit Legacy of Federal Indian Boarding Schools in Pennsylvania.” Press Release. October 2, 2024. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-leaders-revisit-legacy-federal-indian-boarding-schools#:~:text=CARLISLE%2C%20Pa.&text=Over%20four%20decades%2C%20approximately%207%2C800,their%20languages%2C%20religions%20and%20cultures.
Image: American Horse at Carlisle Boarding School, 1882. http://www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/AmericanHorse.htm.