ONEIDA RESERVATION (WTAQ) — Governor Tony Evers has formally acknowledged the state’s role in operating Indian Boarding Schools, and apologized for the mistreatment of indigenous people.
It comes on Indigenous People’s Day, which has been celebrated by some in place of Columbus Day in recent years, and this year’s celebration comes amid new focus on the mistreatment of Native Americans at those boarding schools.
“We honor those who have never returned home,” said Tina Danforth, the former head of the Oneida Nation. “From the boarding schools, from the grocery stores from the nightmare of abduction.”
Danforth spoke at a ceremony Monday morning. Governor Tony Evers was on hand and issued a proclamation apologizing for the state’s role in operating around 10 Indian boarding schools.
“It’s estimated that thousands of Native American kids in Wisconsin were forced to attend one of these schools,” said Evers. “Leaving generations of trauma and a loss of language, culture, and identity.”
There’s been more and more focus on the treatment of Native Americans at those boarding schools, which were operated from the 1860s on into the 1970s. The focus began after the remains of more than 1,300 students were discovered in Canada at residential school sites similar to those in the United States.
Those schools were designed to assimilate indigenous people into western culture. They forbade the use of native languages and dress. According to Evers’ office, investigators condemned conditions in the boarding schools in 1928 as “grossly inadequate,” and, in 1969, as “sterile, impersonal and rigid, with a major focus on discipline and punishment.”
Governor Evers signed an executive order acknowledging and apologizing for the state’s role on Monday.
