More than 3,100 indigenous children died in boarding schools in the United States

At least 3,104 indigenous children died in boarding schools in the United States, taken from their families to be forcibly assimilated, the report said on Sunday. Washington Postwhose estimate is three times higher than that of the American government.

In these establishments, some of which were religious and which existed from the beginning of the 19th century to the 1970s, many children suffered physical, psychological or sexual violence, according to a recent government report which estimated the number of students at at least 973. having died there.

At the end of October, US President Joe Biden apologized to indigenous peoples, calling these atrocities “a sin that stains our soul”.

According to the Washington Postwhich investigated for a year, 3,104 students lost their lives in these establishments, between 1828 and 1970, in what the daily describes as “a dark chapter in American history that was ignored and largely concealed for a long time “.

And the toll would actually be much greater according to historians, adds the newspaper.

The Washington Post said it had “determined that more than 800 of these students were buried in or near school cemeteries where they attended, highlighting that, as in many cases, the bodies of the children were never released to their family or their tribe.

According to documents consulted by the daily, “the causes of death included infectious diseases, malnutrition and accidents”.

Dozens of Indigenous students died in suspicious circumstances, the article continued, “and in some cases, the documents show indications of abuse or mistreatment that likely led to the children's deaths.”

These boarding schools “were not schools” but “prison camps, work camps,” Judi Gaiashkibos, director of the Nebraska Commission on Native Peoples and whose relatives were sent there, told the newspaper.

Joe Biden's government has implemented a series of measures to support indigenous nations and improve relations with the federal state.

In the United States, reservations today administered by Native people are predominantly poor, with high rates of suicide and overdoses.

In neighboring Canada, where the same practice of residential schools for indigenous young people existed, the country has also opened its eyes in recent years to this dark page of history.