More than 3,100 Native American children died in boarding schools in the United States, according to the “Washington Post”

At least 3,104 Native American children died in boarding schools in the United States, taken from their families to be forcibly assimilated, according to an investigation by the Washington Post published Sunday December 22; an estimate three times higher than that of the US government.

In these establishments, some of which are religious and which existed from the beginning of the 19th^e century to the 1970s, many children suffered physical, psychological or sexual violence, according to a recent government report which estimated at least 973 the number of students who died there. At the end of October, US President Joe Biden apologized to Native American peoples, calling these atrocities “sin that taints [l’]soul [de la nation américaine] ».

According to the Washington Postwho investigated for a year, 3,104 students lost their lives in these establishments, between 1828 and 1970, in what the daily newspaper describes as “a dark chapter in American history that was ignored and largely concealed for a long time”. The toll would actually be much higher according to historians, adds the newspaper.

“Prison camps”

The Washington Post said to have “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 children's bodies were never returned to their families or to their tribe ».

According to documents consulted by the daily, “the causes of death included infectious diseases, malnutrition and accidents”. Dozens of Native American students died in suspicious circumstances, the article continues, “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”more “prison camps, work camps”told the newspaper Judi Gaiashkibos, director of the Nebraska commission dedicated to Native Americans and whose relatives had been sent there.

Joe Biden's government has implemented a series of measures to support Native American nations and improve relations with the federal state. In the United States, reservations today administered by Native Americans 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.