Minnesota Native community reacts as Biden announces plans to apologize for Indian boarding schools
By Frankie McLister
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A newly dedicated St. Paul mural depicts the Dakota creation story.
The dedication happened the same day President Biden created headlines by promising to make a formal apology for atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples during the era of federal Indian boarding schools.
"Boarding schools happened to a lot of us...A lot of our ancestors," Missy Whiteman, an artist and member of the Arapaho and Kickapoo nations, said.
From about 1880 to the mid-1940s, the idea was to take native children miles from their families to "assimilate" them.
"There was a lot of abuse," Whiteman said. "They weren't allowed to speak their languages. They couldn't have their hair long which is very important to us."
Brenda Child is a professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Minnesota, who has also published a book about the topic.
"In Minnesota, we had primarily one off-reservation government boarding school, and that was in Pipestone," Child said.
Child also added that the Tomah Indian School, in Wisconsin, was an off-reservation federal boarding school. But the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania is where it all began.
"Indian people from Minnesota went to Carlisle," said Child.
More than 100 years after Carlisle closed, there was an afternoon of support for the community affected.
Mr. Biden is slated to deliver the apology in Arizona on Friday.