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Boarding Schools

Bureau of Indian Affairs. Federal Indian Boarding Schools Initiative. U.S. Dept of the Interior.

This website provides the letter from Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland defining the scope of the Initiative along with the Investigative Report (2 volumes) and its Appendices, among which are the following:

  • Official List and School Summary Profile
  • School Maps
  • Tribal Consultations
  • Federal Indian Boarding Schools, Capacity, Enrollment and Attendance
  • Deceased Students of Federal Indian Boarding Schools by Tribe
  • Deceased Students of Federal Indian Boarding Schools by Year
  • Religions of Federal Indian Boarding Schools
  • Federal Appropriations 1871-1969
  • List of Indian Treaties
  • List of Other Institutions
  • Tribes of Federal Indian Boarding Schools
  • Department List of Information Resources

Newland, Bryan. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report Volume 1. Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2022.

Newland, Bryan. Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report Volume 2. Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2024.

“In the process of publishing these two volumes, the Department’s staff and contractors reviewed approximately 103 million pages of U.S. Government records. We also participated in listening sessions with hundreds of Indian boarding school survivors at 12 locations across the United States. The reflections and words of some of those individuals are included in this volume. We have also met with government officials and Indigenous leaders in some of our peer nations to understand their process of healing from the legacy of similar assimilationist boarding schools and institutions.” (Volume 2, Letter to Secretary Haaland, p.5).

Krupat, Arnold. Boarding School Voices: Carlisle Indian School Students Speak. University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

cover of book Boarding School Voices “There is no doubt that the schools caused pain and suffering that often lasted generations . . . But the full story . . . is a story not only of victim-subjects but of ingenious agents, a narrative not only of suffering but of creative syntheses and adaptative actions.” Arnold Krupat. From Boarding School Voices.

Krupat, Arnold. Changed Forever : American Indian Boarding-School Literature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2018.

Tardif, Cameron. “Assimilationist Athletics: Indian Boarding Schools, Sports, and the American Empire.” Journal of Sport History 48, no. 1 (2021): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.5406/jsporthistory.48.1.0001.

Emery, Jacqueline, ed. Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2017.

Richie, Chip, Steven R Heape, Dan Agent, Gayle Ross, Karl Tipre, and August Schellenberg. Our Spirits Don’t Speak English : Indian Boarding School. Director’s cut. Dallas, Texas: Rich-Heape Films, 2008.
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Cover of film "Our spirits don't speak English"

Smith, Andrea. “Boarding school abuses and the case for reparations.” In Conquest : Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005.