ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – President Joe Biden made what he called a long-overdue apology to Native peoples on Friday for a 150-year-old boarding school policy that separated Native children from their parents and forced them into boarding schools where they were stripped of their cultural heritage and often abused.
“The United States government eventually stopped the program, but the federal government has never, never formally apologized for what happened — until today,” Biden said. “I formally apologize as President United States of America for what we did.”
The president made the apology at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, accompanied by Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, the country’s first Native American Cabinet secretary.
Haaland led the Interior Department’s investigation into boarding school policies that culminated with a report that was released in July.
The report found that 18,000 American Indian, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian children were taken from their parents and sent to schools …