Indigenous communities in three states this week are mourning the human remains discovered in their area.
Some have been waiting for confirmation that Native children were buried at the sites of local boarding schools, while other remains were discovered by sheer accident.
In southern Utah on July 11, twelve children’s bodies were found at a burial site at Panguitch Boarding School east of Highway 89 — becoming the only school among at least eight operated in Utah where student deaths and burials at the school have been verified. The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and its five sovereign bands are “devastated” by what was unearthed by Utah State University using ground-penetrating radar.
“Our hearts go out to the families of these children as we are left to consider how best to honor and memorialize their suffering,” said Ona Segundo, chairwoman of Arizona’s Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, in a statement provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.
In Nebraska, archaeologists began digging at the site of the long-shuttered Genoa Indian Industrial School 90 miles west of Omaha, hoping to uncover the location of the school’s cemetery. Though the school closed in 1931 and most of its buildings were demolished, the dig is an attempt to locate children who never came home from the school and whose bodies were never uncovered.
The process is expected to take several days, after months of trial and error to determine the exact location of the graves, The Washington Post reported July 11.
Last summer, dogs trained to find decaying remains signaled to archaeologists that they had found a burial site in a piece of land bordered by railroad tracks, a canal and an agricultural field.
Then in November, ground-penetrating radar was again used and detected an area that was consistent with burials, but nothing could be confirmed until archaeologists broke ground.
Researchers found that 86 children — described in a student’s letter, newspaper clippings and school records — had perished at the school, mostly because of disease. At least one death was caused by an accidental shooting. The researchers have not yet identified 37 of the children. Some of the bodies had been returned to their families, while others were buried at the school in a forgotten location.
In Pennsylvania, officials confirmed on July 9 that the human remains discovered during construction work by a gas crew late last month were Indigenous people.
On June 21, workers and contractors excavating on Short Canal Street in Sharpsburg unearthed human remains four to five feet underground while attempting to install a piece of equipment. Sharpsburg’s police and Allegheny County forensics consulted with anthropologists and archaeologists to confirm the remains belonged to Native Americans.
The anthropologist from the Seneca Iroquois National Museum in upstate New York said the remains are specifically from an Iroquois group, according to Melanie Linn Gutowski, chair of the Sharpsburg Historical Commission.
“Our hearts go out to the families of these children as we are left to consider how best to honor and memorialize their suffering.”
— Ona Segundo, the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians
These discoveries come as Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland continues the federal government’s national investigation into the boarding schools’ treatment of children, including identifying which schools possess cemeteries at their locations and which have confirmed deaths of children within their walls.
Haaland continues her historic Road to Healing Tour, which aims to document the lived experiences of boarding school survivors, their descendants and their tribal communities. It is the first time a federal department has attempted to gather and preserve the legacy of boarding schools by listening to the people most impacted by them.
The first Indigenous cabinet member and member of Laguna Pueblo tribe, Haaland is more than halfway finished her Healing Tour, which most recently had stops in Washington state’s Tulalip Tribe, Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community, and Minnesota’s Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
A grant opportunity to fund these types of investigations was announced July 11 as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities ongoing partnership with the Department of the Interior. A federally recognized tribe or a state that hosted a Healing Tour stop can be eligible for funding for up to $30,000, which can go toward supporting projects related to the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative and the Road to Healing Tour.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is reintroducing the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the U.S. Act, federal legislation that would establish a commission tasked with investigating and documenting the federal government’s policies that initiated and sustained Indian boarding schools. The bill was introduced by Warren alongside Rep. Sharice Davids of the Ho-Chunk Nation and Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus.
The commission intends to develop recommendations for the government in order to acknowledge years of attempted extermination of Indigenous culture, language, spirituality and families. By providing a forum for survivors to speak about their lived experiences, the commission hopes to promote acknowledgement of a brutal history, and find ways to help Indigenous communities heal.
“The U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies stripped children from their families and their cultures — actions that continue to impact Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities today. Our country must do better to acknowledge its legacy and understand the full truth of these policies,” Davids said.
