HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Joe Biden designated a national monument at a former Native American boarding school in Pennsylvania on Monday to honor the resilience of Indigenous tribes whose children were forced to attend the school and hundreds of similar abusive institutions.
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Biden announced creation of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument as he hosted tribal leaders at a White House summit.
Thousands of children passed through the notorious Carlisle Indian Industrial School by the time it closed in 1918, including Olympian Jim Thorpe. They came from dozens of tribes under forced assimilation policies that were meant to erase Native American traditions and “civilize” the children so they would better fit into white society.
It was the first school of its type and became a template for a network of government-backed Native American boarding schools that ultimately expanded to at least 37 states.
“About 7,800 children from more than 140 tribes were sent to Carlyle — stolen from their families, their tribes and their homelands. It was wrong making the Carlisle Indian school a national model,” Biden told the White House summit. “We don’t erase history. We acknowledge it, we learn from it and we remember so we never repeat it again.”
