Report Highlights Devastation Caused by Indian Boarding Schools, Efforts To Revitalize Native Languages

For more than 150 years, Indian boarding schools funded by the U.S. government led to the loss of Native traditions and languages, as well as abuse and even death. Those are the findings of the final report on the investigation into the Indian boarding school system by the Department of the Interior, released this week.

The Yuchi Language Immersion School aims to reverse some of that damage.

Dr. Richard Grounds, a linguist and member of the Yuchi Tribe, responds to the Department of the Interior’s report on Indian boarding schools in his native tongue, a language his grandmother refused to teach him out of fear.

“So that part of what we’re trying to do here at the Yuchi Language Immersion School is to reaffirm our language, we affirm our stories, we affirm our traditions,” Grounds said.

Wanda Brees, a Yuchi, recalls her grandfather’s stories from his days at the Euchee Boarding School in Sapulpa. “I couldn't believe at first what he told me, the beatings that he got just for speaking his language,” Brees said.

Children from tribes across Oklahoma and the country were separated from their families and pushed into Indian boarding schools from 1819 into the 1960s. The report acknowledges physical, mental, and emotional abuse over the years, as well as hundreds of deaths.

“They were specifically targeted to stop our original languages, the languages that our elders tell us, the Creator gave to us,” Grounds said.

The report also estimates that the federal government spent about $23 billion by today’s standards to support these schools. The report recommends reinvesting that amount into tribal education programs for language revitalization and land reacquisition.

“That’s what I’ve been saying for years now, the amount of money that was invested in destroying our languages needs now to be put into revitalizing our languages,” Grounds said.

The report from the federal government includes stories from people not only here in Oklahoma but across the country who attended these boarding schools.

You can find those stories along with the full report HERE.