BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — At least 973 Native American children died in the U.S. government’s abusive boarding school system, according to the results of an investigation released Tuesday by officials who called on the government to apologize for the schools.
The investigation commissioned by Interior Sec. Deb Haaland found marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 U.S. boarding schools that were established to forcibly assimilate Native American children into white society. The findings don’t specify how each child died, but the causes of death included sickness and abuse during a 150-year period that ended in 1969, officials said.
Additional children may have died after becoming sick at school and being sent home, officials said.
The findings follow a series of listening sessions held throughout the U.S. over the past two years in which dozens of former students recounted the harsh and often degrading treatment they endured…