Idaho was once home to six federally-funded Native American boarding schools, including two where more than a dozen children died.
All together, at least 42 children died at the schools in Fort Hall and Fort Lapwai, according to a federal report released last month.
The sobering findings were part of a Department of Interior investigation into Federal Indian Boarding Schools (FIBS) that aimed to recognize their “troubled legacy” and shed light on “past and present trauma in Indigenous communities.”
The first volume of the report was released in May 2022 and included an extensive and first-ever inventory of federally operated schools. The second and final volume, released on July 30, expands on the number and details of the schools and records student deaths, burial sites, participation of religious institutions and organizations, and federal spending on the schools.
The U.S. government found it was cheaper to oppress Native American people via education than war, the first volume found. Read more about the first volume’s findings and about boarding schools in Idaho here.
The report’s Idaho-specific findings also identify nine additional schools that operated during the boarding school era, but were either day schools or were not federally funded.
tai simpson, the founder and organizer of the nonprofit Indigenous Idaho Alliance, said the report just reaffirms what tribal communities already know: that boarding schools were a form of “state-sanctioned violence against Indigenous communities” and that the forceful removal of children from their communities was “an act of genocide.”
Nationwide, at least 973 Indigenous children died while attending boarding schools, according to the report. Investigators also identified 74 burial sites at 65 different schools.
Between 1819 and 1969, there were 417 FIBS across 37 states. During that time period, the U.S. government invested the modern-day equivalent of more than $23.3 billion in the schools.
Deb Haaland, the first Native American leader of the DOI, said in a press release that the federal government deliberately acted to “isolate children from their families, deny them their identities, and steal from them the languages, culture and connections that are foundational to Native people.”
The report also makes recommendations “that aim to support a path to healing the nation.” They include issuing a formal apology; establishing a national memorial; repatriating children’s remains; returning boarding school sites to tribes; and telling the story of FIBS nationally and globally.
In Idaho, there were more than a dozen federally-funded day and boarding schools for Native American children. At two, students died.
Idaho’s six Federal Indian Boarding Schools were spread across the state — this interactive map shows where exactly, and provides more information about each school.
At the Fort Hall Boarding School, which was also called the Lincoln Creek Boarding School, records showed that 15 students died while attending the school, and at least 358 children from 16 different tribes attended the school.
There were another 27 recorded student deaths at the Fort Lapwai Training School, and at least 1,253 children from more than 50 different tribes attended the school.
Of the six boarding schools, only the Nez Perce Boarding School has a burial site, and it is marked. No student deaths are on record at the school.
Idaho has five federally-recognized tribes. According to the federal report, children from those tribes attended boarding schools in Idaho and across the nation, including schools where student deaths were recorded — like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where at least 189 students died.
Related coverage: A Shoshone-Bannock educator reflects on an ancestor who attended Carlisle Indian Industrial school.
In addition to Idaho’s six federal boarding schools, another eight schools for Native Americans operated during the boarding school era (1819 — 1969), but were considered day schools. They include:
- Bannock Creek Day School, Pocatello
- Hamiah Day School, Pocatello
- Kamiah Day School / East Kamiah Union School, Kamiah
- Kootenai Day School, Sandpoint
- Lapwai Day School, Fort Lapwai
- Lincoln Creek Day School, Fort Hall
- Presbyterian Mission Day School, Fort Hall
- Ross Fork Creek Day School, Fort Hall
A ninth school, Good Shepherd Boarding School/Episcopal Mission School, boarded children during that era but was not federally funded.
Take a look at both volumes of the report and related documents here.
Indigenous Idaho Alliance: “Ask us what the solutions are”
The report also includes eight recommendations “that aim to support a path to healing the nation.”
simpson, who prefers her name to be lowercased, said the recommendations could be “a starting point for repair,” but she remained skeptical.
“Very often, we see the report as something that the administration can pat themselves on the back for, but not actually take any additional effort,” she said, adding that “we can’t heal our nation when we still haven’t pulled the knives out of the backs of Indigenous communities, Black communities, brown communities.”
Healing efforts should be led by and focused on impacted communities, then expanded to the rest of the nation, said simpson, who is Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) and Black.
The report’s recommendations for healing include:
- Issuing a formal acknowledgment and apology from the U.S. government regarding its role in adopting and implementing national Federal Indian Boarding School (FIBS) policies.
- Investing in remedies to the present-day impacts of the FIBS system.
- Establishing a national memorial to acknowledge and commemorate the experiences of Indian Tribes, individuals, and families affected by the FIBS system.
- Identifying and repatriating remains of children and funerary objects who never returned from FIBS.
- Returning former FIBS sites to Tribes.
- Telling the story of FIBS to the American people and global community.
- Investing in further research regarding the present-day health and economic impacts of the FIBS system.
- Advancing international relationships in other countries with similar but their own unique histories of boarding schools or other assimilationist policies.
An official apology and returned lands would be a step forward but both are unlikely to occur, she said. And while memorials are great, “money is better” as it can be used for “more meaningful” needs like domestic violence and sexual assault programs, behavioral health services, transitional housing, and addiction and recovery services. With funding, tribes can repair their communities in a way that is “culturally resonant, that rejuvenates our language, and that allows us to steward lands … (and) share these stories in a way that’s healing for us,” simpson said.
Telling the story of Federal Indian Boarding Schools in Idaho classrooms would be “a far reach” in a state “where they’re banning books and trying to augment history in a way that celebrates white supremacy, christianity, and patriarchy,” simpson said.
“We shouldn’t have to fight to be able to tell our own stories,” she continued. “We shouldn’t have to fight to have our books and our stories on the shelves of public libraries and in school libraries.”
Native students should be able to show up in schools “in their most authentic way,” including wearing braids, wearing tribal regalia at graduation, and bringing their culture into the classroom.
Related coverage: A Shoshone-Bannock educator encourages students to wear braids and long hair, share their culture at school
And while further research is great, simpson said it’s time to take the next step: “Instead of asking us what the problem is, ask us what the solutions are.”
Further Reading: Take a look at our 11-part series on the state of Native American education in Idaho today — Still Here | Tribes fight to be seen in Idaho classrooms
