Carlisle, Pennsylvania – During most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the United States government and Christian denominations operated Boarding schools Generations of Native American children were isolated from their families. Besides academics and hard work, the schools sought to erase elements of tribal identity, from language and clothing to hairstyles and even their names.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where the remains of 17 students were exhumed and repatriated in recent weeks, served as a model for other schools.
In numbers:
___
An Interior Department audit published in 2024 found that there were 417 federally funded boarding schools for Indigenous children in the United States. Many others were run by religious groups and other organizations.
An “incomplete” number of burial sites, at 65 schools, has been identified by the Interior Ministry across the federal boarding school system.
The number of treaties between the U.S. government and Native American tribes that include the federal boarding school program, reflecting its importance to westward expansion.
The amount authorized by the United States government to operate schools and pursue related policies, in inflation-adjusted dollars, 1871-1969.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School operated from 1879 to 1918.
Children and youth have attended Carlisle for four decades, coming from more than 100 tribes.
Number of students who signed a 1913 petition demanding an inquiry into conditions at Carlisle.
Deaths among students enrolled at Carlisle.
Deaths among students at government-run boarding schools in the United States, according to a Department of the Interior report. Review by The Washington Post Last year, about 3,100 were documented. Researchers say the actual number was much higher.
Indigenous students have been repatriated from Carlisle Barracks Cemetery since exhumations began in 2017, leaving 118 graves with Native American or Alaska Native names. About 20 others contain unidentified indigenous children.
___
Sources: National Alliance for Healing Native American Residential Schools; “The Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Aboriginal History, Memories, and Reclamation”; US Army; “Federal Indian Boarding Schools Initiative Survey Report, Volume II”