Members of the California Assembly this week approved a resolution supporting U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s investigation into Indian boarding schools following the grim discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves at such schools in Canada.
Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) introduced HR 60, and the measure was the first proposal endorsed by the newly-formed California Native American Legislative Caucus which Ramos chairs.
The Assembly passed the measure on Thursday.
“Students were sent to these schools to coerce assimilation,” Ramos said. “They were punished for speaking their language and practicing their culture and religious beliefs. They were submitted to poor sanitation, disease, malnutrition and even starvation. Parents were not kept informed about the well-being of their children despite inquiries. Through Secretary Haaland’s investigation we have the opportunity to end the generations-long guessing game about what happened to those who did not return from the boarding schools.”
Native children were allowed to be separated from their families under the 1819 the Indian Civilization Act. The goal was to force assimilation by erasing Indian culture by separating Indigenous children from their parents and sending them to boarding schools.
Ramos added that a prevailing attitude was that of boarding school proponent, Capt. Richard Pratt: “Kill the Indian, and save the man.”
The U.S. government ran 25 boarding schools nationwide, of which three were in California, according to Gold Chains, a website dedicated to uncovering the hidden history of slavery in California.
Those schools were the Greenville School & Agency, founded in 1890; the Perris Indian School, which later became the Sherman Indian School, founded in 1892; and the Fort Bidwell Indian School, founded in 1898, according to the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
However, several more schools, run by other organizations — including religious denominations — have been reported throughout California, with different groups studying the schools offering varying estimates of numbers.
Among those religious schools was St. Turibius Mission School in Kelseyville, run in the early 1900s.
The book “Lake County Schoolhouses,” by Antone Pierucci, Lake County’s former museum coordinator, explains, “From the latter part of the 19th century onward, Native children in Lake County were educated in segregated schools operated by a hodgepodge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and/or religious leaders. The reports sent to the state by the county superintendent indicate that at any one time, only two to three such segregated schools existed: Middle Creek north of Upper Lake, West Lake north of Lakeport, and Big Valley north of Kelseyville. Stories still told within families also suggest that many young children were sent to one of several BIA-operated boarding schools in the state.
Haaland’s investigation will identify boarding school facilities and sites, the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near the school facilities and sites, and the identities and tribal affiliation of children interred at such locations.
Investigators will collect and review historical records including those at the American Indian Records Repository and the National Archives as well as school enrollment records, administrative reports, maps, photographs and other documents.
Haaland’s team will also formally consult with the tribal nations, Alaska Native corporations and Native Hawaiian organizations to determine the nature and scope of the proposed work, cultural concerns, potential dissemination of sensitive information and future protection of burial sites and repatriation of remains in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
A final report will be issued by April 1, 2022.
HR 60 was approved on a bipartisan unanimous voice vote with 71 Democrat and Republican members adding on as co-authors.