WASHINGTON — Today, December 9, at last White House Tribal Nations Summit of his presidency, President Joe Biden will announce a new monument to be built at Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School. This will further acknowledge the trauma inflicted on thousands of Native children by the federal government through the assimilationist policies of the boarding schools.
The Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument will be located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at the campus of a former flagship facility for reeducating tribal children, according to a White House fact sheet.
Today’s naming of the mounument fulfills another recommendation made in the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume II released this past summer. This action builds on President Biden’s historic Presidential apology at Gila River Indian Community and the leadership of Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to establish and lead research and listening sessions with Tribes and Native communities across the country as part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.
The new national monument will be built 24.5 acres of what is now the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks, one of the nation’s oldest military installations. The monument boundary encompasses the historic buildings and structures that made up the campus of the Carlisle School – including School Road Gateposts that were built by the labor of Native American children and youth at the school.
“The new national monument will tell the story of the oppression endured by thousands of Native children and their families at this site and the harmful legacy of the broader Indian boarding school system that the federal government operated or supported across the country for more than 150 years,” states the fact sheet distributed by the Dept. of the Interior.
Biden is also set to meet with leaders from Indian Country at the White House and unveil a 10-year language revitalization plan designed to address the loss of tribal languages on Monday.
Levi Rickert contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.
