Minnesota Public Radio posted today “The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Minnesota-based Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition have signed an agreement to collaborate in the search for records of Indian boarding schools.” The article next states an online archive of the records will be started late in 2022. Apparently the Coalition had requested records in 2016 via a FOIA request and Native American Boarding without success. I am sure the number of recent articles on the atrocities related to the schools has spurred the DOI to cooperate.
I will give the DOI a partial break, because Bureau of Indian Affairs records related to the schools (mostly government run, but with some religious connections) are not all in one place, not all are indexed, and records, correspondence, photos, and other material are scattered throughout various record groups at just the locations of the U.S. National Archives. This will not be an easy task. Other records are in state repositories religious archives, and college and university libraries. I repeat, this will not be easy, quick, or fully successful work. I am hopeful that cooperation is truly meant and all the children who attended, who died, and who are “lost” to their families can be documented.
© 2021, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.
