Investigation finds at least 973 Native American children died in US government boarding schools | CNN

مهما طال الليل@lemm.ee · 3 months ago

Investigation finds at least 973 Native American children died in US government boarding schools | CNN

grue@lemmy.world · 3 months ago

That’s it? I know the US isn’t exactly the same as Canada, but even if our system wasn’t as bad on a per-capita basis, since we’re a much more populous country I’d have assumed we’d find at least as many as they have (4118 as of 2021, according to the first search result I looked at).

مهما طال الليل@lemm.ee · edit-2 3 months ago

That is an official undercount, as it is only having checked 65 of the 400 schools in existence.

An academic estimates based on population losses and speaking to the families who have lost children, that over 40,000 perished in the system.

This is also only graves found, as many children were lost in transit or got lost fleeing the schools. Here’s David Swallow Jr. (Oglala Lakota) explaining his experience with the schools and running away. He was fortunate enough to know how to get home.