President Joe Biden designated the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania as a national monument Monday, highlighting the boarding school’s role in a more than 150-year practice of forcing Native American children into the centers far from their homes, where they were subject to emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
The move underscores the Biden administration’s effort — led by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold that role — to build a legacy on preserving Indigenous lands and history and elevating tribal issues.
“For decades, this terrible chapter was hidden from our history books, but now, our Administration’s work and these partnerships will ensure that no one will ever forget,” Haaland said in a statement during the White House Tribal Nations summit Monday, shortly after the designation was announced by the White House.
“We are here because our ancestors persevered. Their stories — our stories — are everywhere, in the air we breathe and the land we walk on. We tell those stories because Native American history is American history,” Haaland said.
