As members of the Board of the Wabanaki Alliance in our homelands now called Maine we wish to acknowledge the sincere and thoughtful apology from President Joe Biden for the atrocities committed against Indigenous children, families, and communities under the United States Indian Boarding School policy. We also need to stress that this apology is both long overdue and a start of what should be a long path towards reconciliation. This dark chapter of our history is something that nearly every one of our citizens has either experienced directly as a student or has family members who were victims of these schools. These schools were more focused on punishment than education and the isolation, abuse, neglect, and cultural disruption is something tribal nations throughout the United States and Canada have had to heal from for generations. The trauma of stealing children and often killing not their culture but often their innocence and very lives leaves a painful grip on our people that is felt by each and every one of us. The world found out about the truth of these schools fairly recently. We have always known.
Our tribal nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy have worked together for decades on the restoration of the recognition of our inherent tribal sovereignty that has been eroded by state and federal policy that we are working to amend. While we do this hard work we are also healing from the wounds of the boarding school era. In concert with these schools was an often corrupt foster care system in Maine that damaged many of our citizens and families. It is important for Mainers to understand that while we work on policy about our rights and self determination, this legacy haunts us. We find that not enough thought is given to the long-term ramifications of this era. Often times disadvantaged communities are blamed for the dysfunction and negative socioeconomic outcomes they experience at higher rates than the rest of the population. Addiction to alcohol and drugs, sexual and domestic abuse, poverty, mental illness, crime, food insecurity, and not having the skills to be in good relation to family and community are all lasting negative consequences that affect not just the tribal citizens who were victims of these schools but their tribes for generations. Trauma is not something that fades away and it is certainly not something that can be healed with empty words and more broken promises.
Apologies and symbolic acts are never the whole solution to a problem but they are a start. We are thankful that the Biden administration, with the help of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, is peeling back the curtain on this shameful piece of American history. Indigenous people have served in the armed forces at a higher rate than other groups even when we have not had the right to vote because we care deeply about this homeland and feel something more than patriotism, we feel connection. The complicated realities interwoven throughout colonization and living in these lands together mean that we reach out our hands constantly in collaboration and even friendship with the powers that attempted to exterminate our ancestors. We have accomplished a lot of progressive and positive things with the United States government even before there was any sort of space given in places beyond our communities for the great learning that needs to take place around the treatment of our people. The only way to walk forward together is to have the mutual respect that comes from transparency and awareness, even if it is a somber and difficult journey to get there.
We honor the lives of the children murdered in both body and spirit under the terror of federal Indian Boarding Schools. We know that the work we do is as much for them as it is our own children. The United States has taken a first step with this apology from President Biden and we look forward to the meaningful next steps to come. Please support tribal initiatives both federally and at the state level here in Maine that continue to benefit not just our tribal nations but our neighbors, allies, and friends. Our people have faced an attempted genocide here in our sacred homelands and it is not an event that is contained to the 1700s. This was an ongoing and systemic assault that still affects us in large and small ways. We seek truth, accountability, and resources to repair the great damage inflicted by the United States Government. We accept the apology and we expect the next steps to be ones to be made with healing and justice in mind and heart.
